Mansfield Park Volume 3 Chapters 4-5

Fanny Price remains unknowable to the people around her. Edmund tries to get Fanny to talk about her feelings, Mary and Fanny have a heart to heart and we learn that Mary’s friends have all wound up in bad marriages. For the first time ever, Fanny reveals what she saw happen between Henry and Maria. And then, the Crawfords are no more. Topics discussed include being “taken in” to a bad marriage, the truth about the necklace, and Bare Minimum Twitter.

Patron Study Questions come from Linnea. Topics discussed include the way Janet Fraser is used to warn Fanny about the possibility of a bad marriage.

Becca's Study Questions: Topics discussed include Edmund’s treatment of Fanny’s choice to reject Henry, the moments of friendship vs. manipulation between Mary and Fanny, Mary’s love of ALL the Bertrams, and what’s next for Fanny at Mansfield. 

Funniest Quote: “Miss Crawford made us laugh by her plans of encouragement for her brother. She meant to urge him to persevere in the hope of being loved in time, and of having his addresses most kindly received at the end of about ten years’ happy marriage.”

Questions moving forward: Who’s going to London? Is Mary ever coming back?

Who wins the chapters? Fanny!

Glossary of Terms and Phrases:

Exigeant: French for demanding, strict

Glossary of People, Places, and Things: Fiddler on the Roof, Sleepover

Next Episode: Mansfield Park Volume III Chapter 6

Our show art was created by Torrence Browne, and our audio is produced by Graham Cook. For bios and transcripts, check out our website at podandprejudice.com. Pod and Prejudice is transcribed by speechdocs.com. To support the show, check out our Patreon! Check out our merch at https://podandprejudice.dashery.com.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Hey everyone!

[SPEAKER_02]: Before we begin today, we'd like to thank our newest patrons, Eva and Amanda.

[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the team.

[SPEAKER_02]: As always, if you want to be awesome like even Amanda and get access to bonus content like our notes, our discord community and the opportunities to submit your own study questions, check out our Patreon at patreon.com slash pod and prejudice.

[SPEAKER_02]: And now,

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll then, until next time, stay proper.

[SPEAKER_02]: And, um, um, um, one of these days, I'm going to think of this in, I know.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was just thinking that, um, like, it's not hard.

[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, stay proper and, um,

[SPEAKER_01]: you used to do improv.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know.

[SPEAKER_02]: Can you imagine?

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is Becca.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is Molly.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are here to talk about Jane Austen.

[SPEAKER_02]: We are here specifically to talk about non-sfield Park.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listeners, if you're new here, I Becca have read many Jane Austen novels over the course of my lifetime.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm Molly and reading all of her works for the first time through this podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to hear Molly read through Pride and Pregidas, since in sensibility, Emma or persuasion for the first time, you can listen to seasons one, two, three, and four of this podcast respectively, but that is not what we're doing here today.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, today we are talking about Mansfield Park, volume three, chapters four and five, or if your book is not broken up into volumes, that's chapter 35 and 36.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is it, is indeed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Wahoo.

[SPEAKER_01]: Wahoo.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean these chapters are really just like quite the pair of chapters.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, they are.

[SPEAKER_01]: Makes for an interesting discussion to be had about all the different ways we're going to try to pressure Fanny Price into marrying Henry Crawford.

[SPEAKER_02]: I really feel like the feminism and Mansfield Park theme song that we coined last chapter or last set of chapters.

[SPEAKER_02]: Graham, can you clip it and play it again here?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that would be great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Feminism in Mansfield Park It's a beautiful time to discuss the patriarchy When you live with your conservative uncle And some pieces should do it's trying to nab you Feminism in Mansfield Park

[SPEAKER_02]: with classism.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah because this set of chapters was so frustrating like every single thing out of these men's mouths and out of these women's mouths I find that Mary want a little bit more interesting a little bit more nuanced the the Edmund one makes me want to breathe fire.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes and the Mary will get into the Mary and I'll remember how I feel about it but yeah

[SPEAKER_02]: But should we tell them where we left off?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Edmund returns to Mansfield Park after Henry and Sir Thomas have made all efforts to try to get Fanny to Mary Henry.

[SPEAKER_01]: Edmund thinks it's great that Henry wants to marry Fanny, but understands that Fanny needs more convincing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then witnesses Henry read a passage of Henry the eighth, which gets Fanny all hot and bothered.

[SPEAKER_01]: And things there may be hope for the match yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, anything else I should throw in there is that a pretty solid summary of what happened.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's pretty much it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: So shall we get into these chapters?

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, we should.

[SPEAKER_02]: We should.

[SPEAKER_02]: If we must.

[SPEAKER_02]: We must.

[SPEAKER_02]: So chapter four or chapter 35.

[SPEAKER_02]: Edmund has decided that he is not going to bring up the proposal again unless Fanny brings it up, but he's pretty easily persuaded away from that conviction, like all of his convictions, when Sir Thomas asks him to talk to her about it, because the Crawford's departure date is so soon, and Edmund is like, I do kind of want to know what Fanny feels about him.

[SPEAKER_02]: And also Sir Thomas is like,

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he's hoping that Henry Crawford is going to be the model of Constancy while he's away, quote, and fancy the best means of affecting it would be by not trying him too long.

[SPEAKER_02]: So basically he can be constant.

[SPEAKER_02]: for a time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think the idea is that if Henry sees the correct pair of boobs walk by, he will forget about Fannie, which is inconsistent with the Henry's stated feeling that he has an undying love for Fannie.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, and Sir Thomas is like, let's lock this in if we can.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, let's not test whether that's actually true or not.

[SPEAKER_02]: So another reason why Edmund is easily persuaded to talk to Fannie about this is because he is not used to Fannie shutting him out.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's used to hurt, telling him everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: He thinks that he's used to hurt, telling him everything.

[SPEAKER_02]: Such a good point back up.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, she comes to me for counsel on every qualm that she has.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know every thought in her head, except the one that is occupying by far the most space in her head, which is her crush on me.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Edmund really does fancy himself a man who, uh, how do I put this delicately?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think she gets women.

[SPEAKER_01]: He does.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not true.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of sad.

[SPEAKER_02]: The thing is that like throughout his life aside from the times where he willfully misunderstand her, he has understood Fanny pretty well.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he does have a better sense of her than pretty much anybody except her own brother William.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's just also an indictment of how Fanny is unknowable to the people around her.

[SPEAKER_02]: Unknowable to the people around me is like a fun it could be a fun t-shirt.

[SPEAKER_02]: It could.

[SPEAKER_02]: I could see I could see Fanny price unknowable to the people around her.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: but he thinks that even if she doesn't want advice, she must want someone to talk to, it's burdening her soul.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I pulled this quote because it's the start of Edmund being annoying in this chapter.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: Fanny estranged from him, silent and reserved was an unnatural state of things, a state which he must break through and which he could easily learn to think she was wanting him to break through.

[SPEAKER_02]: because he knows what's best for her, and all of these men know what's best for her, and they want, she's putting up these walls that she just is begging for me to break through.

[SPEAKER_01]: And way.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, agreed.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will also say that like we've had some people say, like, they're not wrong, that this is economically economics of dating in Jane Austen.

[SPEAKER_01]: Best for Fanny.

[SPEAKER_01]: Totally.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that Jane Austen knows that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think we know that, however, this book is screaming at us that this is the wrong choice for fans.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it is wrong to force a woman into a marriage.

[SPEAKER_01]: She does not want to be in.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, and now I'm recalling some more nuance from the next chapter about women entering into marriages and then the ending up not being great for them.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really, we have to like, how do I put this?

[SPEAKER_01]: I keep saying that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But how do I put this delicately?

[SPEAKER_01]: We are going to slog through this Edmund chapter that we can marvel at this interaction between Fanny and Mary, which is far more interesting than her repeated interactions with men, where they continue to try to get her to Mary, a guy she does not want to Mary.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, exactly.

[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_02]: So he, Edmund, goes to Walk with Fanny and he takes her arm like their best buddies and he's like, hey, we haven't had a walk together in a while and she doesn't say anything.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, typically when we go on a walk, you say something and you talk about stuff.

[SPEAKER_02]: Tell me what's on your mind.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then he says, you know, I know what's going on.

[SPEAKER_02]: Why have I heard about it from everybody except for you?

[SPEAKER_02]: which it sounds like he really cares.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think he does care if we're being fair to Edmund TM.

[SPEAKER_01]: Take a shot.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that he does care about Fanny.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just think he's obtuse and...

[SPEAKER_01]: Belinda by his socioeconomic situation and her socioeconomic situation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, in a way that makes him only see the the dollar symbols and or I guess the pound symbols in his eyes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and the like understanding like what a good economic situation it would be for Fanny and the prices to be with Henry.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think he

[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, for me, in this moment what struck me more was that like he seemed hurt that she hadn't told him herself a little again Yeah, I think he's curious as well totally for his own selfish reasons.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah She's like, okay, you've heard about it from everyone else.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's nothing more for me to say and he's like I don't want to know the facts I want to know how you're feeling

[SPEAKER_02]: He thought maybe it would be a relief for her to talk about it, but he won't process if she doesn't want to.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she's like, we think too differently for me to find relief in talking to you.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, I don't think we think differently.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yes, do I think it would be an advantageous match?

[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, if you could love him.

[SPEAKER_02]: But since you cannot, I think you were right in refusing him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Kind of conversation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the conversation fan is like, thank God.

[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome, what a relief.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he is like, you could have come to me sooner and felt this relief much sooner.

[SPEAKER_02]: Why would you think I was against you?

[SPEAKER_02]: How could I meet Moah, be men who understand women?

[SPEAKER_01]: I know ladies.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know the lady.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know the women.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know the ladies.

[SPEAKER_02]: How could I be an advocate for marriage without love, especially where you were concerned?

[SPEAKER_02]: And he says that nothing could justify her accepting him when she did not love him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Again, end of conversation.

[SPEAKER_01]: And of end of conversation, great job, Edmund feminist ally.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go.

[SPEAKER_01]: Alas.

[SPEAKER_02]: He says everything you've done so far has been correct.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the matter does not end here.

[SPEAKER_02]: The way he says this, you have to read the exact quote because Ed just kills me.

[SPEAKER_02]: So far, no, I'm not going to do it like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm late.

[SPEAKER_02]: So far, your conduct has been faultless, and they were quite mistaken who wished you to do otherwise.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the matter does not end here.

[SPEAKER_02]: Crawford's is no common attachment.

[SPEAKER_02]: He perseveres with the hope of creating that regard, which had not been created before.

[SPEAKER_02]: This, we know, must be a work of time, but with an affectionate smile.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let him succeed at last, Fanny.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let him succeed at last.

[SPEAKER_02]: You have proved yourself upright and disinterested.

[SPEAKER_02]: Prove yourself grateful and tender-hearted, and then you will be the perfect model of a woman which I have always believed you born for.

[SPEAKER_02]: Ding ding ding, first of all, we have another grateful.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've talked enough about the way in which Fanny is meant to approach all of this shit with so much gratitude.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that being the conditions of her situation at Man's Field Park.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the words let him succeed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just I don't know why those words just really get into my brain.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let him succeed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, you have behaved so well.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've been so good up until now, but he's gonna keep coming and now is the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've been good, you've proven yourself.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let him succeed.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a game to, in the way he's describing it.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's like she's playing at it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not that he doesn't believe that she really feels this way, but that she's playing her cards right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think what he's saying is like, it's time to just switch your feelings.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, which like,

[SPEAKER_01]: She can't.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's just gone on about how you should refuse a man if you don't love him.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's saying, no, it's time to love him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: which makes me wonder like, well, first of all, he should know of all people that you can't help who you love.

[SPEAKER_01]: He fell in love with Mary Crawford, which he thinks is a smart match for him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But they are constantly fighting about their morals and shit and he seems to be completely able to erase it from his brain every time it happens.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's such a good point.

[SPEAKER_02]: I guess from external perspective, their situation seems more similar

[SPEAKER_01]: Edmund Bertram is not known for his self-awareness.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, his discernment of you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Fanny responds to this by being like, no, no, no, no.

[SPEAKER_02]: I will never love him.

[SPEAKER_02]: He will never succeed with me.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Edmund is like, whoa, that's putting her foot down.

[SPEAKER_02]: Harsh, mayonnaise, way, harsh tie.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Fanny's like, okay, okay, I think I will never love him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Basically, he's like, never is he never and she's like, okay, I think I never will love him.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Edmund's like, well, I hope for better.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know that the man who hopes to make you love him will have an uphill battle against all your early attachments and habits.

[SPEAKER_02]: For example, he knows that she doesn't want to leave Mansfield.

[SPEAKER_02]: He knows that Fanny is a creature of happiness the thing that keeps coming up in this chapter.

[SPEAKER_02]: He says, I wish he had known you as well as I do Fanny.

[SPEAKER_02]: Between us, I think we should have won you.

[SPEAKER_02]: devastating.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's actually like he's so close to getting the point because I really hate him in this chapter.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so like he basically says like you like a guy who understands you and can be patient with you and give you what you need.

[SPEAKER_01]: If Henry Crawford had acted like me, he would have made you love him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, yeah, though our conduct has made your cousin love you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, props to Fanny for a poker face, honestly.

[SPEAKER_02]: But once again, and I said this in the last episode, and I'll say it again, how good is her poker face versus how dumb is Edmund?

[SPEAKER_02]: So really fucking good question.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's like we need a poll on our Instagram after this episode comes out.

[SPEAKER_02]: So Edmund thinks that Henry rushed in to proposing and that time will prove that his affections are real and then Fanny will love him because he cannot possibly suppose that she does not wish to love him.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Fanny is like, we are so different that we wouldn't be happy even if I could love him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, even if I loved him, I wouldn't want to be with him, which is saying.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're too opposite in personality.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, okay, you do have things in common though, like, for example, your taste.

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you remember the Shakespeare?

[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, you like the same book, and she's like, we lack basic moral values.

[SPEAKER_01]: You both like this play.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he says that opposites attract and that actually he thinks it's good for you to lack basic moral values and admin and Vinnie disagree about whether Henry lacks basic moral values right things Henry is kind of rash and fine and a little bit naughty and obnoxious but like fundamentally a good person and a good man.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: She thinks he's a bad person.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Edmund thinks that they'll balance each other out.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he thinks that Henry will be tamed by Fanny's nature and that Fanny will come out of her shell.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Henry's nature, which is like reasonable.

[SPEAKER_01]: We all know an introvert extravert couple.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: They can also have flaws as couples.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what Fanny's saying is, no, no, no.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe in things in the world and this man does not.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then she tells him why.

[SPEAKER_02]: For the first time in this book, she cares up for it.

[SPEAKER_02]: She hears up for it.

[SPEAKER_02]: She says, listen, it's not just his temper.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not just to the cause personality.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is his character.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's because I saw him behaving badly during the play with Mariah who was engaged.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Edmund is like, let's not judge anybody by that time of our lives that we all behaved badly.

[SPEAKER_02]: We, including mostly me, he said everyone except you behaved badly during that time.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Fanny's like, no, no, no, no, like Mr. Rushworth was very jealous.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that I saw more than you did during that time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, he misinterpreted what you saw.

[SPEAKER_02]: He says,

[SPEAKER_02]: I agree that it was improper, and I was surprised that Mariah did it or behaved that way, but, quote, if she could undertake the part, we must not be surprised at the rest.

[SPEAKER_02]: So not only is he shutting Fannie down, he's also blaming Mariah,

[SPEAKER_01]: for Henry's Condon.

[SPEAKER_02]: For Henry's Condon.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's basically like, well, Mariah brought that one on herself.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she was the one.

[SPEAKER_02]: She participated.

[SPEAKER_02]: She was the one pushing herself on him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that pissed me off.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Fanny's like, okay, but before the play, Julia thought that Henry was paying attention to her and Edmund's like, no, no, no.

[SPEAKER_02]: That never happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's like my two sisters delusional flirtatious slutty girls.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, essentially.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he says that maybe they were showing improper intentions to Mr. Crawford and Mr. Crawford was then led on to dot dot dot.

[SPEAKER_01]: as if they were asking for it, which they were like, yes, they were flirting, but that doesn't excuse the fact that he was flirting with them.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's two people in a flirtation equation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you can't just blame the women and then move on unless you're Edmund Bertrand.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, it really, that was very frustrating to me and he says, listen, his intentions were never to follow through with them, and Edmund, that is the whole point, but you're missing it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So close to grasping that firm point, the point is just going right over, right over his head.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, man.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, yes, the intentions were never to follow through.

[SPEAKER_02]: His heart was always for Fanny, which he thinks means that Henry has escaped unscathed from his uncle's influence, because he's chosen a nice young girl like Fanny instead of one of his bloody sisters.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.

[SPEAKER_02]: Fanny says that she doesn't think that Henry thinks as he should on quote serious subjects and Edmund says actually it's more accurate to say that he doesn't think at all on serious subjects and that my friend is because of the way that he was raised.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is all, by the way, he has been thinking about Mary Crawford this whole time.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is somewhat like Edmund trying to get Fannie to think it's a good idea for him to be with Mary or be in the play.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of like he's he's trying to pull Fannie into doing exactly what he did.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let him succeed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like there is something gross about it from like a feminism perspective, but at the same time it's just Edmund once again doing what he does, the justifying on the back end.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_02]: Edmund says that Henry's feelings are what they ought to be, and that when he's with Fanny, she'll make him everything that he ought to be.

[SPEAKER_02]: She'll fix him.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Fanny's like, that is too much pressure, and I don't want it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Edmund's like, OK, OK, I won't try to convince you, but I know that you eventually will be convinced by Henry.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then he says, as you know, I have a particular interest in Henry Crawford's success.

[SPEAKER_02]: So now we're bringing it to Mary.

[SPEAKER_02]: We sure are.

[SPEAKER_02]: Fanny doesn't say anything to this because of course it hurts her physically.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it does.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he says that Mary really loves Fanny and he loved to hear how Mary was speaking of Fanny when he was hanging out with her.

[SPEAKER_02]: She spoke very highly of her.

[SPEAKER_02]: He said he wasn't going to bring up the whole ordeal, but Mary immediately brought it up when he got there, which made Mrs. Grant laugh and Fanny's like, oh my god, was everyone talking

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, but by the way, Mary's mad at you.

[SPEAKER_02]: And just by the bite, by the bite, she loves you, but she's really pissed.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, think about how you would feel if someone turned down William, the invocation of William to guilt fanny over and over again about this such as mother fucker.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry to the people who don't like when I swear.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know what?

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll get another one star review for the cussing.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's fine.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: At this point, Edmund pulls her arm a little closer into him, which poorf any by the way, like all this physical contact and she's just like having to be normal about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she's also having to hide the fact that she's in to him because she's like no one can suspect that I will never love Henry Crawford because of my undying cousin crush.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the cousin crush is right here and he's

[SPEAKER_02]: He says that she shouldn't worry about Mary's anger because her heart is made for love and kindness, not resentment.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she really wants Fannie to marry Henry.

[SPEAKER_02]: She always refers to her as Fannie, which is like the informal best friend way to refer to her.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Fanny's like, what did Mrs. Grant say about all of this?

[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, well, she agrees.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone has surprised that you turned him down.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they basically need you to prove that you're not insane.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Fanny tries to turn away from him at this.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, no, come back.

[SPEAKER_02]: and pennies like I would have thought that any woman would be on my side essentially saying like have they never considered that they might not return a gentleman's affection like has that not ever occurred yet either of them like do they not know what it would what it would feel like to not love a man.

[SPEAKER_02]: And also, it would have been extreme vanity on her part, on Fanny's part, to assume that his intentions to her recording, because she has been taught her whole life that she isn't worthy of a man like him, because she's so lowly and has been granted this position in society as a charity, essentially.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it has been drilled into her by her uncle at this point, the fact that she already knew, which is she would never have a man of this stature show interest in her ever again.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: So all her life, she thought she never would.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so to have received his attentions, which she knows he's constantly giving attention to women.

[SPEAKER_02]: So why should she assume she's any different?

[SPEAKER_02]: And then to like think that he's actually flirting with her, like she would have been embarrassed.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: She and Mary Crawford must think about women about the nature of women very differently.

[SPEAKER_02]: If they believe that a woman could return a man's affection so easily.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that just means that Fanny has higher standards for what?

[SPEAKER_01]: She's saying that women are so easy that we can flip a switch and just fall in love with a guy who falls in love with us.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and she's saying that Mary and Mrs. Grant believe that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Edmund believes that because he's like, yeah, you do a good thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, basically she's like, I thought women would know you can't just do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: But apparently they're not girls girls.

[SPEAKER_01]: So not Mary Crawford is not a girl.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we've known this.

[SPEAKER_02]: We've known this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Edmund says that Fanny has confirmed what he already knew to be true.

[SPEAKER_02]: That she has a creature of habit, novelty has no hold over her.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's not like, oh, shiny new man, toy.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's something that is going to have to take time and repetitive actions, proving himself over and over again, and eventually, she'll be used to him and we'll fall in up with him, which is not what Fanny was saying, but you know, whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says that Ms. Crawford joked that Henry will have his address as most kindly received at the end of about ten years of marriage Which is funny to read, but not funny to Fanny not funny in all the Fanny, but actually is kind of a funny joke Oh, no, it's Crawford's part.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's hilarious.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, but it also means that she's expecting Fanny to marry without love and that in ten years she'll love him.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like Do you love me?

[SPEAKER_02]: Do I what?

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you love, why do I love him?

[SPEAKER_02]: Poor 25 years, I've washed his clothes.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if that's not love, what is?

[SPEAKER_02]: From Fiddler?

[SPEAKER_02]: No.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, yeah, I just don't have Fiddler memorized.

[SPEAKER_01]: I listen, I have at this point consumed a film called Fiddler on the roof.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's an excellent musical.

[SPEAKER_01]: It took a while, but yeah, it's very much that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, so yeah, they got married young as a match that was not their choice.

[SPEAKER_02]: And after 25 years, they realized they do love each other.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it's not like the best thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, and then decides to mention a subject that he knows will be agreeable to Fanny, which is that the Crawford's are leaving on Monday.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he says that he had almost been persuaded to stay at

[SPEAKER_02]: And he would have stayed away.

[SPEAKER_02]: Had he heard about what was happening at Mansfield, I'm not sure what he means by that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But because he didn't hear from them, he came back because he was like, I wonder what's going on.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think he's saying if I knew Mary was still here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[SPEAKER_01]: But now he's grateful that he came back and she was still here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, because now he, they've reconciled.

[SPEAKER_02]: And at this point, Fanny is like, what about the Miss Owens?

[SPEAKER_02]: Did you like them?

[SPEAKER_02]: And he says, I do, but I'm too spoiled.

[SPEAKER_02]: When it comes to a women's society, you and Mary are too good.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I can't possibly, I couldn't possibly enjoy the company of any other woman.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're not like other girls.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that is the end of that chapter.

[SPEAKER_01]: which brings us to chapter five.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank God we made it through the Edmund portion of this.

[SPEAKER_01]: We did it, you guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listeners, I'm proud of you too.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so sorry you had to hear that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And, and reports all of this back to Sir Thomas.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, oh God, we're still in Edmund.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so sorry, it's not fun yet.

[SPEAKER_02]: He recommends that they both stop talking to Fanny about it because she'll come around with time and Sir Thomas is like, okay, but what if she comes around to late and he's already moved on?

[SPEAKER_02]: But, fine.

[SPEAKER_02]: He agrees to leave it alone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he's got his like yentang's ID.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, all up in arms, but he's like, okay, I accept what my son is saying.

[SPEAKER_01]: He knows Fanny very well.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fanny, meanwhile, lives in fear of seeing this Crawford.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because she won, she's mad at her.

[SPEAKER_02]: But two, she's reconciled with Edmund.

[SPEAKER_02]: So she's both angry and happy and both of those things bring Fanny pain.

[SPEAKER_02]: When she does come, Fanny is at breakfast with Lady Bertram and she's like, okay, great.

[SPEAKER_02]: We'll just do like pleasant trees around the table.

[SPEAKER_02]: But of course, as soon as she comes in, Mary is like, I must speak with you alone.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Fanny being very obliging immediately gets up and leads her out of the room.

[SPEAKER_01]: This to me is the most relatable shit in the world when you have to have like a serious conversation with someone and you just feel that dread creep through you when they come and they're like, can I actually talk to you about something?

[SPEAKER_02]: And you're like, oh, I was like, I don't want to talk to you about that.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's visceral.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like you just feel it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like having to have a serious conversation with somebody, paid it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: They get into the hall and Mary starts to scold Fanny, but Fanny is like, we gotta go upstairs and be alone.

[SPEAKER_02]: So they go up to the east room.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this causes Mary to get very distracted very quickly.

[SPEAKER_02]: Mary has like a bit of aneurysm verse here.

[SPEAKER_01]: she's like, oh my God, it's that room where we did that scene that time.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, oh my God, remember when Edmund was acting like he was going to marry me?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we rehearsed the scene.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember reading that chapter?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a weird chapter.

[SPEAKER_02]: I thought it was so gay at the time, but it was pretty gay, and I think that's part of what Fanny is.

[SPEAKER_02]: What Mary is recalling?

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we can live in this world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I choose to.

[SPEAKER_02]: She says that if she could only remember one week of her life, it would be that week.

[SPEAKER_02]: because it was such a perfect happy week, especially when an Edmund's sturdy spirit bent and he finally agreed to do the play.

[SPEAKER_01]: He will love it when a sturdy spirit bent.

[SPEAKER_01]: She just loves getting her way with him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she really does like getting him to be a little bit naughty.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and also it's so funny because for honey, this was a nightmare week.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: Mary wishes that Sir Thomas had never come home.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not never come home.

[SPEAKER_02]: Had not come home at the exact time that he did.

[SPEAKER_02]: But she says, Fanny, I could never talk ill of him now.

[SPEAKER_02]: I love all of you so much now.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is actually a piece that I think is pretty interesting to read.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're Mary describes the way she feels about the Bertrams.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yet, Fanny, do not imagine I would now speak disrespectfully of Sir Thomas, though I certainly did hate him for many a week.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I do him justice now.

[SPEAKER_02]: He is just what the head of a family should be.

[SPEAKER_02]: Nay, in sober sadness, I believe I now love you all.

[SPEAKER_02]: And having said so with the degree of tenderness and consciousness which Fanny had never seen in her before, and now thought only to becoming, she turned away for a moment to recover herself.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just think that's notable because she loves Edmund, but she's saying it even Sir Thomas at this moment, she loves him too.

[SPEAKER_01]: She loves them all.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she is overcome with her feelings about it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's new from her.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's soft.

[SPEAKER_02]: it is and we don't get to see that side of for that often.

[SPEAKER_02]: We do not and we're about to see that go right back in.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, she says, listen, I totally have been intended to tell you up here, but I lost myself in the room and now I just don't have the heart for it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so she gives Fannie this big hug and is like, I just don't want this to be the last time I see you and I'm really sad thinking that it might be and then Fannie starts crying and it's like as if they're the best

[SPEAKER_02]: more than anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in this moment, she's showing this like profusion that's making Ms Crawford more emotional.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they're both just like holding each other and crying.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's messy shit because like, yeah, there's some of this that's like a little put on because they are rivals.

[SPEAKER_01]: They are and funny repeatedly like,

[SPEAKER_01]: is like, oh, like, I don't want to write to her, but this, this is part of the reason I like don't 100% like write off Mary's relationship with Fanny because like you have these snippets where you're like girl friendships complicated.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: They hate each other, but also like,

[SPEAKER_01]: Mary doesn't know that Fanny loves Edmund, so like, no, but also like Fanny is Mary's little pet Mary's kind of insulted that Fanny has rejected her brother, but like there are these weird feelings pent up in there.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, in this moment she says, I know we will be sisters were born to be connected.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like she feels like she feels something here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: She's like we will be sisters.

[SPEAKER_02]: And while that means that she wants Fanny to marry her brother, it's also because she wants Fanny as her sister.

[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, so it is complicated.

[SPEAKER_02]: She, at this point, says that she hates to be leaving because she won't be with anyone as Amyables Fanny and panties like aren't you going to your like best friend.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like, don't you aren't you going to an actual friend's house?

[SPEAKER_02]: And Mary says Mrs. Fraser is her good friend, but she can only think of the friends.

[SPEAKER_02]: She's leaving behind.

[SPEAKER_02]: You all have more heart than the world at large.

[SPEAKER_02]: She says she says she says she feels like she can trust and can invite in them all, which is something she doesn't get with most people.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love this passage.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's really central to the book.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we could talk about it now, or we can talk about it when we get to the city questions.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever you want, stick pin in this for now, come back to it.

[SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[SPEAKER_02]: She says that after Mrs. Frazier, she's going to see her sister, Mrs. Frazier sister, lady, store no way.

[SPEAKER_02]: who was actually her closer friend, but who she hasn't cared for the past three years.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's interesting.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I guess, and she got married, we'll get, we'll get to Mrs. Stornoway later.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yes, I mean, that does happen, sometimes.

[SPEAKER_02]: You don't like someone's fiancee, you might not like them as much.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you might not see them as much.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: After a moment of silence, Mary goes back to talking about the moment Edmund found her in Fanny rehearsing in the room.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this is Fanny's personal hell.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, remember that horny moment you witnessed between me and your cousin.

[SPEAKER_02]: So Fanny doesn't say anything.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that point Mary is like, you're in quite a days or you're thinking about my brother.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she says, listen, I wish you could come to London and see how beloved Henry is there and all the drama that's going to be stirred up by you saying no to him like so many girls are going to be jealous of you.

[SPEAKER_02]: He had people lining up.

[SPEAKER_01]: She says in particular, Mrs. Frazier is going to be upset because her husband, Mr. Frazier has a daughter from a first marriage.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this is Mrs. Frazier's step daughter, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, who wanted to marry Henry?

[SPEAKER_02]: Margaret Frazier, who now Mary is like she's not going to stop asking you about you.

[SPEAKER_02]: She's going to want to know about your eyes, your teeth, your hair, your clothes.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she wishes that Margaret were already married because the Frazier's Janet Mrs. Frazier are quote as unhappy as most married people.

[SPEAKER_01]: which reminded me that Mary doesn't believe in marriage.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mary believes in Mary comes from a very broken home.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's really apparent here.

[SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't have a good model of what a happy marriage could be.

[SPEAKER_02]: She does not.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: She says that it was a good match for Janet at the time.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're talking now about the phraseers, not Margaret anymore, that Janet had to accept because he was rich and seemingly a good gentleman, but it turns out he was ill-tempered and exigent, which is the Fred Chord for demanding.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that it's pronounced exigent, but that is how I'm going to say it.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it's a French word for demanding.

[SPEAKER_02]: So he's not a great guy and now her friend Janet is unhappy and she says that she has a spirit of irritation, which is ill bread.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, is it ill bread to be irritated at your terrible husband?

[SPEAKER_01]: That is what Mary saying, which is one of those Mary, what the fuck are you saying moments, but that is also I think probably like.

[SPEAKER_01]: if you're someone who complains all the time prenaturally and you're in a situation that causes you to complain all the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't be very pleasant to be around totally.

[SPEAKER_02]: All of this feels like a really big warning.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't think that she's trying to make a warning to Fanny about marrying her brother.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think she's trying to warn her that there are worse situations out there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is where we kind of go into the part where I'm less empathetic to marry because you see her bringing up these really bad marriages and the sort of throughline of it is look at these, these women are obsessed with the fact that you scored Henry.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's who they wanted and look who they got instead.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's what she's saying.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you're so right.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, yeah, when we get to the other sister, that's what she's saying.

[SPEAKER_02]: For Janet, it's her daughter or her stepdaughter that wanted Henry.

[SPEAKER_02]: She also says that she thinks of man's field as having good examples of conjugal Felicity, which I think is hilarious, and

[SPEAKER_02]: because we've got Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram who like never talk to each other and Mr. Grant and Mrs. Grant, Mr. Grant famously like constantly yelling at Mrs. Grant about the Fescent or whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that I think the Bertrams have the worst marriage in Jane Austen.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a bad marriage.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because it was a love match because Lady Bertrand was hot and kind of beneath his status.

[SPEAKER_01]: She won the like lottery in terms of matches, which is why she's like, we girlies, Annie, we get our men, we get our bag.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that that's why

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I do think that there's some affection between the Bertrams, however, it has manifested in her becoming like borderline catatonic and bored by everything except her pug and him being sort of tirelessly trying to hold the family together, neither one of them parenting any other children and him going to deal with his human rights abuses abroad constantly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that like it's a weird pick for favorite marriage, but it does have the markings of like slightly less content, just marriage than others.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as far as the grants go, we know that they fight with each other, but what she's saying is like, yeah, they might fight with each other, but he actually does steam her.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, for sure.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's just that she doesn't have any other good examples.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're both marriages that are so much better than the

[SPEAKER_02]: And she says that her friend Janet was taken in by Mr. Fraser, but he, she wasn't hasty.

[SPEAKER_02]: She considered his proposal for three days.

[SPEAKER_02]: She asked advice for everyone.

[SPEAKER_02]: She asked Mary's aunt who was in favor.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone was pro Mr. Fraser.

[SPEAKER_02]: They just all got taken in by him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Meanwhile, Flora, who is Janet's sister.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jilted a nice young man for Lord Stornaway who has less sense than Mr. Rushworth and his less attractive and has a dishonorable character.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, like, Stornaway is the worst.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, just like Mr. Rushworth, but uglier and not an ounce nice.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: But Flora, when she first came out, was actually into Henry.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that is kind of what you were saying.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, what she wanted versus what she got.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she says, she wasn't special in loving Henry.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone loves Henry.

[SPEAKER_02]: I have a long list of people that love Henry, but only one person on Henry's list.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's you, girlfriend.

[SPEAKER_02]: She says, how could you not have known that he was interested in you?

[SPEAKER_02]: She brings up the ball and she brings up the necklace.

[SPEAKER_01]: She sure does.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Fanny immediately clocks what is happening here.

[SPEAKER_01]: You want to you want to lay it out for our listeners?

[SPEAKER_02]: My understanding is that Fanny had bought the necklace was a gift from Mary and it just happened to be a gift from Henry to Mary that Mary was re-gifting and she's like, wait, he knew you were giving it to me and Mary is like, he gave it to me to give to you, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like it was all his idea.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'd never even considered giving you that, but I was very happy to do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what you

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, and she didn't know yet that he was in love with her, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Nope, she was like, whoa, I'm starting to see him pay attention to me in a way, don't enjoy.

[SPEAKER_02]: But did Mary, Mary didn't know.

[SPEAKER_02]: Mary didn't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: She didn't know that he was in love.

[SPEAKER_01]: She knew he was courting her.

[SPEAKER_02]: She knew that he was flirting for the bit at that point.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: So the necklace was all his idea.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not great.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you can see sort of like this like beautiful moment at the beginning like disintegrating into all these like weird manipulative things that Mary is doing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: It really takes the reader through a lot of whiplash

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Fanny's like, if I had suspected that the necklace had come from him, I would never have taken it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And as to his attentions, she says that she noticed them, but she also noticed when he gave attention to other members of her family.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it didn't mean anything then, so why would it mean anything for me?

[SPEAKER_02]: And Mary is like, you're right.

[SPEAKER_02]: I can't deny that he flirts for the bit.

[SPEAKER_02]: a lot.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I often scold him for it, but that is his only fault.

[SPEAKER_02]: So let's like go through this bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she's basically doing with Mary what she did with Edmund, which was like, you know, I can't really be marrying this guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's telling her the truth because of what happened with Mariah Bertram.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and Edmund was like, that didn't happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: What is Mary's reaction?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but it's okay, he fucked up that is his one flaw is that he flirts and it's not that big a deal and otherwise he's a good man.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, very tough.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not good.

[SPEAKER_02]: I do think I'm not going to defend Edmund, but I don't think that he said it didn't happen.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that he said that it wasn't, I don't his fault that it was, it was Mariah flirting with him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, what Fanny's saying is, I saw Henry Fratt recognizing, and Edmund said Henry was in Fratt recognizing, Mariah was just behaving really badly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what Mary saying is, Oh, yeah, he was doing that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it not not in such a bad way.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually this harmless little thing that sometimes happens.

[SPEAKER_01]: But honestly, he's a good guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's his only flaw.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's just a flirt.

[SPEAKER_01]: Horrible flirt.

[SPEAKER_02]: But that's not the quality that you're looking for in your life partner.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, what she's saying is that he's got

[SPEAKER_02]: But he's nerfed.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he's nerfigged sometimes you just compromise the virtue of an engaged woman.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: It just happens just happens just slip.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she says also for you, Fanny, the glory of getting a man who so many want is like,

[SPEAKER_02]: It would not be in a woman's nature to refuse such a triumph.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, sometimes women do think this way.

[SPEAKER_01]: For sure, I will say without making a categorical statement, this is behavior that I observe more in straight men.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, as a as a practice hashtag not all straight men not of you are absolutely lovely But some yeah, but there is a culture in the top six bases where y'all are at of Basing self-worth off Being able to achieve the hottest woman.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's basically what Mary saying Finding self-worth in achieving the greatest match

[SPEAKER_01]: here, which where marriage is more transactional has some validity.

[SPEAKER_02]: Totally.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think that that's kind of a Jane Austen is saying something about marriage in the time period.

[SPEAKER_02]: And like how this could elevate Fanny so much.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I think it's also highlighting just how much Fanny is not the type of person to think that way.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that that it is highlighting the contrast between what everyone thinks Fanny would think.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: If she were kind of a lesser and more shallow person.

[SPEAKER_01]: and what Fannie is actually thinking is, I don't care that other women want him.

[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, it's a hindrance for me because I think he behaves badly with other women.

[SPEAKER_01]: What I care about is being with somebody I love and can build a life with and share my heart with.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this man can't

[SPEAKER_02]: Mary is like, well, you can lecture him all you want once you're married, and the good news is he's only making girls fall in love with it.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's not falling in love with them back.

[SPEAKER_02]: That would be the real ignorance to a marriage, be him falling in love with other women.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she says, listen, he's really never been attached to a woman the way he loves you.

[SPEAKER_02]: She says he has never been happier than when he secured William's promotion.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my God,

[SPEAKER_02]: He's never been happier than when he was secured Williams promotion.

[SPEAKER_02]: She knows how many strings he had to pull.

[SPEAKER_02]: She knows how hard he worked and she just wishes they could see.

[SPEAKER_02]: William now, he must be the happiest man on the planet.

[SPEAKER_01]: Once again, remember how grateful you should be.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for the William promotion.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I should say we've been mad about how much people are ringing it up.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we are mad about Henry using it as a cudgel when he proposes to Fanny.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is nice that he got it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, it's awesome.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like that's the problem.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is that like it could be a selfless act.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's the fact that

[SPEAKER_02]: It's attempting to be used as leverage with her.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the problem.

[SPEAKER_02]: And like puts a distaste about it in her mouth.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, she's still like so grateful.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so happy for him.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the quote is the recollection of what had been done for William was always the most powerful distressor of every decision against Mr. Crawford.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's the only thing that shakes her in her convictions and that makes her uncomfortable.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it shouldn't be like he did a nice thing for you that doesn't mean you need to love him.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, but the fact that he he put them much effort in for her is something that is appealing to her totally.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's appealing to me too dear listeners.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I mean that's like we're talking about conduct.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're talking again about what conduct can do to bring you closer to a person.

[SPEAKER_02]: And and he didn't necessarily do it purely to use his leverage.

[SPEAKER_02]: He did it because he thought it might make her think better of him and make her happy and make her happy him happy William yeah like there is some mixed motives in there for sure, but it's not a purely evil act.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, it's not, I mean, it's not even an evil act, but just that there's mixed motives.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: But note that there has been no other thing that has happened since the point promotion.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good point.

[SPEAKER_01]: That has been conduct to prove how he feels.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just been over and over again saying how he feels.

[SPEAKER_01]: Totally.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what we're lacking in the courtship.

[SPEAKER_01]: This conduct to show who you are that deserves for any price.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_02]: Good points.

[SPEAKER_02]: They sit in silence for a minute after this and then Mary is like we got to go downstairs and say goodbye to everyone, but they have a very heartfelt goodbye.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she says that she knows she's going to see Edmund and town very soon.

[SPEAKER_02]: She knows she's going to see Maria and Julia also big tea and big tea.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, yeah, she's going to see Sir Thomas is going to come.

[SPEAKER_02]: Why doesn't she just invite Fanny at this moment by the way.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the Bertrims are not inviting Fanny.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it'd be weird if the Crawford's invited Fanny when the Bertrims didn't.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's all weird to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you're hugging this woman, you're saying, like, oh my god, I'm gonna miss you so much.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so sad that everyone is coming to visit and you're not.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they're not coming to visit.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to there.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to their London.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: But like she should just be like, like she said before, you would love.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would love to have you come to London and see how he is revered in this.

[SPEAKER_01]: In a circle.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, Mary wants to be clear.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mary would love to have Fanny with her in London.

[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, Fanny doesn't really like the idea of going to London Fanny.

[SPEAKER_01]: It likes the country and the church and the modesty of Mansfield Park.

[SPEAKER_01]: But imagine what it would do for the plot.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: But like Mary can't just invite Fanny if they're all going to like the rushworth town home.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she should invite her to stay with her.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but that would be weird.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that she should do it.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's my prediction.

[SPEAKER_02]: But she does beg Fanny to write to her.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she also says, please, visit Mrs. Grant while I'm gone.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here's a question.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe this can be a question going forward.

[SPEAKER_02]: But like, she's not coming back.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think she lived there now.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to confirm her tonight.

[SPEAKER_02]: OK, cool.

[SPEAKER_02]: It feels like she's saying goodbye forever or at least a couple of months.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know it'll be a couple of months, but it feels like forever.

[SPEAKER_02]: Fanny doesn't want to write to her, but she can't say no to such a section, such displays of affection.

[SPEAKER_02]: She can resist some affection, Henry Crawford, but in general her disposition values fondest treatment and having no known so little of it in her life.

[SPEAKER_02]: She is grateful, grateful again for Mary's fond treatment of her.

[SPEAKER_02]: She's actually grateful.

[SPEAKER_02]: She is.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, she really is.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the thing is, she's always actually grateful.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, in a row.

[SPEAKER_01]: But like, this isn't someone telling her to be grateful.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, she's grateful on her own.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she's just she's, she's, she's, she's getting crumbs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a section and she loves it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, every time Jane Austen pulls this string, I just think back to those first few chapters of the book, where we see 10-year-old Fanny terrified in this house with the one to love her, and it's just like every time you just reminded that that little girl is still there.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason she loves Edmund so much is because he's the one who's sat with her.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, bare minimum boy, bare minimum boy, you give her little scraps of fondness and affection.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a cartoon of a Superman and it's got to be and it's bare minimum boy are you familiar with the phenomenon of the mid 2010s called bare minimum Twitter?

[SPEAKER_01]: No, oh my god.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was like a straight dating culture thing where girls would be like Fawning over things like eyes picking up the check or buying them a drink or opening a door for them and girls would be like, oh my god, what an icon.

[SPEAKER_01]: What a man.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is what a man is like, like good treatment and bare minimum Twitter was a name

[SPEAKER_01]: Drogatorly used for women.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll not for women, but for comments about men doing the bare minimum and getting tons and tons of credit from the ladies.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I think of Edmund up to this point in the book is like peak bare minimum Twitter.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, Fanny feels like she has escaped this conversation with her secret intact, which by the way, this whole time, with all of these conversations, she's just been nervous that people are going to catch on that she loves Edmund.

[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody thinks she loves Edmund.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, nobody.

[SPEAKER_02]: But she's pleased.

[SPEAKER_02]: That night, Henry comes to say goodbye, and she feels her heart softened towards him a little bit because he really does seem to be feeling.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's in his feels.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's unusually quiet, and Fanny greaves for him.

[SPEAKER_02]: While at the same time, hopes that she will never see him again until he is married to someone else, which is fair.

[SPEAKER_02]: He takes her hand before he leaves, and he maybe says something, but she doesn't hear it.

[SPEAKER_02]: It says he doesn't say anything or nothing that she heard.

[SPEAKER_01]: What do you make of this more grave Henry here?

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's it's wonderful.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, give it give me some thoughts.

[SPEAKER_02]: it just it is nice to know that he's like really sad to be leaving her potentially that's what it's giving sad to be leaving phanny and sad to be leaving without having resolved their situation and also knowing that he said he will stay away and then come back whenever it is at least I think his plan is to stay away and then come back and then not be married to someone else or not have flirted his way or

[SPEAKER_01]: No, he's saying no matter how long I'm a way no matter how many people and parties I see in London.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be thinking of you here at Mansfield Park and I'm going to come back and I'm going to still want your hand at marriage.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so that's what he's saying.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's bugling in for the long haul now and it's different.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I him into it.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's putting his convictions and his love to the test.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, going to London.

[SPEAKER_01]: And and then he's gone.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's gone and that's the end of those chapters.

[SPEAKER_01]: Which brings us to the patron study questions listeners if you would like to ask questions on the air.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can become a patron at our $15 tier on Patreon.

[SPEAKER_01]: Molly submits a Google Doc.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can submit questions before we record an episode and we will ask and answer them on air.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, um, I think we only have one question here, and it's from Lanayam.

[SPEAKER_01]: All Austin novels include at least one bad marriage to spell out the danger for the heroine, but only in Mansfield Park is the danger spelled out as clearly as the case of Janet Frazier.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think Mary is warning Fanny against thinking too hard and asking for advice as opposed to sticking to her position?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or does Mary just assume that all marriages are awful, so Fanny might as

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a good question.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is a good question.

[SPEAKER_01]: I do want to quibble with the premise though that Janet Frazier is the clearest example of bad marriage.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, Jane Austen.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have a lot of clearest examples of bad marriage, but I think that the way that Mary is explaining the marriage, as here's an example of a bad marriage is what Lina is saying.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's most

[SPEAKER_01]: tell not show, but this is also the book where Fanny Price's parents got married before she was born and that was like a really epic fail of a marriage and then you also have like Miss Smith in persuasion and you know planning but I do take the point that Janet Fraser did everything right didn't take a risk on marriage and ended up the very unhappy.

[SPEAKER_02]: She was taken in which is something

[SPEAKER_02]: about being taken in the marriage.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember what it came up, but she was like, yeah, women just will get taken in and that's why I'm not gonna marry until whenever.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe that was what she was referring to.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'd have to go back and find it, but listeners, you know what I'm talking about.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if you don't, then maybe I'm thinking of something else, but I'm pretty sure that Mary, I don't know what you're talking about.

[SPEAKER_02]: Mary talks about this at the beginning of the book.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I can find it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I can find it.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a book, there's a book.

[SPEAKER_01]: I flipped right to it, oh, love one that happens.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so Mary actually talks about this at the beginning of the book.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this is not answering your question yet, Lenaia, but I am gonna get to it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So Mary, Henry, and Mrs. Grant are talking about Ms. Bertram and Mr. Rushworth and they're talking about how, whether she loves him or not, and she says,

[SPEAKER_02]: But Ms. Bertram does not care three straws for him.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is, I don't know who's saying this.

[SPEAKER_02]: But Ms. Bertram does not care three straws for him.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is your opinion of your intimate friend.

[SPEAKER_02]: I do not subscribe to it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I am sure Ms. Bertram is very much attached to Mr. Rushworth.

[SPEAKER_02]: I could see it in her eyes when he was mentioned.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think too well of Ms. Bertram to suppose she would ever give her hand without her heart.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then someone else says, Mary, how shall we manage him?

[SPEAKER_02]: And she says, we must leave him to himself, I believe, talking does no good.

[SPEAKER_02]: He will be taken in at last.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was Henry who says he doesn't want to be taken in.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: He says the stuff about Miss Bertram.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, I think so.

[SPEAKER_02]: Someone said, I think Mrs. Grant says, but I would not have him taken in.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would not have him duped.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would have it all fair and honorable.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Mary goes,

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh dear, let him stand his chance and be taken in.

[SPEAKER_02]: It will do just as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody is taken in at some period or other.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she goes not always in marriage, dear Mary.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she goes in marriage especially.

[SPEAKER_02]: With all due respect to such of the present company as chance to be married, my dear Mrs. Grant, there is not one in a hundred of either sex who is not taken in when they marry.

[SPEAKER_02]: Look where I will, I see that it is so, and I feel that it must be so.

[SPEAKER_02]: When I consider that it is of all transactions, the one in which people expect the most from others, and are least honest themselves.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she says, ah, you have been in a bad school for matrimony in Hill Street, and then they talk about her aunt knuckle.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that that's just like Mary's perspective on marriage has always been that people get taken in.

[SPEAKER_02]: People get duped.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're not honest with themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nine times out of ten.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's 99 at a hundred.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think she even said like the the marriage is going to be shitty for some reason or another.

[SPEAKER_02]: except with Henry.

[SPEAKER_02]: When he tells her that he wants to propose to Fannie, she's like, you will be happy in marriage, I can tell.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, because Fannie is a great character.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I mean, she thinks Henry's great and loves him enough to advocate his case to Fannie, but Fannie is an uninpeachable pick in terms of not her class, but her disposition.

[SPEAKER_01]: Totally.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, she does lend herself to good marriage material.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's proper sweet, pliable, delicate, and shy.

[SPEAKER_01]: So she makes a perfect little bride.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, blah, blah, blah.

[SPEAKER_02]: But so now to answer your question, I thought Mary just assumed that all marriages are awful, so Fanny might as well just take the position and be with Henry.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I do think that Mary thinks that Fanny and Henry could be happy.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that she's not necessarily warning her

[SPEAKER_01]: I think there is some element of like you can hem and haul you want it's not like the options.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think it truly is like I'm vouching for my brother.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are all these other guys out there that are way worse.

[SPEAKER_01]: And why not just take take the good one that I think is actually pretty good.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of both.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a yes and situation.

[SPEAKER_02]: Definitely a gas and situation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to move on to the back of study questions now.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to start with our favorite boy, Edmund Bertram, and his treatment of Fanny's choice to reject Henry Crawford.

[SPEAKER_01]: How would you rate this treatment?

[SPEAKER_01]: How different is it from his father and is it actually different from his father?

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say like five stars out of ten.

[SPEAKER_02]: I thought you were going to say five out of five, and I was like, no, that is not the vibe I got from our course.

[SPEAKER_02]: Five out of ten starts out at like a solid

[SPEAKER_02]: Like we're like yes, you said she did the right thing and that would have been like the end of it I mean, that's practically a tent end of sentence and like then he just goes south and like that's a three and a half So then Yeah, it's different from his father and that he doesn't yell at her

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's not not notable, like I think that definitely makes it better that he doesn't yell at her and I think the other thing is that he doesn't play the this is conditional game totally that's her Thomas place.

[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't play it outright, but he does say, you've proven yourself to have convictions and stick to them, and all of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now prove yourself grateful and prove yourself.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember what the other word he uses is, but he does kind of say,

[SPEAKER_02]: let him succeed.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't say that's he doesn't outright say like that's why you're here like I think what it is I think what you're getting at is that this reeks of being blinded by what a good financial match it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and how cool it would be to keep him and Mary connected in this way because

[SPEAKER_01]: it has the air of like what Edmund always does, which is he is decided what the conclusion is that he wants.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's working backwards to justify it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Despite Fanny's standing right in front of him and explaining in no uncertain terms that she will not fall in love with this man,

[SPEAKER_01]: So in that right, it is kind of like his father in that like, all you can see is what this match would be to Fanny and there is like some sympathy to say like her family would never go hungry again.

[SPEAKER_01]: But mostly it's like, oh, Fanny can be little poor Fanny price would never get a marriage offer like this in a million years and yet here is one.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's going to elevate her in society like crazy and give her a life that you would not otherwise have, my God, we have to make this happen.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: At the expense of this young woman just begging him to let her refuse.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: He also does say though how beneficial it would be to him.

[SPEAKER_02]: He says like you know I have invested interest in yeah they're offered family and like there's a combo of selfishness and obtuseness that's causing him to move forward like this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but ultimately it comes off as he wants what's best for her in a way that the conversation with his father did not.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you get the sense that no is not good, but it would be accepted eventually if it came to it.

[SPEAKER_02]: But he just doesn't think that it's going to come to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but he's like, whatever, take your time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, where Sir Tom is just like, no is not an acceptable answer to this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I will wait for the us.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Edmund loves Fanny and he's going to be nice to her.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's just what it is.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they have a good relationship and they disagree deeply on this subject.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, and I do think it comes from him being like, it's hard to explain this, but basically for me, there's like, there's a bigotry, a classes, bigotry, and a sexism in both their Thomas and Edmund, and in his Thomas, it's like blatant.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, you're those kinds of, like, selfish, vain, materialistic, young women who don't know what's good for them, and you're ungrateful for everything I've given you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he screams that at her.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you have Edmund, who's like, oh, come on, ladies and there's sensitivities and you know, how great of a match, this would be for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's like a gentleness to it, but those bigoted views are still there.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're just latent under a layer of, what is undoubtedly kindness, but they're there, you know?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm going to leave it at that with our guy Edmund Bertram.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I want to break down the scene with Mary and Fanny a little further because I think I see moments of real friendship and moments of Friendly manipulation going on within the scene and I wondered if there were particular moments that we didn't go deep in on which like we could parse out a little bit was one of these the ones that we stuck up in and that is a different thing okay I couldn't remember what it was yeah

[SPEAKER_02]: um there's the hug and the crying that feels like real.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's like I don't even know if the talking about the bad marriages and like trying to sway a family one way or the other it that almost like to me from Mary's perspective it feels like Mary does think that they're real friends and that Mary wants to marry her brother because she wants

[SPEAKER_02]: like that's what I'm getting from Mary's side of things.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think there is like a genuine like sorrow to be parting from Benny.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and a sorrow that she hasn't accepted her brother, which she also selfishly like Edmund does want to happen because she wants the connection to put her closer to Edmund Bertram.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right, I forgot that does exist, but I don't think that the way the Jane Austen writes this, I don't think that Mary's that could enact her.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think this is pure manipulation.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's genuine feeling here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's what's really like underrated about the situation between Fannie and Mary, which is not one of Jane Austen's cleanest female relationships.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is no Lizzie and Jane or Lizzie and Charlotte.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is no Eleanor and Mary and Dashwood.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a specific

[SPEAKER_01]: brand of toxic friendship.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it's very realistic.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is this thing is feels real to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: This feels like not at the other friendships don't feel very real and lived in.

[SPEAKER_01]: But this one feels like a darker twisted version of friendship that does exist in real life and is very difficult to explain.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's different on both sides of the relationship because they both have different things that they want from the other person.

[SPEAKER_01]: Different, yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Fanny has secrets.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fanny is profoundly jealous of Mary.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like obsessively jealous of Mary and has focused in on all of her worst features, which are abundant.

[SPEAKER_01]: as sort of a means to cope with her jealousy towards Mary.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Mary is self-absorbed enough to discount some of who Fanny is as a person and see her as a little bit of a like novelty play thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Someone you can love and be tender towards and affectionate towards without actually taking into account that she might be like an equal.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like when someone treats you

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm in a way.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's like that she thinks of her like a little sister in that way.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like in the bad way that sometimes big sisters kind of discount that their little sisters can have bones and hearts and like guts to push it, you know, not all big sisters, obviously, but I'm a middle sister.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I have been a little sister and a big sister and know the traps one can fall into.

[SPEAKER_01]: but it's raw.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I've experienced this friendship and reading this makes me feel like Jane Austen's experience to this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to go back to the monologue we stuck up in in where she says Mrs. Fraser has been my very intimate friend for years.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I have not the least inclination to go near her.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can think only of the friends I am leaving.

[SPEAKER_01]: My excellence is stir yourself and the Bertrims in general.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have all so much more heart among you than one finds in the world at large.

[SPEAKER_01]: You all give me a feeling of being able to trust and confide in you, which in common intercourse one knows nothing of.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are a couple elements to this that I think are worth discussing.

[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, Mary has fallen in love with an inconvenient man in this family.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what we keep getting told by Fanny and through some of Mary's actions is that she is shallow.

[SPEAKER_01]: materialistic, manipulative, and she lacks good morals, which you see in this is her sort of saying like, I've been away from my old friends for a while and I found a sort of love and confidence and trust in this place that I wasn't finding other places.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in that way, it makes me sympathetic

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: As if she's getting pulled toward the better side of herself.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then the one that she naturally is not only her brother, who is getting pulled towards a better version of himself by his lover, Fanny.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: That being said,

[SPEAKER_02]: All the Bertrams?

[SPEAKER_02]: That's like, that's the, that I was like, latched onto as like all of them.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because I mean, all of them, all, all five out at once.

[SPEAKER_01]: All five out at once.

[SPEAKER_02]: Cause like, Fanny for sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: Edmund even definitely Edmund more than fanny for her.

[SPEAKER_02]: Edmund is the is like the thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean Edmund Edmund has his flaws, but Edmund is the thing that's pulling her.

[SPEAKER_01]: Edmund is possibly convincing Mary to take on an inconvenient financial match.

[SPEAKER_01]: The only thing she's ever really wanted, all that cynicism about how she feels about marriage and she's like, but I could still marry Edmund.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe she would even go to church.

[SPEAKER_01]: She'd have to if she married Edmund.

[SPEAKER_02]: She'd be the director's wife.

[SPEAKER_02]: She'd be willing to go to church for him.

[SPEAKER_01]: She would have to go to church for him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she's seriously entertaining in the impossibility because she does not want to say goodbye to the trust and confidence and love she has felt from him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, so Edmund, yes, Fanny, yes, Sir Thomas, Lady Bertram, Mrs. Norris,

[SPEAKER_01]: Tom Mariah Julia?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, where, what is that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Where, and where, yeah, where are they?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this goes to another thing that's come up a little bit, which is like, fanny encapsulating the true, like ideal of a Bertram child in her morals and not being rewarded for it because she is of a lower class.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it also raises the fucking question.

[SPEAKER_01]: How great are those virtual morals?

[SPEAKER_01]: How great is what Mary's reaching for here?

[SPEAKER_01]: Not that great.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great question because there's good qualities some in some of them, but they're kind of a fated pit of toxicity.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I feel like maybe when she says all she is really just talking about Edmund and kind of Fanny.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and she did reference their

[SPEAKER_01]: was, but I'm not going to talk shit about him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like she wouldn't want to talk shit about him and jeopardize Fanny thinking that she's a good match for her cousin, which of course Fanny doesn't, but she doesn't know that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh boy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I just I had to say both that I think there is like this fragility to what Mary's reaching for in the Bertram family.

[SPEAKER_01]: Uh-huh.

[SPEAKER_01]: That goes alongside the fact that the Bertram family is kind of a pile of shit and also alongside the fact that Mary's instincts are these as we see in this very chapter manipulative and hotty and not here then they should be.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Finally, everyone is headed to London.

[SPEAKER_01]: What do we think is happening?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do we think that Fanny is gonna make it to London?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think Fanny will be alone in Mansfield?

[SPEAKER_01]: If so, what will happen when Fanny is alone in Mansfield?

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a good question.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm wondering if they're all gonna go at the same time, because I know that Edmund's going soon is what Mary said, and that she's sure that she'll see her uncle, that's also soon, but I don't know that they're all going at the same time.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that Mrs. Norris is going at all.

[SPEAKER_02]: It would really suck if everybody went except Mrs. Norris and Fanny.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Lady Bertram is also, no, yeah, like wanting to ever leave the house.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's a good point.

[SPEAKER_02]: But also if Lady Bertram and Fanny are alone in the house, like if Fanny's essentially alone in the house.

[SPEAKER_01]: That would be an interesting, like, is it calm?

[SPEAKER_02]: Just like sleep over the movie, but Lady Bertram and Fanny.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: If she doesn't go to London and she's home

[SPEAKER_02]: I just think she has to go to London, because like there wouldn't be anything to happen if she's home alone.

[SPEAKER_02]: However, if everyone goes to London for an extended period of time, after months of or weeks of alone time, say she gets an invite to come to London and see is Henry and his natural habitat and sees it, but like if he still loves her,

[SPEAKER_02]: Golly, I just think she has to go to London.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's my two cents.

[SPEAKER_01]: One aest quote.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think I've got to give it to this is Edmund talking.

[SPEAKER_02]: Ms. Crawford made us laugh by her plans of encouragement for her brother.

[SPEAKER_02]: She meant to urge him to persevere in the hope of being loved in time.

[SPEAKER_02]: And of having his addresses most kindly received at the end of about 10 years marriage.

[SPEAKER_02]: I saw this funny perfect and also so so not cool in the moment rude, but funny, but funny, which is Mary Crawford to continue yeah questions moving forward who's going to London will fan you go to London is Mary leaving forever

[SPEAKER_02]: because I thought she lived at Mansfield or at with the grants and I thought she was just going to visit her friends and maybe go for a couple of months, but this felt like a very permanent goodbye so I'm wondering if she's ever coming back.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: who wins the chapters?

[SPEAKER_01]: Edmond, no.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was gonna give it to Mary because she showed some real emotion.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a good one.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I also would give it to Fanny for just being the star of the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, Fanny's been hitting some bears recently because she's the only one with any sort of like.

[SPEAKER_01]: chill in this book.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to give it to Fanny because she finally spoke up about what Henry did.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're giving it to Fanny price in the set of chapters.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fanny, congratulations.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're having quite the winning streak, my dear.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because everybody else is fucking sucking.

[SPEAKER_01]: So true.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listeners that concludes this episode of Pot and Pregidas.

[SPEAKER_01]: For next time, we're just doing one chapter of Mansfield Park.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to do volume the third chapter six.

[SPEAKER_01]: Or if your book is not volume do we're going to be doing Chapter 37 of Mansfield Park.

[SPEAKER_01]: Molly are you ready for a one chapter wonder?

[SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well then until next time, stay proper.

[SPEAKER_01]: And give your friends a hug, even if they're toxic.

[SPEAKER_02]: Even if they're toxic, just hug your friends.

[SPEAKER_02]: You will hug.

[SPEAKER_02]: Potten Prejudice is edited by Molly Birdick and audio produced by Graham Cook.

[SPEAKER_02]: Our show art is designed by Torrance Brown.

[SPEAKER_02]: Our show is transcribed by speech docs, podcast transcription.

[SPEAKER_02]: For transcripts, and to learn more about our team, check out our website at pottenprejudice.com.

[SPEAKER_02]: To keep up with the show, you can follow us on social media at Potten Prejudice.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you love what you hear, check out our Patreon to see how you can support us by some merch at pod and prejudice.dashery.com or just drop us a rating and a review wherever you get your podcasts.

[SPEAKER_02]: Stay proper.