“Undiverted Hearts”: Domestic Alienation and Moral Integrity in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and Henry James’s Washington Square

Abstract

My aim in this article is to argue that Henry James’s Washington Square (1880) is an unacknowledged reworking of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (1814). To this purpose, I have analyzed both narratives as fictions of domestic alienation in which the heroines refuse to allow their individuality to be subdued by; (a) patriarchal authority and parental mismanagement; (b) the interferences and meddlings of their manipulative aunts; or (c) the libertine corruption of their deceitful suitors. Although they have been subjected to coercion and manipulation, Fanny Price and Catherine Sloper rebel against the pressures of parental authority and emerge as the true preservers of moral integrity.

Mi objetivo en este artículo es argumentar que Washington Square (1880), de Henry James, es una rescritura no reconocida de Mansfield Park(1814), de Jane Austen. Para ello, he analizado ambas narraciones como ficciones de alienación doméstica en las que las heroínas se niegan a permitir que su individualidad sea subyugada por; (a) la autoridad patriarcal y la mala gestión paternal; (b) las interferencias y las intromisiones de sus manipuladoras tías; o (c) la corrupción libertina de sus engañosos pretendientes. A pesar de haber sido sometidas a coacciones y manipulaciones, Fanny Price y Catherine Sloper se rebelan contra las presiones de la autoridad paterna y emergen como las verdaderas preservadoras de la integridad moral.