Anorexic Austen: Issues of appetite and self-starvation in "Mansfield Park"

Abstract

Self-restriction in women of the nineteenth century manifested in dietary restrictions that paradoxically caused physical trauma while allowing women agency in their own bodies. Jane Austen’s heroines are affected by dietary manipulations at their own hands but none more than Fanny Price of Mansfield Park. Drawing from Anne-Lise François theory of the “open-secret” this thesis argues the paradoxical effects of self-starvation on Fanny Price and the mirroring self-denial of Austen’s narrative style which allowed for both author and character to create their own inhabitable spaces. This theory reflects on acts of self-denial in creating a place of autonomy through regressive actions for women faced with a lack of positive agency.