Mansfiled Park

Mansfield Park is Jane Austen's third novel after Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice. It was written between 1812 and 1814.

Mansfield Park is considered one of Austen's most controversial and possibly subsequently, least popular novels. Early critics praised the novel's "wholesome morality" but contemporary readers may find Fanny's timid demeanor and harsh scrutiny in the name of propriety difficult to sympathize with and may reject the novel's themes that Fanny is a better person for her underprivileged childhood. Contemporary readers often agree with Jane Austen's own mother's opinion of Fanny as insipid, as well as priggish and unlikeable.

Still other critics interpret Fanny as complex and perceptive, yet with with the propensity for wistfulness which manifests in intolerance for sin.

Another important theme running through the novel, or lack there of actually, is the fact that the Park relies on the profits derived from slave labor in Antigua. Austen, an abolitionist, does not specifically mention, but alludes to this fact. The implication that in English society slavery was acceptable, if not spoken about, is a harsh criticism of the middle and upper classes for a willful ignorance of the crimes against humanity occurring in the West.

(Derived from Wikipedia Article)