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fantasyfan · 09-02-2012, 05:22 AM

I foundChapter 9 (especially) and 10 quite interesting. Chapter 9 has the visit to Sotherton. In the first part The Bertrams, Fanny, and the Crawfords have a tour of the mansion. The Chapel sequence interested me insofar as Mary Crawford uses the opportunity to make a frontal attack on the Church (not knowing that Edmund is to be ordained).

It is an attack that probably seems reasonable enough to a modern reader. She sympathises with the servants who are evidently required to attend church services on a Sunday.

' "It is a pity," cried Fanny, "that the custom should have been discontinued. It was a valuable part of former times. There is something in a chapel and chaplain so much in character with a great house, with one's ideas of what such a household should be! A whole family assembling regularly for the purpose of prayer is fine!"

"Very fine indeed," said Miss Crawford, laughing. "It must do the heads of the family a great deal of good to force all the poor housemaids and footmen to leave business and pleasure, and say their prayers here twice a day, while they are inventing excuses themselves for staying away." '

I taught for decades in a small private Protestant school where, for many years, pupils were required to go to two church services each Sunday (when I happened to be the teacher on duty, I had to go too!) In later times the practice was modified and made voluntary, but I have vivid memories of the annoyance of pupils having to get up and wear special uniforms for the Sunday services. So it hits home to me that it must have been much more annoying for the adults in the lower rungs of a fairly rigid class system to have these values imposed fon them.

I think this is one of the problems of MP. The characters who are meant to be representative of false values are really very likable.

The other sequence in ch 9 is the Wilderness episode, Here, Mr Crawford wanders in a moral as well as literal wilderness with Maria. I think the "iron gate" they circumvent has a symbolic value too. Mr Rushworth has the right to open it and goes to fetch the key, but Maria and Crawford go around by a different way. I cannot help but suspect thare is implied sexual imagery in all of these features.

09-02-2012, 05:22 AM	#29
fantasyfan Wizard Posts: 1,368 Karma: 26886344 Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Ireland Device: Kindle Oasis 3, 4G, iPad Air 2, iPhone IE	I foundChapter 9 (especially) and 10 quite interesting. Chapter 9 has the visit to Sotherton. In the first part The Bertrams, Fanny, and the Crawfords have a tour of the mansion. The Chapel sequence interested me insofar as Mary Crawford uses the opportunity to make a frontal attack on the Church (not knowing that Edmund is to be ordained). It is an attack that probably seems reasonable enough to a modern reader. She sympathises with the servants who are evidently required to attend church services on a Sunday. ' "It is a pity," cried Fanny, "that the custom should have been discontinued. It was a valuable part of former times. There is something in a chapel and chaplain so much in character with a great house, with one's ideas of what such a household should be! A whole family assembling regularly for the purpose of prayer is fine!" "Very fine indeed," said Miss Crawford, laughing. "It must do the heads of the family a great deal of good to force all the poor housemaids and footmen to leave business and pleasure, and say their prayers here twice a day, while they are inventing excuses themselves for staying away." ' I taught for decades in a small private Protestant school where, for many years, pupils were required to go to two church services each Sunday (when I happened to be the teacher on duty, I had to go too!) In later times the practice was modified and made voluntary, but I have vivid memories of the annoyance of pupils having to get up and wear special uniforms for the Sunday services. So it hits home to me that it must have been much more annoying for the adults in the lower rungs of a fairly rigid class system to have these values imposed fon them. I think this is one of the problems of MP. The characters who are meant to be representative of false values are really very likable. The other sequence in ch 9 is the Wilderness episode, Here, Mr Crawford wanders in a moral as well as literal wilderness with Maria. I think the "iron gate" they circumvent has a symbolic value too. Mr Rushworth has the right to open it and goes to fetch the key, but Maria and Crawford go around by a different way. I cannot help but suspect thare is implied sexual imagery in all of these features.