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13 responses to “Jane Austen’s Brave Refusal to Reform the Rake”
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Excellent article. Your book sounds fascinating. My toes always hurt when people – which happens particularly often on Jane Austen’s Facebook page – complain that Fanny is boring. (Why do my toes hurt? From kicking the furniture!!) Fanny was a thousand times braver in refusing Crawford to her uncle than Elizabeth was in refusing Collins (given her father’s character, and her favoured status in his eyes). Fanny’s refusal is one of the bravest scenes in all of Austen, imho… As for whether or not Henry Crawford can be redeemed, I personally believe no one, whether fictional or not, irredeemable. XXA
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Fanny was very brave and she had a lot more to lose!
I also believe everyone can be redeemed, I guess I should have said Henry is the easiest to redeem among those mentioned men. You’d want Wickham to be able to abstain from gambling for a long time before you’d want to trust him with your financial security for example.
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I’m sure he can be redeemed it may take some work. Fanny is so brave I wish I had her courage!
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She is very brave! I don’t think I could have made the same decision if I was in her place.
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Can a rake be redeemed? Not if we treat that question as a passive – that is, the rake, being redeemed by someone else. Everyone can change for the better – but they have to want to. Others can inspire them, Others can support them, but they have to do the work. Fanny is right to refuse to become Henry’s conscience – for him to reform, he has to grow his own.
I think we – at least the older generation – grew up on the trope of the reformed rake. I remember as a teen and young adult, I was enraptured by Paul Gallico’s “Love of seven dolls”. Looking back at it from a mature viewpoint, it horrifies me. The villain abuses the heroine, rapes her repeatedly, throws her out to the streets in the middle of the night. And yet we have to believe that once she realizes his tender side – the side expressed by the dolls – she can redeem him with her love. Well, no. It doesn’t work that way.
As for the alternative ending to Mansfield Park – Fanny submitting to Henry’s courting once Edmund and Mary were married – perhaps she would have. But he wouldn’t have changed, and she would have been miserable. Even his sister Mary, in her last appearance, projects that it would have ended with a regular standing flirtation between Henry and Maria. While I don’t feel Edmund is such a great partner for her, he is definitely preferable to Crawford. -
I read Unfairly Caught this summer and enjoyed it so much! I am also a sucker for a redemption and Henry Crawford had so much potential. Very interesting.
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Thank you! I’m glad to hear you liked it. I’m writing for the other suckers out there 🙂
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This is an excellent and thoughtful article, but the issue I see with it is that – as you yourself allude to – there is no redemption story in any of Austen’s novels. Once a rake, always a rake is a natural law in Austen’s universe – I guess it’s the natural and fair symmetric of the “once a fallen woman, ever a fallen woman” rule from her society.
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You are right. There are redemption arcs, but not for a rake or a fallen woman, Tom Bertram is reformed but he was a gambler/drinker, Darcy was just rude not horrible, etc. She seems more focused on fixing minor faults, not saving seasoned sinners.
Perhaps that is why her novels feel so grounded in reality. Though I do always hope that everyone can change!
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no wonder i love both mansfield park and the tenant of wildfell hall! both novels seem to me unfairly neglected; and, as ms brontë’s novel is feminist in helen’s steadfastness, maybe austen’s is too in fanny’s steadfastness. both fanny and helen are extraordinary in that respect, and both are seen as timid, or even frigid.
both also end up in marriages i was a little bit disappointed in…
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Oh that’s too bad, I love Gilbert Markham. He has growing to do at the start, but he really improves himself by the end. But yes, I love both novels!
I really wish more people read Tenant in particular, it’s an amazing novel.
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I don’t believe Wickham was reformed. And Tenant of Wildfell Hall is far and away my favourite Brontë novel.
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Wickham wasn’t reformed, but he was never set up to be reformed, unlike Henry Crawford. I love Tenant! It’s the first Bronte book I read.
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