Symbols
The world of the novel draws heavily upon the symbolic meaning of locations and events. The first critic to raise this aspect was Virginia Woolf.
For instance, the ha-ha in Sotherton Court is a boundary which some will cross, while others will not, thus indicating the future moral infringements of Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford. Later on in the novel, the theatricals (based upon Lovers' Vows) in which the company is involved at the request of Tom Bertram (with the exception of Fanny Price) is further indication of real life future behaviours.
Even the game of speculation has been viewed as a symbol, a "metaphor for the game Mary Crawford is playing, with Edmund as stake", according to David Selwyn.
Read more about this topic: Mansfield Park
Famous quotes containing the word symbols:
“Children became an obsessive theme in Victorian culture at the same time that they were being exploited as never before. As the horrors of life multiplied for some children, the image of childhood was increasingly exalted. Children became the last symbols of purity in a world which was seen as increasingly ugly.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“And into the gulf between cantankerous reality and the male ideal of shaping your world, sail the innocent children. They are right there in front of us—wild, irresponsible symbols of everything else we can’t control.”
—Hugh O’Neill (20th century)
“As usual I finish the day before the sea, sumptuous this evening beneath the moon, which writes Arab symbols with phosphorescent streaks on the slow swells. There is no end to the sky and the waters. How well they accompany sadness!”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)