The Dependency of Mansfield Park on Antigua and Fanny Price

The theme of the colony did not seem very important on a surface-level reading of the novel. However, upon a closer reading, one can say that the colony is an integral part, producing manifold meanings into the novel as discussed below.

According to Edward Said, Sir Thomas “understands for the first time what has been missing in the education of his children, and he understands it in the terms paradoxically provided for him by unnamed outside forces, so to speak, the wealth of Antigua and the imported example of Fanny Price”. He then asks the reader to “note here how the curious alteration of outside and inside…outside becoming the inside by use…”

It seems that Austen has referred to the colony in passing, and casually, just to denote the wealth of Sir Thomas. However, this is not the case, for alternate references could have created the impression of wealth in the residents of Mansfield Park’s life. Austen chose to mention Antigua for a reason, and that was to highlight how Sir Thomas was using his power and taking advantage from slavery to run Mansfield Park. That is, without the existence of the sugar plantations in Antigua, life as it is in Mansfield Park would not have been possible. It is at the expense of these slaves, that Mansfield Park and its residents are up and running; some even using the wealth created extravagantly.

Similarly, the presence of Fanny, the “imported example” is much likened to the slaves of Antigua, who have no will of their own, and live life as dictated by Sir Thomas. Fanny lives a similar life in the first half of the novel, and upon Sir Thomas’s return, when Fanny questions him about the slave trade, “there was such a dead silence!” Perhaps because Sir Thomas did not feel he was accountable to anyone about his doings anywhere; be it Antigua, or Fanny’s presence and treatment in Mansfield Park.

As the novel progresses, one sees that Mansfield Park cannot function without Fanny Price, who has become the “spiritual mistress of Mansfield Park” (Said). Suddenly, Fanny becomes the most sought out person; “it was impossible for her not to be more looked at, more thought of, and attended to, than she had ever been before”. Even Edmund tells Fanny about how “pretty” and admirable Fanny has become in the eyes of Sir Thomas all of a sudden ever since his return, and Sir Thomas’s tremendously improved treatment of Fanny is obvious.

One sees here the immediate relationship between Mansfield Park and its dependence on Antigua, and Mansfield Park and its dependence on Fanny Price. As Said states, “what was wanting within was in fact supplied by the wealth derived from a West Indian Plantation and a poor provincial relative, both brought into Mansfield Park and set to work”. Upon comparison it can be stated that it is the outside which allows the inside to flourish and flow; that at the expense of the outside, does the inside flourish. It seems that Sir Thomas realizes and accepts the importance of Fanny’s presence, and how she holds Mansfield Park together, the same way he knows that it is Antigua which keeps Mansfield park running.