How Mansfield Park suggests that love often leads to chaos (Essay Sample)

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Discuss how Mansfield Park by Jane Austen suggests that love often leads to chaos
Love is a complex thing that cannot be explained. The people in love often see different qualities from what other people see in the people they have fallen in love with. This state could best explain the famous quote that love is blind. The same people in love often regret and wonder what they saw in the people they loved after a break-up. Unfortunate situations happen when one party is in love and pursuing another who does reciprocate the feeling. The cases above apply to all types of love, including romantic and family relationships. The novel Mansfield Park written by Jane Austin explores these and more contexts of love. Austen vividly describes how love can lead to chaos using various characters. This essay uses the relationship between Edmund and Fanny, Henry and Maria, Edmund and Mary, Thomas Bertram and Fanny, and Henry and Fanny to support the claim that love often leads to chaos.
Fanny and Edmund’s relationship is chaotic. Fanny is the main character who Austen highlights her developmental story from the age of ten when she moved to live with her uncle Thomas Bertram and aunt Lady Bertram in Mansfield Park when she reaches 18 years. Edmund goes through ridicule and rejection from his family members for being friendly to Fanny against the other family members. Edmund and Fanny’s relationship causes chaos when Edmund, Mr. Crawford, Maria, Miss. Crawford and Mrs. Norris plan to go on barouche box. Maria tells Edmund that she is sure she reserved a place for Fanny, but Mrs. Norris says, “…my dear Edmund, there is no idea of her going with us. She stays with her aunt. I told Mrs. Rushworth so. She is not expected” (p. 62). Edmund reiterated that he would not do without Fanny and would stay behind if she did not come along. This shows that the relationship separated Edmund from his family. They wished they had family love and togetherness, but Edmund dedicated his time and attention to Fanny, a person whose Edmund family members demeaned. Edmund’s father wanted Henry to marry Fanny, further causing chaos in Edmund’s love life. Also, Edmund trained to be a clergyman who was supposed to prioritize his religious role, but his love for Fanny made him lose focus. This relationship between Edmund and Fanny causes too much chaos in the novel.
Henry’s proposal to Fanny jeopardized the relationship between Fanny’s uncle and herself. Henry was a wealthy man, newly promoted at the workplace. Fanny turned down his marriage proposal, infuriating her uncle Thomas Bertram. However, Bertram did not want to show Fanny her frustrations openly. Instead, he planned to send her to her parents, who live in Portsmouth in a deplorable condition. “He certainly wished her to go willingly, but he as certainly wished her to be heartily sick of home before her visit ended; and that a little abstinence from the elegancies and luxuries of Mansfield Park would bring her mind into a sober state and incline her to a juster estimate of the value of that home of greater permanence, and equal comfort, of which she had the offer” (p. 279). According to this excerpt, Mr. Bertram’s intended punishment was to send Fanny away from luxuries found in Mansfield Park and probably show her that she rejected an excellent life with Henry. Therefore, the chaos created here was passive between Fanny and her uncle.
Henry also gets into an affair with Maria, Rushworth’s wife, creating more chaos in the novel. The relationship was secret that Fanny learned about it from the newspaper despite Henry chasing after Fanny and even proposing to her. Rushford learning about the relationship between his wife and Henry, sues Maria for divorce. “Mr. Rushworth had no difficulty in procuring a divorce; and so ended a marriage contracted under such circumstances as to make any better end the effect of good luck not to be reckoned on” (p. 350). The decision to divorce their daughter devastated the Bartram family, causing more chaos in the family relationship and the relationship with Mr. Rushworth. La