{"id":320,"date":"2012-04-01T01:38:48","date_gmt":"2012-04-01T01:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/landc.wpengine.com\/silhouette\/?p=320"},"modified":"2015-05-02T16:29:38","modified_gmt":"2015-05-02T16:29:38","slug":"austen-vs-rozema-slavery-mansfield-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/austen-vs-rozema-slavery-mansfield-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Austen vs. Rozema: Slavery In Mansfield Park 1999"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mansfield<\/a>

Mansfield Park (1999)
Cast: Frances O’Connor, Jonny Lee Miller,
Director: Patricia Rozema<\/p><\/div>\n

Screen adaptations of a classic often, if not always generate great enthusiasm. Readers and critics evince keen interest in how the written word has been translated into the visual. For, in such adaptation (or \u2018translation\u2019 as some may want to put in), the story-teller\u2019s gaze undergoes a shift; that in turn induces a shift not only in the way the original text is read, but also the way in which the film–the derived text–comes to occupy a certain space in the critical tradition of that classic.<\/p>\n

In 1999, a hundred and eighty-six years after Austen\u2019s novel had first appeared in print, Mansfield Park<\/em> resurfaced in a new avatar. In her motion picture based on Austen\u2019s novel Canadian director, producer, scriptwriter Patricia Rozema ploughed through 19th century English(imperial) history, and Austen\u2019s own life to excavate nuggets on an issue that had received only a subtle treatment in the novel: \u2018slavery\u2019. Rozema\u2019s gaze was conditioned and emboldened by not merely the critical tradition that followed eh precedents laid by Edward Said, but the liberation of thought that has occurred from (the era of) the Empire to (the) Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

In Austen\u2019s text, the subtle allusion to abolition and slavery in the form of a couple odd questions Fanny Price asks her Antigua-returned uncle Sir Bertram is met with \u201cdead silence\u201d. Referring to this, Edward Said had written\u2014<\/p>\n

\u2018In time there would no longer be a dead silence when slavery was spoken of, and the subject became central to a new understanding of what Europe was\u2019<\/em>[1].\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This way Said \u2018points our attention to the conflicts of morality over the slave trade with which Mansfield Park is tacitly saturated\u2019[2].<\/p>\n

However, unlike the novel,\u00a0 slavery is a dominating presence in the film, a presence that resonates throughout the text. By introducing several scenes, Rozema implies that it is through the exploits over a colonized people that Sir Bertram had made his fortune. Referring to this liberty that Rozema takes, and which, in\u00a0 a way, dilates her fidelity to the original text,\u00a0 Ross Wilson writes\u2014<\/p>\n

\u2018The representation of slavery and abolition in film is not only a highly emotive and potentially divisive subject it also provides a means of accessing the past in a manner which is empowering\u2026\u2019 <\/em>[3].<\/em><\/p>\n

In one of the film\u2019s opening scenes, the young Fanny\u2014on her way to Mansfield Park for the first time sees a slave ship in a harbour. \u201cBlack cargo,\u201d says the coachman. This may be seen as a superimposition that\u00a0 equates Fanny Price\u00a0 with a slave: belonging to a lower stratum of the Victorian society without \u2018any situation\u2019 Fanny\u00a0 is taken away from her home to a \u2018foreign\u2019 place where she is to live, at the bottom of a hierarchal structure. As we discover, the absentee Sir Bertram exercises as much control over the consciousness of the inhabitants of Mansfield Park, especially over the Fanny (and the other girls) as the slaves of his plantations in distant Antigua.<\/p>\n

At a figurative level, all these characters not having their right of free self expression signify a state of servitude. Though in the film no slave ship is shown, the same song Fanny had heard from the slave ship is to be heard briefly. This song is called Djongna, the lyrics of\u00a0 which\u00a0 \u2018\u2026tell how a young African has been taken from his home\u2019 [4].<\/p>\n

In the film, Sir Bertram’s slave-trading business and colonial exploitation are shown as a cause of anxiety for the inhabitants of Mansfield.\u00a0 It has a defining effect on the development of the female consciousness\u2014especially of Fanny. Of course, imposing shots like that of repeated observation of slave-ships and her horror at the mention of slaves become for Rozema \u2018not only an opportunity for socio-historical contextualization<\/a> but more profoundly a metaphor of Fanny’s own imprisonment<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

Further allusions to slavery include–the juxtaposition of a map of Antigua with a visibly displeased Sir Thomas (at a juncture when he discovers \u2018questionable behaviour\u2019 by\u00a0 his daughter Maria and Henry Crawford); that emphatically underlines that he has returned unhappy, from his plantation in Antigua.<\/p>\n

Again, in the scene where Fanny of the novel meets \u201cdead silence\u201d, Rozema portrays a discussion. It begins with Sir Thomas arguing that \u201cmulattoes are unable to breed within their own type.\u201d Edmund denies this, which leads Sir Thomas to remark how the \u201cabolitionists are starting to make inroads.\u201d \u201cThat is a good thing, right?\u201d Fanny butts in. She even makes it a point to tell Sir Thomas she had been reading Thomas Clarkson. These were definitely not in the novel. (Interestingly, Austen was known to have read Clarkson).<\/p>\n

While in the novel, Sir Thomas never really speaks of his plantation in Antigua and only lashes out to regret and lament his anger later. Rozema\u2019s Mansfield Park presents a \u201cmuch less remorseful\u201d Sir Thomas: he is one who can unabashedly talk of the slave trade and his slaves, and who assumes the role of a tyrannical plantation owner. One of the most powerful scenes in the film is when Fanny finds Tom Bertram\u2019s drawings– at a time when Tom is sick.<\/p>\n

When she opens the book, Fanny discovers drawings of slaves being beaten, hung, and raped, and even more excruciatingly of Sir Thomas forcing a slave onto him to perform a sexual act. Finding Fanny with these drawings, Sir Thomas tears them out of her hand exclaiming \u201cMy son is mad!\u201d To Rozema this is a focal point of the film. James Berardinelli quotes the director in Darker Side of Jane Austen<\/em>\u2014<\/p>\n

\u201cThat scene was my reason for doing the movie – or at least one of my reasons\u201d . Further, she says, \u201c…to me, Mansfield Park is a story about servitude and slavery. Other people may have a problem with that, but that’s how I read the book and so that’s how I shot the movie”<\/em>[5].<\/p>\n

Mansfield Park<\/em>\u00a0– “I Missed you” (Edmund\/Fanny)<\/strong><\/p>\n