Analysis Of Mansfield Park From The Post-Colonial Perspective

Mansfield Park was a novel written by the famous British writer Jane Austen (1775-1817) with the themes of romance and marriage between young men and women. The novel was published in 1814. It is probably the least romantic and most pragmatic one of Austen's novels. It was considered as the most perfect in ideology and every character in the novel has modern flavor. The work advocates the leading position of love in marriage and the importance of traditional morality. Mansfield Park is a representative novel by Jane Austen with the most comprehensive theme and the best description. The heroine Fanny was born in a poor family but she always has a kind heart. For love, she is always dedicated to maintain the purity of heart, and finally falls in love with Edmond.Many scholars have analyzed the novel from the aspect of the opposition of characters, refraction on the moral level and the principle of marriage. However, few researches have been done on the implication of colonial ideology in this novel. The present thesis conducts a comprehensive and unique analysis to explore the post-colonial implications permeating in the main characters, geographical settings and so on.Jane Austen lived in the late Romantic period. Because of her living environment, social experience and ideological factors, most of her works are limited to the emotion and marriage of the characters. It seems that her works are never involved in the ideological and political field. However, the present thesis found that under the cover of the romantic love story, the strong imperialist ideas of the author permeate the whole novel. Having grown up in the British imperialist colonial expansion period, her potential ideology is completely consistent with the superiority of British Empire in the national culture, moral value and family orders, which revealed the recognition of the colonial expansion and praise for imperialism in her work.This paper is intended to analyze the influence of colonialism on Jane Austen and her novel Mansfield Park and explore the colonial implications in the novel.This thesis consists of three chapters:Chapter One aims at analyzing the main characters Sir Thomas and Fanny.Chapter Two explores the colonial ideas from the metaphor of location through Orientalism.Chapter Three analyzes the slave trade from the post-colonial perspective.