Fanny's gaze and the construction of feminine space in Mansfield Park.(Fanny Price, Jane Austen )

This article re-evaluates the protagonist of Mansfield Park through the lens of gaze theory, asserting that Fanny Price withstands the gaze of the male characters while imposing her own powerful gaze, which encompasses views, tastes, morality, and emotions. According to this reading, Jane Austen seems to be imparting to Fanny certain principles of the moral philosophy of Adam Smith, who argued that the moral guide for one's actions should be an imagined, potential spectator, not a literal one. While the other female characters submit to the male gaze, Fanny exemplifies agency by employing a moral gaze reinforced by feminine sensibility.

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In 1975, when Laura Mulvey published her groundbreaking study of woman in film--her position as 'a signifier for the male other', as a projection of male fantasies, and, finally, as a 'bearer not maker of meaning' (1)--she gave new shape and direction to the interdisciplinary field of women's studies, motivating scholars in many subject areas to examine and, most interestingly, re-examine the political, cultural, social, and literary achievements of women through the ages. The controlling male gaze, as expounded by Mulvey, was principally incriminated for the objectification of womanhood not only in film but also in other areas where the advancement of women had been impeded or stifled: 'The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly' (p. 19). In the literary field, feminist scholars openly used Mulvey's work and, combining it with Foucault's theories about the empowered status of the spectator, often proved the biased stance of male writers (who are in the privileged position of the gazer) in their representation of female characters. In an effort to delve into female experience unadulterated by male interference, feminist criticism has lately stopped, in the words of Elaine Showalter, 'trying to fit women between the lines of the male tradition'. Instead, it focuses 'on the newly visible world of female culture', which Showalter defines as 'the occupations, interactions, and consciousness of women'. (2) While many feminist critics started from the premiss that the restriction of female experience led to their impotence in the political life of their societies and, as a result, to their general powerlessness to influence society in any productive way, others strove to show that women's relegation to the domestic realm is worth examining not as a sign of restriction but as an opportunity for understanding a unique 'female culture'. In other words, the domestic sphere gave women a power, unrecognizable by male standards, which constituted a femininity independent of male authorization.

The purpose of this paper is to trace and define this differentiating feminine power as it appears in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, a novel which has often in the past been tainted by negative criticisms of the heroine's priggish insistence on rules of conventional morality. In this sense I agree with Sarah R. Morrison, in her article 'Of Woman Borne: Male Experience and Feminine Truth in Jane Austen's Novels', (3) in that Austen's persistence in the 'personal' at the expense of the public is no shortcoming but an affirmation of 'the centrality of women's experience'. 'Her art is feminine in its very assumption that personal relationships define one's being, and a traditional feminine vision of success informs her novels.' Morrison concludes that 'Paradoxically perhaps, the message conveyed is that this alternative vision can hold its own: it does not depend upon its tangential relationship to the world of men for its significance.' Fanny Price may initially seem an unlikely candidate for such a view of feminine success, given her timidity and ineffectuality even in the domestic realm of her uncle's and father's houses. And yet, a detailed analysis will show that Fanny's 'success' is much more significant and groundbreaking than that of Elizabeth Bennet, Emma, or other Austen heroines who assert more control over their households. Fanny is one of few women in Austen who define themselves independently of male expectancy and authority. In this sense my argument differs from Nancy Armstrong's, who, in juxtaposing Austen's subdued writing with the Brontes' more impassioned prose, formulates the generalization that 'Austen's heroines marry as soon as their desire has been correctly aimed and accurately communicated'. (4) My reading also differs from Lionel Trilling's celebrated defence of Austen's heroine against accusations of passivity, weakness, and uninteresting virtue. Trilling concentrates on Fanny's feeble spirit and sense of duty in order to elevate her character in a Christian sense, while criticizing Mary Crawford for being the 'first brilliant example of a distinctively modern type, the person who cultivates the style of sensitivity, virtue, and intelligence'. (5) However, by attributing Fanny's achievements to her Christian ethic, Trilling undermines the feminist force behind her rejection of the 'modern type' of woman, where modern means forfeiting 'the integrity of the self' not only as 'moral agent' (p. 192) but also as woman. Trilling is right to see in Mary the 'terror of secularized spirituality' (p. 202), but seeing Fanny as the exponent of merely its opposite makes her seem backward and in fact boring. Fanny Price's character indeed requires no correcting throughout the novel (to return to Armstrong), but not because of a strict moral code which limits her feelings. From her early childhood she builds a unique feminine space for herself which remains uncontaminated and uninterrupted by male involvement.

Paradoxically, in Mansfield Park the women who have official authority over domestic matters are treated with unrelenting irony. Lady Bertram and Mrs Norris are ridiculed for their indolence and insensitivity respectively. In their extreme ways, both women represent the type of authority that depends on male standards for its definition: Lady Bertram portrays the passive receptacle of patriarchal codes, rendered comatose by the strong will of her husband, and the widowed Mrs Norris, at the other end of the scale, has appropriated these male codes and applied them to both her own and Sir Thomas's households. Mrs Norris behaves like the man of the house, imposing her domineering and oppressive character on the weaker sex, the women of the family. Their hostile treatment by Austen suggests that the author did not believe that official household control necessarily empowered women. On the contrary, what seems to endow women with authority is the potentiality for a purely feminine self-development. Fanny is kept out of the politics of Mansfield Park, yet her discourse is highly political in the sense that it presents a stand for feminine differentiation. Her space is male-free. While not wielding any visible power in the household, she does, however, impose on the reader her gaze, which encompasses views, tastes, morality, and emotions. She powerfully withstands the male gaze of Sir Thomas, Henry Crawford, and even Edmund by consistently avoiding being looked at, a choice that renders her free of male influence. Her gaze, symbolic of her views and emotions, requires no confirmation or justification from the public world or the larger picture of politics, business, or publicity. Its self-sufficiency or domesticity is not a drawback, therefore, but a confirmation of the distinctive qualities of the female gender. In Mansfield Park Fanny's world is much more stable than that of the men, and with this heroine Austen seems to be presenting an alternative version to the male-defined…