Crawfords on the couch: a psychoanalytical exploration of the effects of the "bad school" on Henry and Mary Crawford.

ALTHOUGH CLINICAL REPORTS are more suited to psychological conferences than to literary ones, there is in this case--these cases, I should say--a happy confluence of subject. Readers of, and characters in, Mansfield Park have long been divided on whether the Crawford siblings are innately good people who have been corrupted by their upbringing or are, to quote from another Austen novel, "naturally bad." Having had the amazing luck to have the persons in question on my couch--in the psychotherapeutic sense--I wish to contribute my assessment of their psychological condition in order to inform the "Crawfordite debates." (1) My diagnostic impressions, based on my sessions with these clients and additional documentation provided by Miss Jane Austen, are that Mr. and Miss C, as they shall be called, have been emotionally and ethically damaged, not only by their aunt and uncle's morally deficient influence, but by how they have each been treated by same and opposite-sex parental figures. The Cs' behavior towards the B siblings and Miss P is an unconscious--and ineffective--attempt to replicate their earlier experiences in order to resolve these experiences in a positive, empowering manner. My assessment follows.

IDENTIFYING INFORMATION

Mr. C is a single, Caucasian male in his mid-twenties, British, shorter than average--between 5'8" and 5'9"--absolutely plain, but well made, with an olive complexion and straight white teeth, elegantly dressed. He speaks eloquently and behaved very pleasantly throughout our sessions. His appearance and demeanor are suggestive of a well-educated gentleman overcompensating for his very plain appearance by charm and wit, and dressing in a manner that emphasizes his best features. He resides in a rented house in a fashionable district of London, with visits to his country estate in Norfolk.

Miss C is a single Caucasian female in her early twenties, British, also shorter than average--between 5'1" and 5'2"--very pretty, with a sturdy but slim build, olive complexion and straight white teeth, also elegantly dressed. Like her brother, she is pleasant, witty, and given to suggestive puns. Her appearance and demeanor are those of an accomplished, well-read gentlewoman who is overcompensating for her shortness by dressing in a manner that emphasizes her best features. She resides with her older half-sister, Mrs. G, and Mrs. G's husband, a doctor of theology, in a house near Westminster Abbey in London.

REFERRAL

Miss C was referred to my practice by her half-sister because of symptoms of depression, described as "low spirits," "refusing dinner invitations," and "playing plaintive airs upon the harp." Mr. C was referred to my practice by Dr. G, also because of symptoms suggestive of depression, described as "reading Shakespeare by the hour," "leaving half his dinner untouched," and "refusing even my best claret." These symptoms, according to the Gs, increased "most alarmingly" with an announcement in the London papers last fall of a marriage between Miss Frances Price and Mr. Edmund Bertram, with whom Mr. and Miss C respectively were, according to the Gs, deeply in love.

INTAKE INTERVIEWS AND INITIAL EVALUATIONS

Mr. C, when asked to describe his current state of mind, replied that he was filled with "vexation and regret--vexation that must rise ... to self-reproach, and regret to wretchedness" (468-69). Mr. C ascribed these emotions to "[my] having so requited hospitality, so injured family peace, so forfeited [my] best, most estimable and endeared acquaintance, and so lost the woman whom [I] had rationally, as well as passionately loved" (469). Mr. C reported that he had proposed marriage to Miss P and had been refused, but that he had been trying to convince her that his love was "constant." Mr. C attributed his loss of Miss P to the discovery of his sexual relationship with a Mrs. R, a cousin of Miss P, a discovery that culminated in his leaving London with Mrs. R to avoid her husband. When asked why he had entered this relationship while in love with Miss P, Mr. C responded that Mrs. R, who had been in love with him before her marriage, and who knew he had proposed to Miss P, had "mortified" him by acting coldly towards him at a party (468). He felt he must "exert [my]self to subdue so proud a display of resentment," in order to avenge Miss P, as he believed that Mrs. R's anger was "on Fanny's account; [and I] must get the better of it" (468). He claimed he had not intended the relationship to progress so far, that his views were "bounded" by "flirtation" only, but that Mrs. R's "power of feeling[ ]" was "more strong than [I] had supposed" (468). He said be could not end the relationship, as his "attentions" were so "avowedly dear to her" (468). He blamed the discovery of their affair on Mrs. R's "imprudence"; claimed he ran away with her because he "could not help it"; that he "regrett[ed] Fanny" while leaving with Mrs. R (468); and insisted that Mrs. R was "the ruin of all [my] happiness in Fanny" (464).

Mr. C appeared at this interview to be sincerely grieving the loss of Miss P but in serious denial of the extent of his responsibility in the situation, especially considering that he had begun the affair with Mrs. R in order to reassert his emotional power over her, to "make Mrs. Rushworth Miss Bertram again in her treatment of [myself]" (468). Initial evaluation is that Mr. C, despite his obvious intelligence, is rationalizing to the point of delusion and has serious narcissism and passivity issues, as well as commitment avoidance.

Miss C seemed less affected by her romantic disappointment in Mr. EB, for whom she said, she had "real affection" (464) but whom she could not "respect," since he had no desire to be "'very rich'" (213) and was content to be a clergyman when he "'really [was] fit for something better'" (93), such as the law or the military. She insisted that she "'must look down upon any thing content with obscurity when it might rise to distinction'" (214). She added that the last time she had seen him--during which time she had failed to convince him to help her arrange a marriage between Mr. C and Mrs. R, in order to patch up their "'folly'" (454)--he had condemned her corrupt morals, claimed that he had never before understood her, and affirmed that it was easier for him to give her up since he realized that she must have "'been the creature of [his] own imagination'" (458). Miss C described Mr. EB's remarks as a "'pretty good lecture, ... part of [his] last sermon,'" and laughingly predicted that he would soon become a Methodist reformer or missionary (458). However, though she appeared to be "'speak[ing] carelessly,'" she "'turned extremely red'" (458) while recounting the meeting. She blamed Miss P for Mr. C's affair with Mrs. R, claiming that she would "'never forgive'" Miss P (456). When questioned as to how Miss P was responsible for the current situation, Miss C responded that "'[h]ad she accepted him as she ought, ... Henry would have been too happy and too busy to want any other object,'" and that he would merely have had a yearly "'standing flirtation'" with Mrs. R (456). Miss C repeatedly wondered why Miss P "'would not ... have'" Mr. C (455) and insisted that Miss P's love for Mr. EB, combined with Mr. C's prior flirtations with the Misses B, was insufficient reason. She expressed frustration with her life, complaining that she "had had enough of [my] own friends, enough of vanity, ambition, love, and disappointment in ... the last half year" but when asked to describe this disappointment, responded jokingly that she was "perfectly resolved against ever attaching [myself] to a younger brother again." She complained, however, that she could not "put Edmund Bertram sufficiently out of [my] head" to be satisfied with anyone else (469).

Miss C appeared at this interview to be in serious denial--expressed through an excessive use of humor--of her grief over the loss of Mr. EB as well as in denial of her own and her brother's actions that led to this loss. Initial evaluation is that Miss C, despite her obvious intelligence, is rationalizing, histrionic, and excessively materialistic.

FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY

Mr. and Miss C's histories will be examined together, as their adult behavior appears to have been influenced by their mutual childhood and adolescent experiences and interactions; each of them has given me written consent to discuss the other and to share with them this information. Mr. and Miss C were born in Norfolk; their father was a wealthy landowner and their mother a genteel woman who had been married previously with a daughter from her first marriage. Mrs. C's second husband appears to have been much richer than her first, as Mrs. G, the child of her first marriage, had a dowry of 5,000 [pounds sterling], while Miss C had a fortune of 20,000 [pounds sterling], and the estate in Norfolk, Everingham, which Mr. C inherited, was worth 4,000 [pounds sterling] a year. Though the Cs volunteered no information about their mother, indirect evidence suggests that she was a loving, emotionally healthy woman. Mrs. G, the Cs' half-sister, who lived with her mother until her own marriage, is a "warm-hearted, unreserved woman," who loves her siblings, and wishes them to be "'very happy'" (42) in "'fair and honourable'" marriages (46). She is described as an "'excellent wife'" (111), who "'never lose[s] [her] temper'" (213) at her husband's demanding gourmandism and who finds "'consolation'" and "'comfort'" in her marriage (46). She is much more morally upright than her siblings, though not remarkably perceptive, and, when Miss C told her that their brother might be trifling with the elder Miss B, declared that "'if he means nothing, we will send him off, though he is Henry, for a time'" (162).

It is reasonable to suppose that Mrs. G imbibed some of her moral firmness from her mother, and that, had that mother lived longer, she would have given the C siblings similar moral standards. The Cs do appear to have a core of emotional and moral health, though it is stunted in both of them. Miss A describes Mr. C as having a "heart[] to value any thing good" (235), "moral taste enough to value" Miss P's affection for her brother (235), and "too much sense not to feel the worth of good principles in a wife, though he was too little accustomed to serious reflection to know them by their proper name" (294). Miss C, although she first disregarded Mr. EB because of his being the younger brother, his lack of fashionable manners, and his firmness of opinion, soon realized that "[t]here was a charm, perhaps, in his sincerity, his steadiness, his integrity, which [she] might be equal to feel, though not equal to discuss with herself" (65). She remarked that she was not as fond of her London friends after having been in the company of Mrs. G, the B family, and Miss P--who, Miss C reported, "'have all so much more heart among [them], than one finds in the world at large. [They] all [gave] me a feeling of being able to trust and confide in [them]; which, in common intercourse, one knows nothing of'" (359).

The Cs' intellectual and artistic education seems to have been more complete than their moral one. They are very well-read and informed: Mr. C attended Westminster and Cambridge; and Miss C probably had private tutors and a governess. Neither sibling, however, appears to have much studied ethical or religious texts. Mr. C made a flippant allusion to the Bible when he noted that his pursuit of Miss P had begun as intellectual exercise, for "'I do not like to eat the bread of idleness'" (229), and admitted that he often listened to prayers in church with more attention to their manner of delivery than to their content. Miss C objected to "'[t]he obligation of attendance, the formality, the restraint, the length of time'" (87) involved in family prayer services, believes that clergymen are "'nothing,'" and that their moral "'influence and importance in society'" are negligible (92).

The neglect of the Cs' moral and spiritual education, in contrast to that of their older sister, can probably be attributed to the death of their parents, particularly their mother, when they were fairly young, although it is not known precisely what age the C siblings were when their parents died. Upon their mother's death, the orphaned Cs lived with their paternal uncle, an admiral, and his wife, in a house on Hill Street in London. They found "a kind home" (40) there, according to both Cs; this home, however, seems to have been dysfunctional. Admiral C had extra-marital sexual relations, and Miss C claimed that her "'poor aunt had certainly little cause to love the [married] state'" (46). Mrs. C appears to been overly materialistic: Miss C reported that her aunt, "'whose knowledge of the world made her judgment ... looked up to by all the young people of her acquaintance,'" encouraged young women to marry for money (361). According to Miss A's report, Admiral and Mrs. C were only "united in affection" for their nephew and niece and "agree[d] in nothing else" (40). The elder Cs also manifested an unhealthy favoritism towards the children: "each had their favourite, to whom they showed the greatest fondness of the two. The Admiral delighted in the boy, Mrs. Crawford doated on the girl" (40). Thus, each C sibling was the favorite of the same-sex parental figure, a situation that deprived them of opposite-sex parental attention during a long and crucial period of their development.

This favoritism, coupled with the Admiral's licentiousness and Mrs. C's materialism, created further emotional difficulties for the C siblings: Miss C sympathized to the point of identity with her aunt and did not respect her uncle, or men in general--on two occasions she expressed disbelief that most men could love a woman "'for ever'" (363) and always suspected them of ulterior motives. She claimed, for example, that when Admiral C had bought an "'excessively pretty'" summer cottage for the family, he extensively and needlessly altered the grounds, creating "'dirt and confusion'" for three months out of malice and perversity, because his wife was "'quite in raptures'" with its original appearance (57). When Miss C was a young woman, Mrs. C died, exacerbating the situation, as the Admiral then "chose, instead of retaining his niece, to bring his mistress under his own roof" (41). This act set an unhealthy example for Mr. C and "obliged" Miss C, out of propriety and respect for her late aunt, "to find another home" (41). She first attempted "in vain to persuade her brother to settle with her at his own country-house," but Mr. C had at that time "a great dislike" of "any thing like a permanence of abode, or limitation of society" (41). It is significant that Miss C has had very little influence over the men in her family, as well as inadequate respect from them for her needs and feelings. She had no success controlling her uncle's mistreatment of her aunt, nor preventing his openly living with his mistress while Miss C was in his home, a grossly inappropriate action. She also could not convince Mr. C, who, she says, in less significant matters treated her with "utmost kindness" (41), to settle down on his own estate, which would have given her a comfortable home until one or the other of them married. When Miss C asked her half sister if she could live with her at Mansfield Parsonage, however, Mrs. G very happily agreed. Miss C has experienced a pattern of being more influential with women, particularly maternal figures, than with men. It is not surprising then, given her history that Miss C has developed an excessive need to control men's behavior, not having been successful at influencing that of her brother and uncle.

This need includes an excessive desire for male admiration. She reported that even after she decided she did not want to marry the elder B brother, she still wanted to "attract him," though "not ... beyond what the simplest claims of conscious beauty required" (114). When asked why she felt she required admiration from a man she didn't care for, Miss C did not respond. Her "requirement" probably manifested in reaction to the lack of attention from her uncle, and from her appearance, which, while very attractive, differs markedly from the contemporary ideals of female beauty. The tall, blonde, voluptuous B sisters admire Miss C's "lively dark eye, clear brown complexion, and general prettiness" (44) so readily because they find it inferior to their own beauty: "Had she been tall, full formed, and fair, it might have more of a trial; but as it was, there could be no comparison, and she was most allowably a sweet pretty girl, while they were the finest young women in the country" (44). There is evidence that her brother might have unwittingly contributed to this need; when Mr. C first began to find Miss P attractive, he attributed it, in a conversation with Miss C, in part to Miss P's having grown so much taller, "'two inches, at least'" since he had seen her last (230).

Mr. C also appears to have been negatively influenced, not only by the Admiral's sexual immorality but also by his overindulgence. Miss C reports that she told Mr. C one of the reasons she was happy about his marrying Miss P was that it would give him

"the advantage ... of getting away from the Admiral before your manners are hurt by the contagion of his, before you have contracted any of his foolish opinions.... You are not sensible of the gain, for your regard for him has blinded you; but ... your marrying early may be the saving of you." (295-96)

But Mr. C, while acknowledging the Admiral's "'faults,'" excused his immoral behavior because he "'has been more than a father to me. Few fathers would have let me have my own way half so much'" (296). Admiral C has a low opinion of women in general; Mr. C noted that his uncle believes that modest, affectionate, morally upright women like Miss P do "'not exist in the world'" (293), and Mr. C seems to have internalized his uncle's views, an internalization strengthened by his early loss of his mother--which, as a child, he would subconsciously interpret as abandonment--and neglect from his aunt. He realized after he fell in love with Miss P, that he was "'very bad'" to have tried to break her heart, but immediately rationalized his behavior by remarking that "'I did not know her then'" (295), revealing his conviction that the typical woman is emotionally shallow, a projection of his perception of his childhood experiences with his mother and aunt. Mr. C uses this conviction to justify his emotional mistreatment of women: when asked how he thought Mrs. R and Miss JB would react when they learned he had proposed to their poor relation after idly flirting with them, he admitted that he "'care[d] neither what they say, nor what they feel. They will now see what sort of woman ... can attach a man of sense. I wish the discovery may do them good'" (297). He felt Mrs. R's anger would be brief, as he did not "'suppose her feelings [to be] more lasting than other women's'" (297, italics mine). Clearly, Mr. C's childhood losses have made him want women's attention desperately but also feel that he must guard himself against their "shallowness" by allowing himself only shallow interactions with them.

Miss C described her brother as a "'horrible flirt'"; asserted that many young women, including three of her "'particular friends,'" tried every possible stratagem to get him to marry them; warned Mrs. G that the B sisters should '"avoid'" him if they don't want to "'have their hearts broke'" (42-43); and, most tellingly, admitted to Miss P that Mr. C likes "'to make girls a little in love with him'" but has "'never'" had "'a tendency to fall in love himself'" (363). These reports strongly suggest that Mr. C is overcompensating for his lack of adult female love and attention since his mother's death, that he both fears and longs for intimacy with women, and that his addiction to breaking women's hearts is an unconscious expression of his anger: at his mother for abandoning him through her death; at his aunt for preferring his sister to him; and at his half-sister, who, though "always very fond of" her younger siblings, "had scarcely seen them since" the death of their mother, as Mrs. G "knew nothing of" Admiral C (40). Mr. C may even harbor unconscious anger at Miss C, feeling that she somehow took his rightful share of their aunt's attention. Mr. C's unconscious hurt and anger at women are exacerbated by his appearance; he might have unconsciously attributed his aunt's lack of attention to his somewhat plain looks, and it is clear, from the description Miss A gives of his initial and subsequent impressions on the B sisters, that women are not automatically attracted to him, and that he must use considerable charm and wit to captivate them: he

   was not handsome; no, when they first saw him, he was absolutely
   plain, black and plain; but still he was the gentleman, with a
   pleasing address. The second meeting proved him not so very plain;
   he was plain, to be sure, but then he had so much countenance, and
   his teeth were so good, and he was so well made, that one soon
   forgot he was plain; and after a third interview, after dining in
   company with him at the parsonage, he was no longer allowed to be
   called so by any body. He was, in fact, the most agreeable young
   man the sisters had ever known, and they were ... delighted with
   him. (44)

Even Mrs. G, whose sisterly bias might make her think Mr. C handsome, simply finds his looks "very prepossessing ...; though not handsome, [he] had air and countenance" (41-42). It is likely that Mr. C deliberately cultivated this "air and countenance" during his adolescence and early adulthood in order to get the female attention he missed in childhood.

Mr. C's repressed anger makes him want not only to attract, but to control women to the point of emotional and even physical injury. He reports that though he "did not want them [the B sisters] to die of love; ... he allowed himself great latitude on these points" (45). He admits that he began to pursue Miss P because he could "'not be satisfied ... without making a small hole in [her] heart'" (229). When Miss C warned him that Miss P had great depth of feeling and that he mustn't make her "'really unhappy'" (230-31), he replied, in a callous speech that reveals an implicit wish for destruction: "'if a fortnight can kill her, she must have a constitution which nothing could save'" (231).

Living with their aunt and uncle has given Mr. and Miss C very cynical, distorted views of marriage as well as love. The Admiral, according to Mr. C, "'hated marriage, and thought it never pardonable in a young man of independent fortune'" (292), and Mr. C seems to have internalized these views. He admitted that until he fell in love with Miss P he had not intended to marry young because he was "'of a cautious temper, and unwilling to risk my happiness in a hurry.... I consider[ed] the blessing of a wife as ... 'Heaven's last best gift''" (43). Miss C, while wanting to marry young, insisted that the marriage be to her material and social "'advantage'" (43), describing marriage as a commercial venture, where the participants are usually "'taken in." Marriage

"is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect most from others, and are least honest themselves.... [I]t is a manoeuvering business. I have known so many who have married in the full expectation and confidence of some one particular advantage in the connection, or accomplishment or good quality in the person, who have found themselves entirely deceived...." (46)

Thus, the negative effects of this "'bad school'" (46), as Mrs. G described the Admiral's home, almost entirely unmitigated by exposure to more healthy relationship models or contact with other family members, combined with the imbalance of same-sex and opposite sex attention that the Cs received at home, led to the development of unhealthy coping behaviors, which extended beyond their home. Further, the Cs' distorted views of marriage and relationships with the opposite sex were validated and strengthened by the very fashionable circles in which they moved; their friends appear to have been intellectually and morally shallow, preoccupied with material gratification. Miss C spoke of two friends, Mrs. F and Lady S, who married men they didn't love because the men were "'rich,'" and they "'had nothing'" (361). Miss C also reported that, when in London, the women (and perhaps the relatives of these women) who wanted to marry her brother pretended to befriend her so that she could influence Mr. C: "'how I am courted for his sake!'" (360). It is possible that the considerable attention her brother received from young women intensified Miss C's desire for attention from young men for her own sake.

The C siblings' initial reception at Mansfield Parsonage replicated their reception at Hill Street: Mrs. G was "delighted" with both her half-siblings, but Mary was her "dearest object; and having never been able to glory in beauty of her own, she ... enjoyed ... being proud of her sister's" (42). Mrs. G had already planned a match for Miss C with the elder Mr. B before the Cs' arrival; she soon planned one for Mr. C also, but it was with the "'youngest Miss B'" and presented almost as an afterthought, though a well-meaning one: "'something to make [her scheme of seeing Miss C as the next Lady B] quite complete'" (42). Mr. C again took second place in the heart of a female parental figure, with the prospect of a less advantageous marriage than the one projected for his sister. Mr. C did seem to be Dr. G's favorite, but to a much lesser, trivialized degree than he was with the Admiral: having a male guest gives the doctor "an excuse for drinking claret every day" (47). It is not surprising that Mr. C thwarted Mrs. G's hopes for his marrying Miss JB, almost immediately deciding that Miss B "'is certainly the handsomest ... and the most agreeable" of the B sisters although he likes them both "'exceedingly'" (45).

There are more crucial reasons for Mr. C's preference of Miss B to her younger sister: Miss B was engaged and therefore "'safe'" (45), and she is the taller and fuller-figured of the two--in short, she is more motherly. Mr. C's attraction towards Miss B unconsciously stemmed in great part from his wanting a mother substitute, whose attention he could control and command more successfully than that of his mother or aunt. It is very significant both that Mr. C wished Miss B to play his mother in Lovers' Vows and that he wished to play Frederick, a character who has no romantic relationship with a woman, and whose most emotional scene is one in which he reunites unexpectedly with a mother he has not seen in years. Mr. C's insistence that Miss JB not play Agatha, based on the fact that her expression and character were too cheerful, is not as specious as it seems. Mr. B notes that his youngest sister does not have "'tragic features, and she walks too quick, and speaks too quick, and would not keep her countenance'" (134). Miss JB's features and actions suggest girlishness rather than motherliness. In wanting Miss B to play Agatha to his Frederick, Mr. C was unconsciously attempting to regain his mother, to rescue her from symbolic death, and to have her love him more devotedly than he imagines she did when he was a child. Like the jealous Mr. R, Mr. C probably took comfort in Miss B's making, as Miss C observed more astutely than she realized, a "'completely maternal'" Agatha (169).

Mr. C's attraction to Miss P is more complex and intense than his attraction to Miss B, which may be partly why he came to love the former. To make Miss P love him would be, for Mr. C, a perfect resolution to his childhood losses. Miss P is loving and selfless--significantly, Mr. C started to love Miss P when he saw how affectionate and nurturing she is towards her brother--and therefore a more satisfactory mother figure than the Misses B. Just as crucially, she did not like him. Miss C cogently observed that Mr. C really began his flirtation with Miss P because he knew she didn't "'car[e] about'" (230) him: "'I never was so long in company with a girl in my life ... and succeed so ill! ... I must try to get the better of this. Her looks say, 'I will not like you, I am determined not to like you,' and I say, she shall'" (230). Miss P's obvious, prolonged dislike of Mr. C was a departure from his usual swift success with young women; it replicated Mr. C's perception of his mother's "abandonment" and his aunt's "neglect," and it gave him a chance to resolve his painful childhood situation in a satisfactory manner. If he could get the gentle, sweet, but disapproving Miss P to love him, he would vicariously regain his mother's love, secure his aunt's favoritism, and reverse his childhood powerlessness over these women through his power over Miss P. The words "I must ... get the better of this" and "I say, she shall" reveal his subconscious anger and need for control.

Mr. C, even at this loveless, predatory stage of his courtship, seemed to have wanted more love from Miss P than from her cousins, the kind of love and undivided attention that a mother might give a small child:

"dear little soul! I only want her to look kindly on me, to give me smiles as well as blushes, to keep a chair for me by herself wherever we are, and be all animation when I take it and talk to her; to think as I think, be interested in all my possessions and pleasures, try to keep me longer at Mansfield, and feel when I go away that she shall never be happy again." (231)

Mr. C, in describing the emotions he wanted from Miss P, is also describing the emotions he probably felt, and still feels towards his mother and aunt. His calling Miss P a "dear little soul," a term of endearment often used for small children, reveals his unconscious identification between Miss P and his wounded inner child. This identification is, perhaps, part of what made Mr. C so observant of Miss P's preferences that he "adapt[ed]" his "attentions" "more and more to the gentleness and delicacy of her character," so quickly that she soon found "his manners so improved, so polite" that "it was impossible not to be civil to him" (231-32).

This identification influenced Mr. C's generosity to Miss P: he gave her, through his sister, a necklace to wear to her debut ball; he lent one of his hunters to William for the length of his visit; and, most significantly, he got William a promotion to lieutenant. These gifts, especially the first two, were certainly calculated to influence Miss P when Mr. C was not yet--or not yet conscious that he was--in love with her, but that does not completely undermine his generosity, especially since his favors for William stemmed partly from his honest esteem and admiration for the latter. And when Mr. C did decide to marry Miss P, he consulted his knowledge of Miss P's love of Mansfield and her current treatment by her family, to plan their future happiness:

"I will not take her from Northamptonshire.... And they [the B sisters] will now see their cousin treated as she ought to be, and I wish they may be heartily ashamed of their own abominable neglect and unkindness....

[M]y Fanny will feel a difference ... in the behavior of every being who approaches her; and it will be the completion of my happiness to know that I am the doer of it, that I am the person to give the consequence so justly her due. Now she is dependent, helpless, friendless, neglected, forgotten." (295, 297)

Mr. C's intentions, however, were as generous towards himself as towards the neglected Miss E His pathetic description of her situation reflects his own emotional situation when he was first orphaned, and it is significant that he is especially angry at the women who have neglected Fanny--he earlier noted Miss P's "'ineffable sweetness and patience'" with Lady B's "'stupidity'" (296). Indeed, Miss P does suffer more from the women in her family than from the men, which creates another bond, in Mr. C's subconscious mind, between them. By giving Miss P the notice and status she deserves, by rescuing her from her neglectful--and, in Mrs. N's case, abusive--aunts, Mr. C would have been rescuing his inner child, revenging himself on his aunt, and (re)gaining an idealized mother. He would be able to resolve his emotional traumas somewhat healthily--and actively. Mr. C, according to Miss C, "'loves to be doing'" (57) since action distances his autonomous adult self from his helpless child self. Miss A makes it fairly clear that Mr. C did have the potential to win Miss P's love and to become in the process a more steady, mature individual: "[w]ould he have persevered, and uprightly, Fanny must have been his reward--and a reward very voluntarily bestowed.... Had he done as he intended, and as he knew he ought, ... he might have been deciding his own happy destiny" (467).

Miss A attributes Mr. C's failure at winning Miss P's love to his "indulg[ing] in ... cold-blooded vanity a little too long" (467). That failure, however, was also enmeshed with his sister's attempts to resolve her own emotional traumas. Miss C seemed to begin her stay at Mansfield Parsonage with more control over and attention from men than she previously had: Dr. G, another paternal figure, was "exceedingly well contented" (47) to have her there; the B brothers admired her; and the scheme for her marriage to Mr. B went well at first--he was very attentive and gallant and said "Much ... to induce her to attend the races" (48) where he was to go. But when she could not attend the races, "'his lengthened absence from Mansfield ... made it perfectly clear that he did not care about her" (114). Though she already preferred Mr. EB to him by the time Mr. B returned, his indifference became yet another failure to influence a man in a vital matter. Her conviction that even had he proposed to her, she "did not believe she could accept him" (114), could be a defense mechanism against her wounded feelings. Miss C also finds some similarities--though not nearly so severe--between her sister's marriage and her uncle's, chiefly in Dr. G's gourmandism (the Admiral, she noted, would "'sit over [his] dinner, as if it were the best blessing of life!'" [295-96]) and in his occasional lack of patience with her sister: "'though Dr. Grant is most kind and obliging to me, ... I see him to be an indolent selfish bon vivant, who, ... if the cook makes a blunder, is out of humour with his excellent wife'" (111).

When she was cast as Amelia, Miss C acted in a sexually inappropriate manner in her search for an Anhalt; she asked the young men: "'What gentleman among you am I to have the pleasure of making love to?'" (143). When she discovered that Anhalt was not yet cast, she deprecated Amelia--and through Amelia, herself--but in a sexually aggressive manner: "'Such a forward young lady may well frighten the men'" (144). When Mr. B half-heartedly tried to see if he could double the part but was unwilling to give up the rhyming Butler, Miss C might have taken his attitude as another rejection, especially since Anhalt is a larger, more dramatic role than Verdun. Shortly afterwards, Miss C left Mr. B's circle and observed to the others that the gentlemen, who were more concerned with ale-houses than Anhalts, "'do not want me at all'" and that she should "'be sorry to be an inconvenience'" (144). When Mr. EB refused her suggestion that he play Anhalt--which was what she really wanted--she experienced "resentment and mortification" (144).

Mr. EB's subsequent decision to play Anhalt, and his falling in love with her, did give Miss C the control over and attention from men that she longs for, but his determination to remain a clergyman, despite her wish that he pursue a more lucrative or fashionable profession, undercut that control. Miss P and others see Miss C's displeasure at Mr. EB's refusal to change his profession as proof of the shallowness of her love and piety. However, this assessment appears harsh. Miss A herself offers a gentle corrective to Miss P's biased belief that Miss C's "chance ... of future improvement" was "nearly desperate," claiming that older, impartial observers "would not have denied to Miss Crawford's nature, that participation of the general nature of women, which would lead her to adopt the opinions of the man she loved and respected, as her own" (367). Miss C very likely subconsciously saw Mr. EB's refusal to even consider her wishes, as another, very frustrating failure to influence a man she cared for. She probably mistook his fidelity to the Church, since it went against her inclinations, as proof that he did not love her deeply, and she probably wavered in her affection for him because she doubted the strength of his affection for her and wished to avoid rejection:

   The assurance of Edmund's being so soon to take orders ... was
   felt with resentment and mortification. She was very angry with
   him. She had thought her influence more. She had begun to think
   of him ... with great regard, with almost decided intentions; but
   she would now meet him with his own cool feelings. It was plain
   that he could have no serious views, no true attachment, by fixing
   himself in a situation which he must know she would never stoop
   to. She would learn to match him in his indifference. (227-28)

It is likely that Mr. EB's refusal to change his career for her strengthened Miss C's already strong conviction that men were incapable of lasting love, a conviction that probably strengthened her determination that Mr. EB should pursue a more lucrative, prestigious career before she consented to marry him. Should Mr. EB stop loving her, Miss C would at least still have the comforts of a "'large income,'" which is "'the best recipe for happiness [she] ever heard of'" (146), and a prominent social position. Given Miss C's history of failure to influence men--she was even unable to convince the local farmers to rent her a cart and horse to convey her harp during haying season--it is natural that she would feel compelled to direct Mr. EB's career and disproportionately angry when she failed.

Because of her frustrations with Mr. EB, Miss C reacted with mixed emotions to her brother's plan to marry Miss P, though she insists that it "'quite delight[ed] me'" (297). During their first conversation about his plan, she assumed he was in London to consult with their uncle about the marriage, but he told her that he was on another errand which he would not yet tell her about. For the first time, he ostentatiously kept his actions secret from her. Miss P was starting to come between them, and, during the course of their conversation, Miss C thrice tried literally and figuratively to come between him and Miss E She intimated that he would eventually "'cease[] to love'" (296) Miss P. When Mr. C fervently defended his eternal love, complete with descriptions of Miss P's beauty, Miss C "stopp[ed] short, and smil[ed] in his face," telling him how glad she was to see him in love, but then altered the tone of the conversation by asking, "what will Mrs. Rushworth and Julia say?'" (297). When Mr. C turned the conversation back to Miss P, speaking of his plans for her happiness and how neglected she was, Miss C lessened the importance of his projected goodness by reminding him that she was "'not friendless.... Her cousin Edmund never forgets her'" (297).

Though Miss C "'honour[ed]" Mr. EB "'beyond expression'" (275) for his kindness to Miss P, she also may have felt unconscious jealousy at his value for Miss P's opinions, especially her wholesale approbation of his taking holy orders. Certainly Miss C displayed implicit jealousy when Mr. C started taking Miss P's advice more than hers, especially since Mr. EB already valued Miss P's opinion. She was happy that her brother at last planned to settle in a permanent home and that he invited her to live with him. But it was Miss P's influence that made Mr. C willing to do what his sister could never convince him to. Shortly after, Miss C's influence with women began to decrease: she could not convince Miss P to marry Mr. C. Thus, it is not surprising that when Mr. C determined to pay a second visit to Everingham, Miss C persuaded him to delay it, nor that she wrote rather pointedly and snidely to Miss P that

"Henry ... has some idea of going into Norfolk again upon some business that you approve, but this cannot possibly be permitted ... till after the 14th, for we have a party that evening. The value of a man like Henry on such an occasion, is what you can have no conception of; so you must take it upon my word, to be inestimable. He will see the Rushworths, which I own I am not sorry for--having a little curiosity--and so I think has he, though he will not acknowledge it." (417)

For all her affection for Miss P and her desire to see her marry Mr. C, Miss C tried very hard--albeit subconsciously--to drive a wedge between her brother and his beloved. She claimed the right of sanctioning Mr. C's movements, made an implicit, slighting, reference to Miss P's ignorance of the fashionable world, and mentioned Mr. C's again seeing Mrs. R--whose prior flirtation with Mr. C she knew to be one of Miss P's main objections to marrying him. Miss C's determined resolve to influence a man she cares for finally succeeded--she did convince her brother to delay his trip to Everingham--but her temporary triumph was instrumental to the downfall of her own and her brother's permanent happiness. Miss C was not, of course, entirely nor even primarily responsible for this downfall. Mr. C could have chosen not to delay his journey, to have made it immediately after the party, to have avoided Mrs. R, or to have left town as soon as he knew how "dear" to her his "attentions" were (468). The Cs, ironically, and tragically, were at cross-purposes: they both attempted to resolve their past traumas and find love and closure, but their individual methods of doing so conflicted, resulting in their mutual failure and disappointment.

DIAGNOSTIC IMPRESSIONS FOR MISS C

1) Adjustment disorder with depressed Mood, and Mixed Disturbance of Emotions and Conduct;

2) Histrionic Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder;

3) The prognosis for persons similar to Miss C is mixed. A combination of talk therapy, self-assessment and behavior modification might prove effective if Miss C is cooperative.

4) If no change is made in Miss C's situation, it is likely that she will remain single for some time but eventually commit to a long-term, though emotionally unfulfilling, relationship.

In actuality, Miss C is willing to explore the therapeutic options open to her but requires time to acquire and apply self-assessment and behavior modification techniques. She is eventually likely to achieve moderately fulfilling romantic intimacy.

DIAGNOSTIC IMPRESSIONS FOR MR. C

1) Adjustment disorder with depressed Mood, and Mixed Disturbance of Emotions and Conduct;

2) Histrionic Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and Anti-Social Personality Disorder;

3) The prognosis for persons similar to Mr. C is quite hopeful. Since Mr. C is already partially able to own his inappropriate conduct, talk therapy, combined with self-assessment and behavior modification, would most likely prove quite effective.

4) If no change is made in Mr. C's situation, it is likely that he will remain single for some years, but eventually marry a woman similar to but less perceptive than Miss P--or else a Frenchwoman.

In actuality, Mr. C is eagerly willing to explore the therapeutic options open to him. For professional reasons, he is no longer my client, but I am confident that he is developing an extremely fulfilling romantic intimacy with a woman who is very attractive, insightful, maternal, and shares his interests in theatre. End of Assessment.

Certainly the Crawfords are not hapless innocents, buffeted by the winds of calamity; they can be selfish and thoughtless, and they do a great deal of emotional and moral damage. However, their intentions are not gratuitously malicious, they are able to recognize and admire moral virtue, and the damage they inflict results in great measure from the damage they have suffered. (MRF)

WORKS CITED AND CONSULTED

Austen, Jane. Mansfield Park. Ed. R.W. Chapman. 3rd ed. Oxford: OUP, 1988.

Desk Reference to the Diagnostic Criteria from DSM-IV. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 1998.

Maloney, Michael P., and Michael P. Ward. Psychological Assessment: A Conceptual Approach. New York: OUP, 1976.

NOTE

(1.) I wish to clarify that I am a literary scholar, not a psychologist, but have chosen to use the format of the psychological assessment to frame my argument; the result, as psychologists will doubtless note, is a hybrid of a psychological report and a literary analysis. Actual psychological assessments are more objective in that they do not address issues of morality; however, as Jane Austen concerns herself with moral issues so much in Mansfield Park, I found it necessary to include these issues in my "report." I wish to thank Ms. Frances Billington, L.C.P., for her invaluable knowledge, advice, and resources, all of which she shared with me very generously, enabling me to format my assessment according to the standards of the psychological profession. Any errors, of format or content, are my own.

Miriam Rheingold Fuller received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Chicago and is Professor of English at the University of Central Missouri. She has articles in Fifteenth-Century Studies and Tristania, and she is writing an article on elevation in Persuasion. She was a Breakout Speaker at the last two AGMs. She loves theatre.