“The well-known and captivating Mr. C.”
Normblog takes a penetrating look at Henry Crawford.
Late on in her discussion of Mansfield Park, Claire Tomalin writes thus of Henry’s running off with Maria Rushworth:
The fitting up of Henry Crawford with a piece of standard fictional delinquency - an offstage seduction, like Willoughby and Wickham before him - suggests rather less commitment to this part of the story on Austen’s part than to the fully narrated chapters in which his charm, kindness and irresponsible flirting are on display.
This may be no more than an exercise by the critic of her right to say where she does and where she doesn’t find the novelist’s treatment of a character consistent or compelling. However, if it is meant by Tomalin to say that Henry Crawford ought to be understood and judged by us shorn of the fictional delinqency with which she says Austen has fitted him up, I think we are, as readers, bound to demur. Henry Crawford’s only existence is the one he has been given by Jane Austen in Mansfield Park. For the purpose of taking a view of him and of his character, as of Fanny Price’s responses to him, there is no other Henry Crawford meaningfully available. There is, in Fanny’s world, no Henry purged of his late delinquency, nor of his intended recreational wooing that could have turned out to be a cruelty to the target of it, herself.
Indeed. No matter how attractive he is, and no matter how much of a wanker Edmund might be, Fanny is much better suited to Edmund.
Also we think that for Mr. C., the chase is the thrill. Maria fell for him easily, so he quickly became bored with her. Fanny doesn’t fall for him easily, and he must work to get her, so he does. Once he meets up with Mrs. Maria Rushworth, she is cold to him, she is married, she is once more a challenge, and he must pursue her. It’s not so much that Henry Crawford is inconstant, we think, as self-absorbed.
July 13th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
For my part,Henry had made a serious mistake and didn’t catch the opportunity.Henry was more a romantic man than Edmond. But he is swanky.This character is a little controversial.What’s more he made the story captivating.
July 13th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
I think there is something to the fact that the indiscretions are committed off-page, though. I have no idea what there is, but I think it’s there.
July 15th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
But I like Edmund! Am I the only one?
July 15th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
“Henry Crawford’s only existence is the one he has been given by Jane Austen in Mansfield Park.”
I agree! It bothers me when people talk about characters as real, living humans who do things on their own. It is only the writer’s prerogative that makes them do this or that. As a writer I think people sometimes look too far into ‘why this character did this or that’ when we should ask ‘what made the author have the character do this or that.’
I do love Edmund though. It makes me sad when people prefer Henry. Maybe I am too moral, but I like the sweet, good, sensitive type.