I would like to comment on the essay of Edward Said--since I took a Jane Austen class last semester, I feel like I have a decent grasp on the material. However, I must first make a brief disclaimer: I hate Fanny Price. I detest her on a deeply personal level, for much the same reason I hated Bella, of Twilight fame*--she is boring and shallow**. Any interpretations of Mansfield Park I make may be colored by this fact.

That said, I have some sympathy for Said's reading. It is odd that the Antigua estate, a major crux of the plot, is only mentioned obliquely--there are longer descriptions of carriages. Their silence on the matter is notable, and he is right to be suspicious of it. This may well constitute a tacit acceptance of the entire system. On the other hand, it may just be a lack of interest. Jane Austen's novels rarely have much to say about national politics. 

That said, that same silence makes it difficult for his argument to stand well. He says, at one point, "there is nothing in Mansfield Park that would contradict us, however if we were to assume..." (1117), and then goes on to lay out a great deal of assumptions. He is right to say there is no evidence against them, but there is precious little for them either. It seems to me that it would be just as valid to say that by ignoring the local parliamentary elections, Austen was subconsciously commenting on the fact that democracy works best with minimal voter participation, of that by talking endlessly of carriages, but not the horses that pulled them, she was condoning animal cruelty, because it was essential to the burgeoning middle classes.

In other words, I must echo Jessica's concerns that Said is reading too much into Austen, or rather that he is projecting modern concerns about imperialism onto an unsuspecting 19th century author.

*Yes, I read it. Yes, I am terribly ashamed

**Not in a materialist way, in a no-hidden-depths or fascinating flaws way.