married but she also actively works at corrupting the children of her sister's marriage (2).
In the fascinating scenes at Portsmouth when a much older Fanny returns to visit her family the manner in which her parents are so perfectly suited to each other is clearly the source of the damage they unwittingly do. Fanny is appalled by the noise and the indifference which could not prevail except that her parents only worry, or fail to worry, about all the same things. Mrs. Norris clearly should have been occupied in some way that would have kept her out of the way of her nieces. As a clergyman's wife she certainly should have been much too busy to spend her time spoiling her sister's children. But it is Lady Bertram's nearly idiotic indolence and self-absorption that do the most damage, and nearly do much more, because, by virtue of her marriage, she has Mansfield Park in her hands.
Unlike other novels by Austen Mansfield Park does not end in promises of happy marriages for several people. Instead there is only one good marriage--that of Fanny and Edmund Bertram--that is mentioned as resulting from the activities in the novel. Maria is disgraced and divorced, Julia's character is not so bad but her marriage to Mr. Yates is described as a "folly," Tom is sober and hard-working but he is unmarried which, in an oldest son is a failing in itself (although one that will likely be remedied), Henry Crawford declines to marry Maria and will continue his career as a flirt and seducer (426). Only Mary Crawford's eventual marriage is mentioned with even a hint of hope--but in the vaguest and saddest way. She returned to town where, despite her fortune, beauty and charm, she was a long time finding a husband because there were few "whose character and manners could authorize a hope of the domestic happiness" she had learned to value at Mansfield Park (428). As the most intelligent of all the young people Mary was the one who could com...