ABSTRACT
This chapter takes postcolonial readings of MansfieldPark as a point of departure. Building on feminist arguments that the novel explores the connections between imperialism abroad and patriarchy at home, the chapter expands the scope of Austen's critique by including nature. Recent postcolonial criticism has read the passage as nationalistic celebration of green England. The connections Austen draws between the subordination of Fanny as a dependent woman and the oppression of slaves have been well charted in readings by Fraiman and Moira Ferguson, among others. Austen not only examines the connections between the status of women and the status of slaves, but also links their subjugation to that of nature and animals. Austen uses Fanny's encounter with animals to comment critically on the colonial one. The physiological and psychological effects of Fanny's inferior status at Mansfield Park are vividly documented in the novel, as John Wiltshire's Jane Austen and the Body illuminates.
