Jane Austens <i>Mansfield Park</i> has earned a reputation as a difficult text for its politically-charged negotiations of ethics and unsatisfactory heroine. Since Edward Said presented the novel as an example of British literature that contributed to an expanding imperialist venture (95), scholarly attention has shifted to focus on the extent to which the novel critically engages with macrocosmic power structures and hegemonic discourse. That is, how does Mansfield Parks description of power dynamics at home reflect slave-related issues in the foreign atmosphere? Austens interest in and familial connections to slave-related issues, contemporary cultural awareness of abolitionist sentiment, and textual allusions to the slave trade all contribute to the novels counterpoint between domestic and foreign spaces: the Bertram family is economically dependent on a slave plantation in Antigua. A microcosm of plantation life, Mansfield Park represents the dilemmas of marginalized women who are presented with choices to rebel against or submit to patriarchal authority. In order to preserve her own physical, emotional, and psychological safety, Fanny Price bids for patriarchal favour. While others are punished severely for their rebellion, Fanny is rewarded for her submissive choices and enjoys an elevated social status. However, she inspires no reformation and remains an unsatisfactory heroine. Like the grateful Negro of contemporary plantation tales, Fanny functions to stabilize the status quo through her gratitude and loyalty, reinforcing societys tightly-controlled boundaries of acceptable behaviour. Mansfield Parks revelatory strength is that it exposes the mechanisms by which power is produced and maintained in domestic and imperial spaces.

Jane Austens <i>Mansfield Park</i> has earned a reputation as a difficult text for its politically-charged negotiations of ethics and unsatisfactory heroine. Since Edward Said presented the novel as an example of British literature that contributed to an expanding imperialist venture (95), scholarly attention has shifted to focus on the extent to which the novel critically engages with macrocosmic power structures and hegemonic discourse. That is, how does Mansfield Parks description of power dynamics at home reflect slave-related issues in the foreign atmosphere? Austens interest in and familial connections to slave-related issues, contemporary cultural awareness of abolitionist sentiment, and textual allusions to the slave trade all contribute to the novels counterpoint between domestic and foreign spaces: the Bertram family is economically dependent on a slave plantation in Antigua. A microcosm of plantation life, Mansfield Park represents the dilemmas of marginalized women who are presented with choices to rebel against or submit to patriarchal authority. In order to preserve her own physical, emotional, and psychological safety, Fanny Price bids for patriarchal favour. While others are punished severely for their rebellion, Fanny is rewarded for her submissive choices and enjoys an elevated social status. However, she inspires no reformation and remains an unsatisfactory heroine. Like the grateful Negro of contemporary plantation tales, Fanny functions to stabilize the status quo through her gratitude and loyalty, reinforcing societys tightly-controlled boundaries of acceptable behaviour. Mansfield Parks revelatory strength is that it exposes the mechanisms by which power is produced and maintained in domestic and imperial spaces.

The concept of the Victorian antitheatrical prejudice is both well-established and well-respected. This paper, however, examining the Victorian theatrical novel and the Victorian theater in terms of that prejudice, finds the ready assumption of the prejudice to be problematic at best. A close look at three novels that together span the early to mid-nineteenth century shows that, far from being ubiquitous and unilateral, antitheatricality was in many cases an anomaly; indeed, many of those novelistic elements that have long been assumed to be antitheatrical address different issues altogether. Employing close readings of the novels--Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, Charles Dickens's Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, and Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury's The Half-Sisters--along with an examination of historical documents, and utilizing as well current scholarship in Victorian theater and theatrical novels, I demonstrate that the Victorians were instead keen appreciators of theater, and that the Victorian "antitheatrical novel" was in many cases far more interested in the authenticity of human interplay than in the inauthenticity of staged role-play.

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This thesis considers Katherine Mansfield’s development as a writer in relation to late nineteenth and early twentieth century developments and trends in the visual arts in New Zealand, England and France. Mansfield’s notebooks, letters and stories evidence a definite response to developments in modern art and reveal that she aligned herself more closely with painters than with her literary colleagues; something Francis Carco hints at in his fictional account of her in Les Innocents (1916): he describes Mansfield as a predatory and exploitative woman with a detached manner, who “used him just the way a painter uses a model, studying character and movements” (cited in Mortelier 150). There exists in Mansfield’s stories evidence of the influence of the Impressionist and, to a lesser degree, the Post-Impressionist painters. While this influence has been noted by a selection of critics or rather her work has been described as impressionistic, it has been neither explored nor substantiated from an art historical perspective. My methodology has entailed identifying the defining characteristics of Mansfield’s stories that are also found in Impressionism, in as much as two different aesthetic forms can be compared. I then trace the exhibition history and contemporaneous criticism of modern French art in London and Paris alongside Mansfield’s trajectory in adulthood to ascertain the degree of exposure she had to Impressionism. In addition to that which she encountered in Europe, much consideration has been given to the artistic milieu of New Zealand prior to and following her schooling in London. I have sought to identify which of the modern artists and styles Mansfield most closely identified with, and to determine how precisely and extensively she applied the Impressionists’ painterly techniques and stylistic effects to her own prose. Broadly speaking, Mansfield’s preferred subjects may be grouped under three titles: Domestic Interiors, Urban Landscapes and Rural Landscapes – these were also the Impressionists’ favoured subjects. These categories, then, form the basis of my investigations.1 This thesis also explores the degree to which Mansfield’s colonial upbringing influenced, inspired and determined the themes and issues she chose to address, from the various forms of expression that were available to her to inherit and modify. My research reveals how both the cultural climate and the unique light and landscape of her own country made her susceptible to the ideas of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, even before she reached the more art-oriented cities of London and Paris. Mansfield’s status as a foreigner in Europe allowed her greater freedom to experiment and greater licence to borrow from other cultural forms and traditions. Though strains of Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism and 1 The consequence of choosing to structure my material around Mansfield’s three dominant subjects has resulted in some degree of repetition within this manuscript. This also means, however, that the individual chapters are strong enough to stand alone and thus this doctoral thesis should prove a valuable reservoir for future research. 6 Expressionism are all evident in Mansfield’s modernist fiction, it is the impressionistic quality of her work – evident in the fleeting and evocative sketches of the everyday – that is the overriding feature. Her colonial heritage was not only a significant factor in this development, but to a degree, the enabling condition – allowing her to reconcile the lessons of Europe within a New Zealand literary context resulting in a unique brand of Colonial Impressionism. NOTE ON THE TEXT Mansfield’s inconsistent and idiosyncratic spelling and punctuation have been retained within quotes in this thesis. In her letters she often dispensed with apostrophes and rarely used commas, instead preferring the dash. When citing, I have chosen not to follow these particular oddities with [sic] as these would be too numerous and would disrupt the flow of the text. I have instead followed the conventions of Mansfield’s editors.

This thesis contextualises Austen’s novel within the issues of political economy contemporary to its publication, especially those associated with an emerging credit economy. It argues that the problem of determining the value of character is a central one and the source of much of the novel’s irony: the novel sets the narrator’s model of value against the models through which the various other characters understand value. Through language that represents character as the currency and as a commodity in a credit economy, Mansfield Park engages with the problems of value raised by an economy in flux. Austen uses this slipperiness of language to represent social interactions as a series of intricate economic transactions, revealing the irony of social exchanges and the expectations they engender, both within and without the context of courtship. / Graduate

Thesis (D. Min.)--Harding University Graduate School of Religion, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 231-247).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Ashland Theological Seminary, 1994. / Abstract. Includes critiques of the paper written by Gale A. Barnett and James Simpson. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-120).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Harding University Graduate School of Religion, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 231-247).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Harding University Graduate School of Religion, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 231-247).