Narrative Structure and Narrated Space in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park

(All quotes refer to; Austen Jane. Mansfield Park, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1980)

Depiction of space plays an important narrative role in Austen’s Mansfield Park (1814).

What could be termed macro space in the text are London, Mansfield Park and surrounds and

Portsmouth. Within a broad perspective there exists a binary relation between the narrated

London and the estate of Mansfield. As the plot progresses the third ‘macro’ space of

Portsmouth is introduced as the climax of the story is attained. This is achieved partly in a

measured emphasis of difference through the spatial description of the Price family home and

its marked contrasts to that of the Bertrams. Mansfield Park is where the majority of narrative

is presented and is in turn the most compartmentalized of the three macro environments. As a

methodology I concentrate on three narrative places within the overall textualized space of

Mansfield Park and then through close reading establish corresponding dominance of themes

within each narrative. These three textual places are; House (Mansfield/Sotherton), Stage

(Theater), and Parsonage (Manse).

The Mansfield Park house functions as the organizer of place: It is the pinnacle of the

hierarchical textual spaces and the seat of Sir Thomas Bertram, the powerful patriarch. Within

the house it is the drawing room which is the central space for administration and

socialization, where each character has a place as reflecting their standing and role in the

group. As a bildungsroman it is the primary character, Fanny Price, which drives the narrative

forward as she formulates her place in the representative society of Mansfield Park, and thus

in the world. The enclosed but “astonishing grandeur” of the main house at Mansfield

provides the spatial relations by which ‘proper’ self may be presented to the group and

developed accordingly. Fanny at 10 years old is lost in the house where “the rooms are too

large for her to move in with ease; whatever she touched she expected to injure and she crept

about in constant terror of something or other” (12). Her ignorance of spatial relations is

projected onto the map of Europe, the composition of which Fanny knows little (15). Her

deficiencies, as her Aunt calls them, are not in regard to reading, writing, or arithmetic but in

the relations between things or the hierarchy each occupies in relation to others.

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Until late in Volume II of Mansfield Park, the signifying system and power relations of the

house are largely beyond the young Fanny. Up to this point this is closely associated with her

coming from the ‘lower’ order of her own working class family the Prices. Her origins are

later re-emphasized in the concluding chapters with her alienated return to the undisciplined

and ill-defined space of the crowded family home in Portsmouth. Until the death of Mr.

Norris and her threatened removal from the main house to the White House Fanny is lost in

the interior of the house and only comfortable and happy when in the park and gardens.

Despite the threat of removal, Fanny comes to remain in the main house based upon the

provision of identity by her aunt, which is to be beside her as an assistant in her “indolence

and ill health” (17). With this identity comes the regulation of behavior in relation to space,

such as access to one of the drawing room sofas; “You should learn to think of other people;

and take my word for it, it is a shocking trick for a young person to be always lolling upon a

sofa.” (64). Sitting upright and engaged in suitable labor is what is achieved when one comes

to “think of other people”. Thus begins Fanny’s education in the social and power relations

which surround her and the behaviors they demand.

This admittance to the hierarchy of the main house and the beginning of her feelings for her

cousin Edmund coincides with Fanny’s first negative experiences with the exterior spaces of

Mansfield Park, in that she looses her pony and contracts sunstroke (65-67). Fanny

subsequently obtains a horse and joins her cousins in more organized activities, developing

her newfound sense and a more refined sensibility; “Fanny, whose rides had never been

extensive, was soon beyond her knowledge, and was very happy in observing all that was new

and admiring all that was pretty.” (72). Following this change in Fanny, the second great

house of the text is encountered in the space of the Elizabethan Sotherton Court, situated

nearby Mansfield and “furnished in the taste of fifty years back” (75). This is a timeless and

enchanted space where the disused chapel is visited amidst a sense of mystery and to Fanny’s

disappointment through ignorance as to function of place (i.e. the family being buried in the

nearby village church). The episode of Fanny, Edmund and Miss Crawford becoming lost in

the woods provides for opportunities of autonomous space and being “at large…without Mr.

Rushworth’s authority and protection” (89). Boundaries are transgressed which up to this

point would not have been thought possible within the more controlled spaces of Mansfield

Park. Upon the return to Mansfield the transgression through the altering of spatial relations

takes on more implicit manifestations in the form of a theater being constructed within the

billiard room and adjoining the room of the father, the absent colonialist Sir Thomas.

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The young people of Mansfield become “bewitched” by the proposal from John Yates to

build a theater and stage a play. The difference between “performance” and “theater” is

central to the project and it is the cautious Maria who states that “For mere amusement among

ourselves…we must be satisfied with less” (111) and instead of a maintained space, rather

settle for a transient performance that holds no permanence as a theater would. But this idea is

defeated and work upon the establishment of the autonomous, ambiguous, fluid and fantastic

space of a theater is begun. Prior to the building of the theater the space was a billiard room

housing, according to the grand disrupter of stability Tom Bertram; “a horrible vile billiard-

table” (112), a game contained well within boundaries and following strict rules as to the

movement of balls across a demarcated space. In this event we can see much of the hereto

established hierarchy of the house being overturned, for the theater is not simply a source of

amusement but a challenge to the control of space. This control cannot be maintained by Lady

Bertram as she is “sunk back into the corner of a sofa, the picture of health, wealth, ease and

tranquility…just falling into a gentle doze” (114), something she spends most of her time

doing. Fanny remains the disciplined observer throughout the entire theater episode, doing the

semi-conscious Lady Bertram’s sewing work for her or looking on and listening; “not

unamused to observe the selfishness which, more or less disguised, seemed to govern them

all, and wondering how it would end” (118).

It ends in the re-establishment of the former order with the return of Sir Thomas Bertram from

the organizing of his plantations in the West Indies into equally disciplined and efficient

spaces. Such is the narrative weight of the arrival of Sir Thomas it is physically marked in the

text itself with the arrival of the reader at Volume II. When the patriarchal presence is restored

the group immediately gathers at the center of spatial relations at Mansfield Park, the drawing

room and arranges themselves physically around him “in the center of the family” (160). But

all is not well and it is only a matter of time before the father encounters “confusion” in the

changes to the space of his “own dear room” beside which he “found himself on the stage of a

theater, and opposed to a ranting young man, who appeared likely to knock him down

backwards” (164). There is no concept of performative or imaginative discourse in Sir

Thomas’ reading of the space within his limited encounter of what he realizes is a stage. It is

instead “theatrical nonsense”, a departure from sense and reality which both seem to be

accordingly determined by Sir Thomas himself. The inquiry and discussion regarding the

theater are conducted in the drawing room, but Sir Thomas concludes all talk with a ruling

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that places control of space, particularly in regard to noise, as central to his considerations:

“That I should be cautious and quick-sighted, and feel many scruples which my children do

not feel, is perfectly natural; and equally so that my values for domestic tranquility, for a

home which shuts out noisy pleasures, should exceed theirs.” (167-68: original italics). Fanny

is not a character guilty of noisy pleasure and she remains the silent, almost invisible observer

during Sir Thomas’ speech; “Fanny, who had edged back her chair behind her aunt’s end of

the sofa, and, screened from notice herself, saw all that was passing before her.” (166). With a

spatial reference to the role provided by Lady Bertram, Fanny assumes a place in the drawing

room which is expected within the power structures around her, and she comes to benefit

from such an attitude almost immediately in the text.

Upon her arrival at Mansfield Park Fanny is granted a living space of her own in the attic;

“near the old nurseries. It will be much the best place for her, so near Miss Lee, and not far

from the girls, and close by the housemaids, who could either of them help to dress her”(7).

She is thus positioned in the spatial hierarchy of the enclosed society of Mansfield Park, not

far from the daughters but close to the servants. Fanny goes on to appropriate her own space

below the attic, made redundant by its earlier abandonment as a school room, a spatial

metaphor suggestive of what is required by fanny if she is to progress out of her cramped

space; learning and compliance. This development of her character occurs in relation to the

parallel narrative of the struggle for control of space in regards to the building of a theater. In

this context, with displays of her moral character and abiding by rules of behavior she is

permitted to extend or colonize the space she desires:

she visited her plants, or wanted one of the books, which she was still glad to keep there, from the deficiency of space and accommodation in her little chamber above: but gradually, as her value for the comforts of it increased, she had added to her possessions, and spent more of her time there; and having nothing to oppose her, had so naturally and so artlessly worked herself into it, that it was now generally admitted to be hers (136)

In contrast to Fanny’s acquisition of space, those allied to the theater project are denied space

by the figure of power in the house, Sir Thomas. Mr. Yates is permanently “sent away” from

Mansfield Park as is Henry Crawford, who is only to return when he abandons his theatrical

ambitions. Edmund spends time in London following the theater episode, a space depicted as

being of low moral merit and described in the text as not being where “respectable people can

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do the most good” (83). Illustrative of the narrative significance of space here is the

temporary cutting off of all contact between the main house and the Parsonage.

The textual significance of the Parsonage is suggested by the presence of the word Manse in

Mansfield Park. As the abode of Fanny after her final marriage to Edmund, the space comes

to eventually represent the achievement of desired hierarchy and balance, as is also found in

the literary motif of marriage as conclusion. Before this however the Parsonage is the most

fluid of the spaces in the text, being occupied first by Rev. Norris and his wife, then the

Grants and the Crawford siblings, and finally Fanny herself and her husband. With the death

of the Rev. Norris being described as the “first event of any importance” (19) in Mansfield

Park, we can chart the course of the Parsonage as narrative space in terms of realignment and

balance between reason and feeling. This is furthermore a major theme in the overall narrative

of the text. Following the death of Rev. Norris and the solitude of Mrs. Norris, the Parsonage

is the scene of desire and music, dinner engagements where love is pursued in a manner never

found in the main house, and deception in the gift of the necklace to Fanny from Henry

Crawford. The vast difference in the nature of the two spaces is expressed in topographical

terms; ”The houses, though scarcely half a mile apart, were not within sight of each other; but,

by walking fifty yards from the hall door, she could look down the park, and command a view

of the Parsonage and all its demesnes.”(60).As a result of the struggle with the affections and

behavior of the Crawford siblings Fanny comes to extend her spatial presence from the attic

and her room below, to the drawing room and eventually to the Parsonage. With the disgrace

of the Crawfords and the death of Dr. Grant the values and morality which she had acquired

under the influence of the Bertrams are established uniformly at Mansfield Park:

On that event they removed to Mansfield; and the Parsonage there, which, under each of its two former owners, Fanny had never been able to approach but with some painful sensation of restraint or alarm, soon grew as dear to her heart, and as thoroughly perfect in her eyes, as everything else within the view and patronage of Mansfield Park had long been. (432)

The entire space has in effect been colonized and in so it is united not only under a single

system of discipline and morality but even visually where it seems the have been moved

spatially closer together and thus allow a view of both simultaneously, something which was

not possible in Volume I of the text. The favored son of Sir and Lady Bertram, Edmond is the

new master of Fanny and she is called daughter by them in her new living space. The

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characters who failed to recognize this authority during the narrative are removed from the

narrative spaces through disgrace, death or being sent away.

There clearly exist imperial resonances in the progression of narrative spaces in Mansfield

Park. Those spaces which could be described as fluid, such as the theater or the Parsonage,

come to be ordered spaces “of domestic tranquility” without “confusion”, “nonsense” or

“noisy pleasures”, as determined by power. In a form of colonization these spaces are

appropriated and filled with the behaviors and postures which are consistent with the

prescribed values of order and harmony. This harmony is between reason and feeling but it is

determined through power relations. The character of Fanny Price embodies the learning and

developing awareness of these values which are expressed spatially throughout the narrative,

and although she herself wields little power her acknowledgment of it results in her

progressing into domesticated harmony.

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