Jane Austen is known for her diverse collection of complex, well-rounded heroines. From the spirited Elizabeth Bennet to the passionate Marianne Dashwood, every reader has a favorite. But what about Austen’s more unsung protagonists? Fanny Price from Mansfield Park and Anne Elliot from Persuasion are the meekest of Austen’s canon, standing in stark contrast to the vibrant, personable women of the other books. Incidentally, these novels are also among the least adapted to film, and recent adaptations of both made considerable changes to the characters, completely altering the story’s original intention.
So, who are Fanny and Anne, really? And why do modern adaptations seem so opposed to allowing their softer, quieter selves to exist?
Introducing the Real Fanny Price
Published in 1814, Mansfield Park is perhaps the most controversial of Jane Austen’s novels, at least with modern audiences. Born to a large and impoverished family, Fanny Price is sent away at ten years old to live with her wealthy cousins, the Bertrams, in Mansfield Park. Fanny is mistreated by all the Bertrams, apart from Edmund, with whom she forms an attachment. The young, sheltered Fanny is guided by her deeply ingrained sense of morality and looks down on the careless actions of the Bertrams, namely Maria and Julia, and their acquaintances, Henry and Mary Crawford. The tone of Mansfield Park is considerably more somber than Austen’s other works, and due to Fanny’s passive nature, the story lacks some of the pomp and excitement found in the endless balls and parties of other stories like Pride and Prejudice.
Fanny is notoriously despised by many Austen fans, likely due to her piety. However, this is a rather harsh reading of this character. Fanny’s story is almost Dickensian, what with her humble beginnings and abusive childhood. It seems obtuse to expect Fanny to be a bright, bubbling girl like Emma Woodhouse. Her passivity and quiet nature are understandable, given the troubles she has lived through, and her story, though not as romantic or comedic as some of Austen’s others, still deserves to be told truthfully.
1999’s Mansfield Park Transforms Fanny Price Into Lizzie Bennet
Screen adaptations of Mansfield Park are few and far between, but the most famous iteration by far is the 1999 film. To call this movie an adaptation of Jane Austen’s book is a bit of a stretch. The director made considerable changes to the story, and their interpretation of Fanny is nothing like what you find on the page. Instead, Fanny Price is portrayed as a wild, bookish girl, more like Lizzie Bennet than her actual book counterpart.
This, of course, was by design. In a 2000 interview, director and screenwriter Patricia Rozema does not hide her disdain for poor Fanny Price. At one point, she even says, “I couldn’t figure out why [Jane Austen] would write a character that was annoying.” Rozema admitted that she chose to include elements of Jane Austen’s actual life story into this version of Fanny, pointing to her obvious preference for the author over the character. Her cavalier attitude begs the question: why adapt this story in the first place?
Though Rozema acknowledges the book’s merits — praising basically everything except Fanny — she fails to recognize that this “quivering and shy” character, as she calls her, serves an important function in the narrative. Austen intentionally contrasts Fanny’s demure morality with the raucous, loose attitudes of the Crawfords and the harsher members of the Bertram family. Without this key difference, the story loses its intellectual edge.
From Fanny Price to Anne Elliot
Fanny Price isn’t the only Austen heroine to be forsaken by a sloppy adaptation; Persuasion’s Anne Elliot is another unfortunate victim. Published posthumously, Persuasion is the mature, romantic tale of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth. The softspoken Anne was convinced to give up her engagement to the dashing Wentworth when she was 19 years old, due to his lack of wealth and social standing. When, eight years later, the two are thrown together again, both are given a second chance at love and the opportunity to heal the wounds from the past. Similar to Mansfield Park, Persuasion also has a more serious tone, and Anne’s shyness leaves the majority of the narrative to her inner thoughts.
Unlike Fanny, Anne is considerably more well-liked among Austen fans. Her subdued nature is seen less as an irritation and more as a relatable quality. Readers grant more compassion to Anne, possibly due to her older age and kind heart. It is interesting that more sympathy is extended to Anne over Fanny, given that their backstories are very similar, with Anne having also grown up in an abusive, neglectful household. Perhaps, at 15, Fanny’s youth and naïveté make audiences bristle more at her rigidity, whereas Anne’s maturity and reflection on her strict past leave more room for pathos.
2022’s Persuasion Turns Anne Elliot Into a Quirky Wine Aunt
Seriously, though — what was Netflix thinking? The 2022 adaptation of Persuasion takes great liberties with Austen’s novel, including using modern slang like “exes,” or “empath,” or “he’s a ten.” The result is a jumbled, confusing mess. Rather than the stifled, heartbroken woman seen in the novel, this version of Anne is socially awkward and never far from a wine bottle. There seems to be this inclination to make her relatable by transforming her into a modern rom-com protagonist, who has more in common with the Sex and the City crowd than the Austen landscape.
In an interview with IndieWire, director Carrie Cracknell defended her changes to the beloved novel. She said that she aimed to inject more “comic energy” into the production — an odd choice indeed for one of Jane Austen’s more serious tales. While Anne Elliot is by no means stodgy, “witty” would not be the first word most readers would use to describe her. When Dakota Johnson’s Anne brazenly clowns at the breakfast table or drunkenly spews an inappropriate story at dinner, you can’t help but cringe at the grave misinterpretation of her character.
Anne Elliot is a wallflower who has been passed over by everyone in her family. She is not meant to be noticed; the great tragedy, from the reader’s perspective, is that this brilliant, feeling woman is ignored again and again. The only person who always takes notice of Anne is Captain Wentworth, and their love confession notably happens quietly in the background. If Anne is the center of attention, even if it’s due to embarrassing behavior, it robs the story of this crucial element. She gives voice and hope to quieter, more reserved individuals, who are often not granted great love stories like hers in mainstream media.
In a world oversaturated with bold characters, Fanny Price and Anne Elliot offer much-needed representation to the introverts of the world. A quiet persona does not equal a boring character, and Hollywood should stop operating as though this were true. If we turn every Austen heroine into a counter-culture Lizzie Bennet, then what is the point of adapting anything other than that story? While, unfortunately, no definitive Mansfield Park adaptation exists, the closest version to the book would be the 1983 BBC mini-series. For a faithful Persuasion movie, look no further than the phenomenal 1995 production.
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Find the rest of Jane Austen’s collection on our Classics bookshelf on Bookshop.
