In Edward Said’s “Jane Austen and Empire” he argues that Austen in Mansfield Park assumes “the importance of an empire to the situation at home” and that events in the home correspond to and reflect imperialism in India (1119). He discusses the “paradox” of reading Jane Austen is the novel seems to say that slavery is “cruel stuff” but that “everything we know about Austen and her values is at odds with the cruelty of slavery” (1124). I found this statement interesting. At first I thought of taking a cue from Structuralism and say that Austen’s opinion, or rather his opinion of what Austen’s opinion is doesn’t matter. But I don’t think that is even necessary, because from the essay I don’t believe that we get a clear enough picture of Austen herself in order to say what her opinion was on slavery. His support of Austen's opinion seems more like speculation. Why can’t we just let the book speak for itself?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment