#mansfiedpark

“A young woman, pretty, lively, with a harp as elegant as herself; and both placed near a window, cut down to the ground, and opening on a little lawn, surrounded by shrubs in the rich foliage of summer, was enough to catch any man’s heart.”

- Volume I Chapter 7 of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

It was in these lines of Mansfield Park that we get a first glimpse at Edmund Bertram “falling in love” with Mary Crawford.

Besides the fact that I am extremely biased because I want Edmund to be with the main character in this novel, Fanny Price, I don’t really think that I can qualify his attachment as love, and even if it is love, I believe it is doomed to fail.

I think what he feels for Mary Crawford is simply attraction and infatuation. She is a beautiful and lively girl who suddenly came into his life, who happens to know how to play an elegant instrument, such as the harp, well. Edmund’s strange love of nature, which he happens to share with Fanny, was no doubt triggered when he saw Mary playing, framed by the window. 

This infatuation has blinded Edmund to the fact that Mary is not a good match for him. She is very opinionated about certain things, such as distance and time,and the navy, while he doesn’t share the same sentiments. She also would never respect his future profession as a clergyman.