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...interest in Edmund's casual equation of homesickness with missing the mother because it is linked to assumptions about the mother-child relationship that the text both endorses and problematizes. As it happens, Fanny's homesickness does not take the form of missing her mother. She is homesick for "the brothers and sisters among whom she had always been important as play-fellow, instructress, and nurse" (14). The only reference to her mother, in fact, is in the context of describing her relationship with William, "her constant companion and friend; her advocate with her mother ... in every distress" (15). That William is Fanny's advocate suggests not only that there is a special relationship between Fanny and William but that there is something missing from her relationship with her mother. (1)
Jane Austen wrote during what was in many ways a transitional period for attitudes towards the home, the family and the mother. Though there is some disagreement about just exactly when (and to what extent) some of the major changes in ideology occurred, most scholars agree that the eighteenth century saw a gradual shift in attitudes towards children and how they should be raised. Earlier models of childrearing were largely parent-centered--the child was seen as existing to satisfy the parents' needs and wants. In the eighteenth--century; however, there is increasing empathy towards the child and a corresponding concern for meeting the child's emotional needs (De Mause 52). Along with greater respect for the individual and greater empathy toward the child, came a redefinition of the mother's role. (2) Specifically there is an increased "idealization of full-time motherhood" (Greenfield, Introduction 20) and the construction of an idealized "good mother ..., a woman who puts aside her own desires to rear and inspire her children" (Thurer 141). This idealization of the mother is understandably linked with expectations for a strong mother-child bond. More engagement is expected from the mother, who is also held responsible for more of her child's well-being than before. Although mothers had always been important in their children's lives, the new ideology demanded and assumed a special closeness: attachment to the mother is both taken for granted, as when Edmund assumes that Fanny is crying for her mother, and praised, as when Edmund reassures Fanny that her missing her mother "'shows [her] to be a very good girl'" (15). In effect, the emotional aspect is given predominance over all other aspects of the mother-child relationship, and the mother-child bond is presumed to be stronger than any other tie. (3)
It is within this shift in perspective towards the mother's role that we must consider the representation of mother-daughter relationships in Mansfield Park. On the one hand, we have an ideal of mother-daughter relationships where the mother is caring, devoted and a reliable guide for the child. The little girl cries for her mother when she is homesick because mother equals home. On the other hand we have a text where mothers are not particularly caring or nurturing--or even competent guides. Mrs. Price has "such a superfluity of children, and such a want of almost everything else" (5) that she cannot nurture or guide the "daughters [who] never had been much to her" (389). Lady Bertram, "thinking more of her pug than her children, but very indulgent to the latter when it did not put herself to inconvenience" neglects "the education of her daughters" (19) and abdicates all her maternal responsibilities to Mrs. Norris, who...
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More articles from Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal
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