The "Want of Shade"

As Debbie related in class, Jane Austen thought the novel Pride and Prejudice was too "bright" and in need of some element of shade. Although I think this novel one of her best, I can understand her thoughts. Elizabeth might suffer from a sometimes rather silly family and be embarassed from time to time, but there ends her trouble in the world. She does eventually discover her love for Mr. Darcy and overcomes these barriers. Fanny Price, however, the heroine of Mansfield Park, suffers much more. As a child she lives a life not unlike that of Jane Eyre. She feels isolated in her aunt and uncle's estate, always inheriting ideas of her social inferiority to her cousins, being reminded of this constantly by her Aunt Norris, and being neglected by her other aunt and Sir Bertram. This is a much more shadowy upbringing to overcome. Similarly, I remember from an earlier reading of this novel that when Fanny returns to stay with her biological family, she is deeply pained by what she sees. She suffers from unrequited love and longing, social strictures, and beautiful competition up to the very last point of the novel. This is a much more depressing novel which seems hopeless at times, wheras Pride and Prejudice is always promoting the hope that Mr. Bingley will return or that Elizabeth has much more of a promising future than we'd thought. Mansfield Park is honestly my least favorite Austen novel. Maybe it's because of this hopeless feeling throughout, the feeling that Fanny is actually going to keep being dissappointed in every aspect of her life. Even though it has a "happy ending", I don't like the ending at all! I find it disturbing and I also think she deserves better than...(not to spoil the ending)...the man she ends up with.