WARNING – in this post I am going
to be all over the shop and I will no doubt contradict myself too.
*flings book across the room*
*thud*
Mansfield Park is one of the few
books that I have read where I wanted with all of my heart for the leading lady
to end up with someone other than who she ended up with.
Yip, Cousin Edmund BUGS THE LIFE
OUT OF ME! I cannot help but see him as weak willed and more than a little dim,
and, well…milksop(ish) . Nope I really don’t like him and every adaptation that
I have seen only backs this up. I want to grab him and shake him for being so
stupid.
And that is why I wanted Fanny to
end up with Henry Crawford.
Picking the bad boy is always
portrayed as being bad – and even when the bad boy is chosen he is often the
best of the bad boys and not as bad as the baddest bad boy (OK are you dizzy
yet?)
Personally
I think that Henry is the better man. There is of course the argument that he
would have not remained faithful to Fanny had they married but I think that he
did love her. But then there is also the argument that Edmund always loved
Fanny and was too stupid blind to see this until it hit him like the
proverbial bolt from the blue…
See, I
told you this post was going to be confusing and all over the place.
But I
think that what I am trying to say is that I did not feel that Edmund was
worthy of Fanny.
What do
you guys think?
Agree?
Disagree?
I think that Edmund is very quick to dismiss Fanny once he's enthralled by Mary, and then he thinks it's all good, and you're given to understand that he likes Fanny better, in the end, because she has better morals. Which is so unromantic.
ReplyDelete