Well, I think I am finally over him. It took me a long time to realize it (and, isn't that the fabulous thing about Austen? I who have been reading and rereading and rereading this book for at least 13 years or so, finally "got it." Perhaps that isn't the genius of Austen so much as the stupidity of Amanda).
But at any rate, my getting over Mr. Crawford has come on gradually. The time before last I began to notice what a great actor Mr. Crawford is--in the scenes when they are actually acting. Even before Fanny receives any attention from him, she sits, transfixed by his performance of Lover's Vows--and for him, and for Maria Bertram (who eventually leaves her husband to run away with Mr. Crawford), vows really are only a performance--nothing to do with real life.
Anyway, this time through sealed the deal. Early on in the novel, when you are still getting to know Mr. Crawford and Maria, they go to visit Maria's fiance's house (Mr. Rushworth is his name)with a large group of people. I never understood the point of this section until now. In Mr. Crawford 's attempts to "improve" Rushworth's house, they take a tour of the grounds and park with Maria (Fanny is present here to see all of this). At one point, they cannot enter a certain part of the grounds because it is locked behind a gate. Maria sends Mr. Rushworth back to go get the key and he rushes off. But Maria still isn't satisfied.
I'm just going to paste the whole passage in here. Maria is speaking here:
Of course, I'm sure that everyone else who read the book has already figured out that this foreshadowed Maria's eventual vaulting of the restrictions and "hardship" of matrimony, with Mr. Crawford's help and assistance, but I never before realized it so clearly. Fanny is aware of both her and Mr. Crawford's true characters, aware that they would vault the gate and think it not prohibited, and bid goodbye to her despite any potential danger. So, although she may have pretended to have been surprised by their ending, I should not have been, and I let my literary affections get all tangled up.But unluckily that iron gate, that ha-ha, give me a feeling of restraint and
hardship. 'I cannot get out,' as the starling said." As she spoke, and
it was with expression, she walked to the gate: he followed her. "Mr.
Rushworth is so long fetching this key!"
"And for the world you would not get out without the key and without Mr.
Rushworth's authority and protection, or I think you might with little
difficulty pass round the edge of the gate, here, with my assistance;
I think it might be done, if you really wished to be more at large, and
could allow yourself to think it not prohibited."
"Prohibited! nonsense! I certainly can get out that way, and I will.
Mr. Rushworth will be here in a moment, you know; we shall not be out of
sight."
"Or if we are, Miss Price will be so good as to tell him that he will
find us near that knoll: the grove of oak on the knoll."
Fanny, feeling all this to be wrong, could not help making an effort to
prevent it. "You will hurt yourself, Miss Bertram," she cried; "you will
certainly hurt yourself against those spikes; you will tear your gown;
you will be in danger of slipping into the ha-ha. You had better not
go."
Her cousin was safe on the other side while these words were spoken,
and, smiling with all the good-humour of success, she said, "Thank you,
my dear Fanny, but I and my gown are alive and well, and so good-bye."
I still maintain however, that his complexity, his "almost could have been happy" story makes him one of the best-written characters of Austen's novels.
