To Act or Not to Act: Theatricality in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park

Abstract

Mansfield Park can be read as a theatrical performance of its own, with each Bertram member playing the role asked of her/him in a traditional patriarchal society, and by inserting a theatrical episode, Lovers’ Vows, into the narrative trajectory of Mansfield Park, Jane Austen makes a dual comment on the essential theatricality of the story she is trying to tell. Austen has the patriarchal roles inverted in Lovers’ Vows, so that a more coherent understanding can be obtained from a juxtaposition of the switched roles. Fanny, who plays her role of the “poor relative” of the Bertrams to perfection, is unable to grasp the fact that she is actually confined to such a theatrical role; Mary, in contrast, as an outsider of the household, is able to observe and realize the theatrical performances of the Bertrams. In the reenactment of Lovers’ Vows, on the other hand, Fanny assumes the role as a detached bystander of the dramatic fiasco happening around her. Mary, meanwhile, must play a role counter to her actual love interest, and this blurring of boundaries poses a threat to her, placed on the threshold between performativity and reality. Lovers’ Vows is also used by Austen as a device to comment on the reception of fiction on the readers’ part. While Edmund and Fanny are relatively “ideal” readers, capable of differentiating the real world from the fictional one, Maria does not have such a sense of division, which ends up estranging her from the realities of life and bringing about tragic results. Austen therefore uses the play-within-a-play to allow the reader to think about the relationship between theatricality and fiction, and how while the former can be perceived through the use of the latter, the latter can only be used to its fullest extent when the former and reality are clearly distinguished.