Edmund Bertram is a lead character in Jane Austen's 1814 novel Mansfield Park. He is Sir Thomas's second son and plans to be ordained as a clergyman. He falls in love with Mary Crawford who constantly challenges his vocation. Edmund goes ahead with ordination. At the end of the novel he marries Fanny Price.
Character
Thomas Edwards regards Edmund as the most believable of Austen's heroes, not least because she allows the reader to have reservations about him. He has reality but also limitations.Edwards, Thomas (1965) "The Difficult Beauty of Mansfield Park". Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 20, no. 1, p 64, 65. www.jstor.org/stable/2932492 (Also in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, New York: Chelsea House, 1987 pp. 18, 19.) Edmund is a naturally kind and compassionate person, as demonstrated by his attitude towards Fanny Price, his impoverished young cousin who has come to live with Edmund's family from her home and family in Portsmouth. It is the sixteen year old Edmund who first takes pity on Fanny, first sees that she is clever and first develops her mind. Edmund's kindness and generosity to Fanny distinguishes him from the rest of his family, who tend to exploit Fanny's good nature or mock her.
Edmund's ironic description of himself is that "... there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without striking it out".Mansfield Park ch. 11 (Kindle Loc. 1274-1275)
The master leaves Edmund's father, Sir Thomas Bertram, is the master of Mansfield Park. After the Rev Mr Norris, Edmund's uncle dies, the living of the Mansfield parish is kept for him until he is old enough (twenty-four) to be ordained. This plan is undermined when Edmund's older brother Tom accumulates such large gambling debts that his father has to sell the living to a Dr Grant to settle his accounts. Another parish, ten miles away at Thornton Lacey, is still promised to Edmund. Dr. Grant and his wife move into Mansfield parsonage.
Sir Thomas goes to Antigua to settle problems with his Caribbean estate; he takes Tom with him and leaves Edmund in charge of the English household. Edmund's sisters, Maria and Julia, are pleased their father has gone and enjoy a new sense of freedom. After a year, Tom is sent back to England but amuses himself by visiting friends and taking part in horse racing. Edmund still seems to be in charge of the estate. Mrs. Grant's young half-sister, Mary Crawford comes to live with her and she is accompanied by her brother, Henry Crawford. Edmund becomes an admirer of Mary and inadvertently neglects Fanny.
Ordination under attack Lionel Trilling believed, based on a letter Austen sent in 1813 to her sister, Cassandra, that Austen had chosen ordination as the subject for Mansfield Park. Paula Byrne argues (as do others) that this is based on a misreading of the letter, although, she says, there is no doubt that Edmund's vocation is at the centre of the novel.Byrne, Paula (2013) The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things. HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition, Locations 3837-3838
During a family visit to Mr Rushworth's estate at Sotherton Court, the young people are shown into the family chapel. Mary applauds the late Mr Rushworth's decision to abandon the twice daily prayers, eloquently describing such practice as an imposition for both family and servants.Mansfield Park, pp. 86-87 Edmund acknowledges from his own experience that long services can be boring but maintains that, without self-discipline, a private spirituality will be insufficient for moral development. She then overhears some family banter about Maria's intended marriage to Mr Rushworth and learns for the first time of Edmund's intention to become a clergyman. Mary is embarrassed about her previous remarks but also shocked. Importantly for the novel, her presence and her voice become a constant assault on Edmund's vocation.
Mary also attacks Edmund's expectation of a living, one based on privilege rather than on merit. Sir Thomas still offers him a guaranteed living at Thornton Lacey where he can lead the life of a country gentleman. Edmund's defence of the widespread practice of patronage is backed up by Fanny. His argument has well developed logic but lacks a robust spirituality. Says Barbara Hayley, "Despite all temptations, Edmund never loses sight of his duty as a clergyman, taking an unusually dedicated and spiritual view of it."
Garden of delights Illicit misconduct and sexual temptation are suggested by Austen from the moment the young people reach a door of the house, 'temptingly open on a flight of steps which led immediately to... all the sweets of pleasure-grounds, [and] as by one impulse, one wish for air and liberty, all walked out'.Byrne (2017) ch. 9, Kindle ed. loc. 3518 They soon find themselves in the wooded area known as the wilderness.
Juliet McMaster argues that Austen often used understatement, and that her characters disguise hidden powerful emotions behind apparently banal behaviour and dialogue.McMaster, Juliet "Love: Surface and Subsurface" pages 47–56 from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House: New York, 1987 page 50. This is evident as Edmund, Mary and Fanny debate the merits of an ecclesiastical career.McMaster, Juliet "Love: Surface and Subsurface" pages 47–56 from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House: New York, 1987 pages 52–53. Though the exchanges are light-hearted, the issues are serious.McMaster, Juliet "Love: Surface and Subsurface" pages 47–56 from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House: New York, 1987 pages 53–54. To press her point, Austen has set the scene in the wilderness where their serpentine walk provides echoes of Spencer's, The Faerie Queene, and the "sepentining" pathways of the Wandering Wood.McMaster, Juliet "Love: Surface and Subsurface" pages 47–56 from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House: New York, 1987 page 54. Spencer's 'Redcrosse Knight' (the novice knight who symbolises both England and Christian faith) is lost within the dangerous and confusing Wandering Wood. The knight nearly abandons Una, his true love, for Duessa, the seductive witch. So too, Edmund (the would-be Church of England minister) is trapped with the seductive Mary within the moral maze of Sotherton's wilderness and becomes neglectful of pious Fanny.
Edmund's resolve is put to an almost Biblical test.Ross, ch. 8, Kindle ed. loc. 3824 Mary's aim is that his desire for her will overcome his desire for ordination. Austen, unlike many of her contemporary writers, almost never quotes from the Bible;Ross, ch. 4, Kindle ed. loc. 1669 yet biblical themes-themselves are not difficult to find. The 'wilderness' experience contains hints of the Garden of Eden in Genesis, the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites in Exodus and of the temptation of Jesus in the Gospels. Mary, like her brother, fulfils the serpent's subtle role as she offers moral shortcuts to fulfilment and happiness.
Mary's strategies to dissuade Edmund from his ministry range from gentle persuasion – 'You really are fit for something better. Come, do change your mind. It is not too late. Go into the law' – to cruel attempts to emasculate him: 'Men love to distinguish themselves, and in either of the other lines [army or law], distinction may be gained, but not in the church. A clergyman is nothing'.Byrne, Paula (2017)The Genius of Jane Austen: Her Love of Theatre and Why She Is a Hit in Hollywood. ch.8, Kindle loc. 3099-3134 HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.MP ch. 9
Thomas Edwards describes Mary's charming 'femininity' as full of innuendos which Edmund resists with blundering logic.Edwards, Thomas "The Difficult Beauty of Mansfield Park" pages 7–21 from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, New York: Chelsea House, 1987 pages 8–9 McMaster comments on Austen's restrained eroticism. When Fanny is tired, Edmund takes her arm to provide support but when Mary extends him her arm, he expresses amazement at its lightness. He "registers, and within the bounds of polite converse, expresses the thrill he feels at this physical contact with Mary". McMaster contrasts this with that of Austen's critic, D. H. Lawrence, who provides loving descriptions of "that exquisite and immortal moment of a man's entry into the woman of his desire".McMaster, Juliet "Love: Surface and Subsurface" pp 47–56 from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, ed: Harold Bloom, Chelsea House: New York, 1987 pp 54-55.
One evening at Mansfield Park, news comes that Sir Thomas is planning to return earlier than expected. Mary's thoughts return to Edmund's ordination and she challenges him about the corruption of the clergy, declaring the profession unworthy, filled only by lazy and gluttonous men like her brother-in-law, Dr Grant. 'His curate does all the work and the business of his own life is to dine'.Mansfield Park, ch. 11, p.110 Austen often exposed clergy corruption through parody. Mary's view of Regency clergy is widely confirmed by historians; Edmund's commitment to integrity and morality represents a minority vision.Hague, William (2008) William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner (Text Only) . HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Ed. ch. 1, loc. 226 ff.
Lover's Vows and the return of the master When Tom settles on a plan for putting on the play, Lovers' Vows at Mansfield Park, both Edmund and Fanny are opposed. Austen's presentation of the intense debate about theatre tempts the reader to take sides and to miss the nuances. Edmund, the most critical voice, is actually an enthusiastic theatre-goer. Fanny, the moral conscience of the debate, "believed herself to derive as much innocent enjoyment from the play as any of them." She thought Henry the best actor of them all.Austen, Jane. Mansfield Park, ch. 18 (Kindle Locations 2201-2202)
Edmund objects to the play, believing it somehow violates propriety, but fails to articulate the problem convincingly.Tave, Stuart "Propriety and Lover's Vows" pages 37–46 from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, New York: Chelsea House, 1987 pages 39–40. His intense objection to an outsider being brought in to share in the theatricals is not easy for the modern reader to understand. Mr Rushworth's view that, "we are a great deal better employed, sitting comfortably here among ourselves, and doing nothing", is affirmed only by Sir Thomas himself.Jane Austen. Mansfield Park (Kindle Locations 2460-2461) Sir Thomas is an intensely private person. Eventually, Edmund is persuaded that bringing in a person from another family would be worse than his participating in an intimate scene with Mary. Tom and Maria only feel 'glee' at the thought of the would-be clergyman acting in an improper play.Edwards, Thomas "The Difficult Beauty of Mansfield Park" pages 7–21 from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, New York: Chelsea House, 1987 page 17
During rehearsals, Fanny observes the sexual tension and attraction between Edmund and Mary as they play the parts of Anhalt and Amelia, the two lovers. This fills her with misery but also jealousy.Tave, Stuart "Propriety and Lover's Vows" pages 37–46 from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, New York: Chelsea House, 1987 page 43. Some time later, Mary describes to Fanny her fondest memory at Mansfield Park when she played the dominant role with Edmund in a position of sexual submission. "I never knew such exquisite happiness ... Oh! it was sweet beyond expression."Byrne (2017) ch. 8. (Kindle Locations 3122-3124)MP ch. 36
Sir Thomas returns just before the play is due to be staged and is greatly displeased. Edmund admits his culpability and emphasises Fanny's constant opposition to the play.
Exodus