Fanny Price’s Dress

Fanny Price’s Dress

Clothing

The Bertram’s give Fanny a new white dress on the occasion of her cousin Maria’s wedding. She next wears the dress to the Grant’s dinner party, the first dinner party she is invited to attend. The dress symbolizes her new status now that Maria and Julia have left Mansfield Park due to Maria’s marriage. Fanny is now “out,” and she begins to receive her due attention. Her family and acquaintances are surprised by how lovely she looks in the dress because she had faded into the background for so many years while her cousins were at home. Because the dress is a gift from Sir Bertram, it also illustrates her depended on the Bertrams for the means to be in fashionable society.

Unknown

Mansfield Park, Jane Austen

Brianna Sumption

Novel