title: Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton

text: Chamberlain published "Through My Eyes: an autobiography" in 1990. The Chamberlains divorced in 1991. On 20 December 1992, she married Rick Creighton, an American publisher and fellow member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and is now known as Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton. She and Creighton live in Australia. In 2007, Chamberlain spoke out in support of the parents of Madeleine McCann and said she would be willing to talk to the McCanns.


title: Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton

text: In August 2010, on the 30th anniversary of the death of Azaria, Chamberlain appealed on her website to have the cause of death amended on Azaria's death record. In 2012, the coroner's final report identified that a dingo was the cause of death.


title: Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton

text: In the 1983 Australian television movie about the case, "Who Killed Baby Azaria?", Chamberlain was played by Elaine Hudson; the movie aired on Network Ten. In the 1988 film "Evil Angels" (released as "A Cry in the Dark" outside Australia and New Zealand) the role was played by Meryl Streep, whose performance received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in 1989. Miranda Otto played Chamberlain in the 2004 Australian television mini-series "Through My Eyes: The Lindy Chamberlain Story", which aired on the Seven Network.


title: Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton

text: Australian composer Moya Henderson wrote the opera "Lindy" to a libretto by Judith Rodriguez. In 1990, the Rank Strangers' recording of their song "Uluru", which supported the Chamberlains and called for compensation to be paid to them, finished in the final five of the Australian Country Music Awards in Tamworth, New South Wales.


title: Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton

text: In 2021, Australian drag queen Etcetera Etcetera portrayed Chamberlain on the Snatch Game episode of the first series of "RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under". The performance was roundly criticized in the media and by fellow contestants for being in poor taste.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: Tadej Pogačar (; born 21 September 1998) is a Slovenian cyclist who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam . He won the 2020 and 2021 editions of the Tour de France, winning three different jerseys during each Tour, a feat unseen in nearly four decades.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: In 2019, he became the youngest cyclist to win a UCI World Tour race with the Tour of California win at the age of 20. Later in the year, in his debut Grand Tour, Pogačar won three stages of the Vuelta a España en route to an overall third-place finish and the young rider title. In both his Tour de France debut and the following year, he won three stages and the race overall, as well as the mountains and young-rider classifications, becoming the only rider to win these three classifications simultaneously. He is the first Slovenian winner, and, at the age of 21, the second-youngest winner after Henri Cornet, who won in 1904 at the age of 19. He is the first road cyclist in history to break the 6,000-point barrier in UCI World Ranking.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: He has won three one-day Monuments (Liège–Bastogne–Liège once and Giro di Lombardia twice), and has twice won Tirreno-Adriatico.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: In 2021, he also made history when he became the first Tour de France winner to take an Olympic medal in the road race in the same year after he took bronze at the men's road race.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: He is the current men's UCI road racing world No.1 with record 75 weeks in total spending on top of it and record 65 consecutive weeks. He also finished the season as the year-end No.1 in 2021 and 2022.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: Pogačar followed his older brother Tilen in joining the Rog Ljubljana club at the age of nine. In 2011 he came to the attention of Road World Championship medallist Andrej Hauptman, who is as of 2021 his coach and head coach and selector for the Slovenian national cycling team. Hauptman watched Pogačar pursuing a group of much older teenagers from 100 metres behind. Thinking that Pogačar was struggling to keep up with the older riders, he told the race organisers that they should provide some assistance to Pogačar: the organisers explained that the younger rider was in fact about to lap the group he was chasing. Hauptman subsequently managed Pogačar as an under-23 rider with the team, before joining UAE Team Emirates as a "directeur sportif" in May 2019, after Pogačar joined the team.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: Pogačar joined from the 2019 season, a deal that was made ahead of the 2018 Tour de l'Avenir, which he won. He made his debut for the team at the Tour Down Under, where he finished 13th overall. He went on to win the Volta ao Algarve, taking the race lead after winning the second stage. He also placed sixth at the Tour of the Basque Country. In May 2019, he won the Tour of California, becoming the youngest rider to win a UCI WorldTour stage race. He took the race lead after winning the queen stage to Mount Baldy on stage 6. In June, Pogačar won the Slovenian national time trial championship after beating Matej Mohorič by 29 seconds.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: In August, Pogačar was named in the team's startlist for the Vuelta a España, his debut in a Grand Tour. In the first week, he performed strongly, placing himself in the top ten on GC before winning his first Grand Tour stage on the rain-soaked stage to Cortals d'Encamp. The win allowed him to move inside the top five on GC. On stage 13, which finished on the steep climb of Los Machucos, he was the only rider to stay with the race leader and his compatriot, Primož Roglič. Pogačar ended up winning his second stage to move up to third overall, where he stayed heading into the second rest day. After losing time on stage 18, he dropped down to fifth on GC. On the penultimate stage, with one last chance to move up the standings, Pogačar launched an attack, going on an almost solo breakaway. He eventually took his third stage win, winning by more than a minute and a half over the rest of the contenders. The win allowed him to finish the Vuelta in third overall, the final podium position, and giving him the victory in the young rider classification.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: Before the season started, Pogačar announced that he was making his debut at the Tour de France, where he planned on riding in support of Fabio Aru. He made his season debut at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, where he won two stages on his way to winning the race. At the curtailed UAE Tour, he won the fifth stage, which finished atop the Jebel Hafeet, and finishing second to Adam Yates on GC. In March, cycling events were among those postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic. When the season resumed, he took fourth overall in the Critérium du Dauphiné. In the Slovenian national championships, he finished second to Primož Roglič in the road race before defeating him in the time trial, defending his title.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: In the Tour de France, Pogačar quickly demonstrated that he was in better form than Aru, his team's initial leader, after finishing second to Roglič on stage four, which finished atop the climb of Orcières-Merlette. However, he lost almost a minute and a half on stage 7, which was affected by crosswinds. The next day, he began to claw back time when he attacked on the Col de Peyresourde, gaining back 38 seconds over the rest of the contenders. After Aru withdrew on stage 9, Pogacar won the stage to Laruns, his first Tour stage win, by outsprinting Egan Bernal and Roglič, who took the "maillot jaune", as well as Marc Hirschi, who had been on an solo breakaway. On stage 13, which finished atop the steep climb of Puy Mary, he was the only rider to stay with Roglič and moving up to second overall at 44 seconds down. He also took the lead in the young rider classification in the process. Two days later, he outsprinted Roglič at the top of the Col du Grand Colombier to take his second stage of the race.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: At the beginning of the third week, Pogačar sat in second overall at 40 seconds behind Roglič. On stage 17, the queen stage which finished atop the Col de la Loze, he struggled to follow Roglič before eventually losing 17 seconds. Ahead of the penultimate stage, a time trial finishing at La Planche des Belles Filles, Pogačar faced a 57 second deficit to Roglič. At the first time check, he had already managed to claw back 13 seconds from his compatriot. He headed into the final climb with a lead of 36 seconds and a deficit of 21 seconds on the virtual GC. On the climb, Pogačar continued to gradually gain time before going into the virtual "maillot jaune" with left. He eventually took the stage victory, almost a minute and a half ahead of Tom Dumoulin while Roglič finished almost two minutes down. His third stage win of the race, the result meant he took the "maillot jaune" with a lead of 59 seconds on Roglič and also the lead in the mountain classification. The next day, he finished safely in the peloton to officially win the Tour, becoming the first Slovenian winner of the race. At the age of 21, he also became the second youngest winner of the Tour, just behind Henri Cornet, who won the Tour in 1904 at the age of 19. In addition to winning the Tour, he also won the young rider classification as well as the mountains classification. The previous rider to win three jerseys was Eddy Merckx in 1972. He became the twelfth rider to win the Tour de France on his first attempt, and the first since 1983.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: After the Tour, Pogačar competed in the men's road race at the World Championships where he rode in support of Roglič, who eventually finished in sixth place. Three days later, he competed at La Flèche Wallonne where he finished in ninth place. He ended his season at Liège–Bastogne–Liège, where he originally finished in fourth place before moving up to third following Julian Alaphilippe's relegation.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: He started the 2021 season by winning the UAE Tour, Tirreno-Adriatico, Liège-Bastogne-Liège – his first win in a monument and the Tour of Slovenia.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: He began the 2021 Tour de France as one of the pre-race favorites along with Primož Roglič, Geraint Thomas and Richard Carapaz. On stage one he finished with the group of favorites eight seconds behind stage winner Julian Alaphilippe and took the lead in the white jersey classification. Pogačar won the fifth stage, the race's first time trial, finishing 18 seconds ahead of Stefan Küng and taking significant time out of his GC rivals. On stage eight he launched an attack, from more than six minutes behind the breakaway, taking over the yellow jersey with a lead of over four and a half minutes on those considered to be contenders for the overall victory. Pogačar extended his GC lead on the ninth stage to Tignes, responding to an attack by Carapaz on the final climb from the finish and dropping his rivals in the main group, emerging with an overall lead of over two minutes over second placed Ben O'Connor, who had moved up the order after winning the stage from the breakaway.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: Following stage eleven, which included a double ascent of Mont Ventoux, the closest rivals to Pogačar included Rigoberto Uran, Jonas Vingegaard and Carapaz, but all them remained more than five minutes behind. Pogacar had temporarily lost some time to Vingegaard on the final ascent of Ventoux before catching him on the descent to the finish alongside Carapaz and Uran. Pogačar extended his lead further with wins on stages 17 (to the Col de Portet) and 18 (in Luz Ardiden), by which point he had a lead of 5' 45" over Vingegaard and an unassailable lead in the polka dot jersey classification. On the penultimate 20th stage, a time trial between Libourne and Saint-Émilion, Pogačar conceded half a minute to Vingegaard but retained a lead of over five minutes going into the final stage to Champs-Élysées in Paris.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: Pogačar's win made him the youngest cyclist to win consecutive Tours. This was also the second year in a row that he won three distinctive jerseys. Both during and at the end of the Tour there were accusations of doping on social media and in the press due to the dominance Pogačar displayed. When asked about it he answered, "For sure I am not angry about it. They are uncomfortable questions because the [cycling] history was really bad. I totally understand why there are all of these questions."


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: Jonathan Vaughters, the Directeur Sportif of one of the teams who had a GC rider competing against Pogačar, Team , offered an explanation for how Pogačar was able to be so successful on stage eight. He explained that the twin factors of uncharacteristic weather conditions and chaotic, uncontrolled racing dynamics played a part. In addition to this in previous years there was usually a dominant team who would contain the attacks of any riders considered a threat for victory, whether it was Team Ineos, Team Jumbo-Visma or Movistar Team. During the 2021 Tour teams Ineos and Jumbo had both suffered from the first week crashes and Movistar was not as strong as they had been in years past. As such by the time Pogačar launched his attack late in the stage, there were no teams remaining who were strong enough to keep him in check. Vaughters also stated, "Simply put, the race was so aggressive all day long, along with really the race as a whole on the flats, that basically by the time the peloton was taking in the climbs, they were cooked. This was further exacerbated by the wet conditions."


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: After the Tour de France, Pogačar won the bronze medal in the men's road race at the Olympic Games after finishing behind Wout van Aert in the sprint for the silver medal. At the end of July, UAE Team Emirates announced that they had agreed a one year extension to his contract, committing him to the team up to the end of 2027. Pogačar took a break from racing following the Olympics, returning to competition at the Bretagne Classic Ouest–France at the end of August, where he initially managed to follow an attack by Alaphilippe on a gravelled climb 60 km from the finish along with Mikkel Frølich Honoré and Benoît Cosnefroy, but was dropped by the other escapees who went on to take the podium places.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: In September he competed at the European Road Championships in Trentino: in the road race, after a number of breakaways had emerged and been caught by the peloton, he was able to follow an attack by Matteo Trentin to form part of a lead group which expanded to include ten riders, however he was unable to keep pace with a further attack from this group 23 km from the end of the race, with a three-man selection of Remco Evenepoel, Sonny Colbrelli and Cosnefroy dropping their rivals and securing themselves the medals. At the Road World Championships in Flanders later that month, Pogačar finished 37th in the road race.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: He then moved on to Italy in October to compete in the autumn classics held there: although he failed to finish the Giro dell'Emilia, he made an impression at Tre Valli Varesine, animating the race with a long-race attack from 120 km: although he lost contact with the head of the race due to a puncture he won the sprint in the chase group to finish third. At Milano–Torino, Pogačar managed to keep pace with the other favourites for most of the day, emerging from the peloton's fragmentation in crosswinds 65 km from the end as part of a front group which absorbed the day's early breakaway, and remaining in contention for the win until losing contact with Adam Yates and Roglič in the closing kilometres of the final climb up Superga: he subsequently lost the two-up sprint for third place to João Almeida.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: A few days later, Pogačar won his second monument at Il Lombardia, responding to an attack by Vincenzo Nibali by dropping the Italian and the rest of the lead group 30 km from the finish: although he was subsequently joined at the front of the race by Fausto Masnada, Pogačar won the resulting two-man sprint at the finish line. He became the third rider after Fausto Coppi and Eddy Merckx to win two monuments and the Tour in the same year and just fourth rider to win the Tour de France and the Tour of Lombardy in the same season, after Coppi, Merckx and Bernard Hinault, and the first to do so in 42 years.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: As the 2021 offseason began the director of the Giro d'Italia, Mauro Vegni, challenged Pogačar to complete the Giro-Tour Double. Vegni stated, "If I'm not wrong, Pantani was the last. So perhaps it's time for a rider to add their name to the roll of honour." Pogačar did state he plans on attempting to win the Giro at some point in the future, but not in 2022. The only riders to complete any grand tour double since Pantani are Alberto Contador in 2008 and Chris Froome in 2017.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: Pogačar started the season off with victories in the 2022 UAE Tour, the 2022 Strade Bianche and then won two stages and nearly swept every jersey in the 2022 Tirreno-Adriatico, handily defeating Vingegaard and Landa, just missing the mountains jersey to Quinn Simmons.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: To prepare for the Tour de France he rode the 2022 Tour of Slovenia where he dominated the race with ease, to the point he and teammate Rafal Majka played a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors to decide a stage win. Both of them also finished 1st and 2nd in the overall standings ahead of the final podium rider in Domen Novak.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: He started the Tour in good position being the highest ranked GC rider during the opening ITT. On stage 5, which was a difficult stage with several cobbled sections, he gained time on every GC rider. On stage 6 he won the sprint finish convincingly, picking up his first stage win of the Tour while rising to 1st place overall and moving into the yellow jersey. The next day, which concluded with a climb on La Planche des Belles Filles, he won his second stage of the Tour by defeating Vingegaard in the sprint. On stage 8 he fought for another win, but finished behind Van Aert and Matthews, although he gained additional bonus seconds. By this point in the race he was in the top three of every jersey classification. Prior to the race entering the high Alps he nearly lost the overall lead, due to a successful breakaway and protesters disrupting the flow of the race, but retained an +0:11 advantage over Lennard Kamna going into stage 11. Stage 11 was the 21st day Pogačar rode in the yellow jersey putting him one behind all-time greats Greg LeMond, Laurent Fignon and Joop Zoetemelk. He would not tie these riders the next day however, as for the first time in his career he lost considerable time to the other GC riders and dropped to 3rd place overall. After the stage he was interviewed, because he was still the leader in the young rider classification, and did not seem terribly concerned he was now over +2:00 off the race lead. On Alpe d'Huez he attacked several times and over the next few intermediate stages took a few digs at Vingegaard, but was not able to force open any time gaps. He did put some time into the other highest placed GC riders and moved into 2nd place after Alpe d'Huez, where he remained at the start of the final week. He lost his key Lieutenant in Rafal Majka, who DNS due to violently throwing a chain on his bike and suffering an injury which revealed itself the following morning.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: On stage 17 he followed the pace of Brandon McNulty on the final climbs, who broke all of the GC contenders except for Vingegaard. Inside the final 500 meters he attacked, but Vingegaard soon caught him and then launched an attack of his own. Pogačar dug deep and came around him, besting him on the line to take his third stage win of the Tour, however he did not drop the Dane and as a result essentially faced the same deficit going into the penultimate mountain stage. Throughout both of his previous Tour victories and all through the 2022 edition Pogačar had always somehow found a way to avoid major crashes. On stage 18 his luck finally ran out and he crashed before the final climb of Hautacam began. He didn't appear to suffer serious injury and Vingegaard waited a moment for him to catch up, for which Pogačar offered a handshake as he caught back up to him a kilometre later. As the end of the Hautacam neared Vingegaard rode away, putting over another minute into the defending champ, likely creating too great a deficit to be overcome in the final ITT. Pogačar's aggressive sprinting and battles with Vingegaard essentially blew the rest of field apart to the point that he had about a five minute lead on 3rd place Geraint Thomas, and was 2nd in the Points Classification without even targeting the Green Jersey. After the conclusion of the ITT on stage 20 his 2nd place overall was solidified. As was his third consecutive white jersey for best young rider, which tied him with Jan Ullrich and Andy Schleck for the most all time.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: It was confirmed by Director of the Vuelta a España, Javier Guillén, that Pogačar would not be entering the 2022 edition of the race. Instead it was said that Pogačar was going to concentrate on collecting points in other races in the 2022 UCI World Tour.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: While many had been hesitant to make comparisons between Pogačar and Merckx following his first Tour victory, before he even started his second Tour, Cyrille Guimard, a former rival of Merckx and a Directeur Sportif of Greg LeMond, as well as of former Tour champions Van Impe, Fignon and Hinault claimed that Pogačar was above the level of both Merckx and Hinault. Then, following his performance on stage eight, former Tour de France winner Joop Zoetemelk compared the young Slovenian to Merckx. By the end of the race Merckx himself said that he regarded the Slovenian as "the new Cannibal", in reference to his own nickname, also suggesting that "If nothing happens to him, he can certainly win the Tour de France more than five times". After the 2021 Il Lombardia, Merckx said that he has heard plenty of cyclists called "the new Merckx", but none of them ever fulfilled the promise. In Pogačar's case he thinks it is finally true because of the races he has already won. Ernesto Colnago said that, according to his experience, Pogačar will be "the only one following Eddy Merckx".


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: Tadej was born and grew up in Komenda, 20 km north of the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana. His mother Marjeta is a teacher of French and his father Mirko formerly worked in management at a chair factory before joining Tadej's former team as part of their management team in 2021. Tadej is the third of four siblings.


title: Tadej Pogačar

text: Pogačar lives in Monaco with his partner, fellow Slovenian professional cyclist Urška Žigart. They became engaged in September 2021. His role model is Alberto Contador. He was also an admirer of Fränk and Andy Schleck while growing up.


title: Joachim Trier

text: Joachim Trier () (born 1 March 1974) is a Danish-born Norwegian film director, best known for "Oslo, August 31st" (2011), "Louder Than Bombs" (2015), "Thelma" (2017), and "The Worst Person in the World" (2021). For the latter film, he was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay at the 94th Academy Awards, with the film also being nominated for Best International Feature.


title: Joachim Trier

text: His films have been described as "melancholy meditations concerned with existential questions of love, ambition, memory, and identity."


title: Joachim Trier

text: Trier was born in Denmark to Norwegian parents and raised in Oslo, Norway. His father, Jacob Trier, was the sound technician of "The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix", a notable film produced in Norway in 1975. His grandfather was , artistic director of Norsk Film from 1981 to 1983 and also a filmmaker and screenwriter known for such experimental work as his 1972 film "Remonstrance" which was uniquely constructed so that its five reels could be shown in any order, rendering 120 possible versions of its radical story of a film crew trying to make a political film.


title: Joachim Trier

text: As a teenager, Trier was a skateboarding champion who shot and produced his own skateboarding videos. He studied at the European Film College in Ebeltoft, Denmark and at the National Film & Television School in the United Kingdom.


title: Joachim Trier

text: Trier's debut film "Reprise" follows the story of two aspiring writers and their volatile relationship. Released by Miramax in 2006, it received Norway's top film awards, the Amanda Award and the . Internationally, it won prizes at film festivals in Toronto, Istanbul, Rotterdam, Milan, and Karlovy Vary. He was named one of "Variety"'s "10 Directors to Watch" in 2007.


title: Joachim Trier

text: His 2011 film "Oslo, August 31st" premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. The film is regarded as an adaptation of Louis Malle's "The Fire Within". The film received critical acclaim, awards and was featured on several critics' 2012 Top 10 lists.


title: Joachim Trier

text: The director was named as one of the jury members for the "Cinéfondation" and short-film sections of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Joachim Trier

text: In 2015, Trier directed the English-language film "Louder Than Bombs" (2015) starring Jesse Eisenberg, Gabriel Byrne, and Isabelle Huppert. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and was generally well received.


title: Joachim Trier

text: His fourth feature, a supernatural horror-romance called "Thelma", was screened at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and was selected as the Norwegian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, held in 2018.


title: Joachim Trier

text: In 2018, he co-directed, with his brother, Emil, a 55-minute documentary, "The Other Munch", featuring the writer, Karl Ove Knausgård, curating, with Kari Brandtzaerg, "To the Forest", an exhibition of paintings by Edvard Munch at Oslo's Munch Museum. Joachim Trier and Knausgård visit locations from Munch's life, discuss his works, themes, obsessions, and process. The Trier brothers connect Knausgård's unorthodox interpretation of Munch to Knausgård's literary works, in a portrait of both artists.


title: Joachim Trier

text: "When I was invited to curate the exhibition, I proposed that we make a film to coincide with it."—Karl Ove Knausgård


title: Joachim Trier

text: In 2018, he served as the Jury President of the Semaine de la Critique at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Joachim Trier

text: On July 7, 2021, "The Worst Person in the World" premiered to high acclaim in the Palme d'Or competition at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, where star Renate Reinsve won the Best Actress award. The film was selected as the Norwegian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards.


title: Joachim Trier

text: In 2012, Trier participated in the Sight & Sound critics' poll where he listed his 10 favorite films in alphabetical order:


title: Cheri Oteri

text: Cheryl Ann Oteri () is an American actress and comedian. A nominee of a Primetime Emmy Award, Oteri is known for her work on the sketch-comedy show "Saturday Night Live", on which she was a regular cast member from 1995 to 2000.


title: Cheri Oteri

text: After moving to Los Angeles at age 25, Oteri worked at A&M Records for four years and eventually joined famed comedy troupe The Groundlings. In 1995, producers of "Saturday Night Live" ("SNL") attended a performance with the intention of auditioning fellow Groundlings member Chris Kattan. Oteri performed a monologue during one of Kattan's costume changes, which led to her own invitation to audition for "SNL", along with Kattan and fellow Groundling Will Ferrell. She was hired as a repertory performer in September 1995 as part of an almost entirely new cast, which was brought in after the show's disastrous 1994–1995 season.


title: Cheri Oteri

text: Celebrities that Oteri impersonated included Alanis Morissette, Barbara Walters, Cyndi Lauper, Mariah Carey, Marla Maples, Debbie Reynolds, Jennifer Lopez, Lisa Marie Presley Ross Perot, Jennifer Tilly, Paula Jones, Tori Spelling, Melanie Chisholm, Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Aniston, Fran Drescher and Katie Couric.


title: Cheri Oteri

text: Oteri has appeared in a number of movies, including "Scary Movie", "Inspector Gadget", "Liar Liar", "", "Shrek the Third" and "Southland Tales".


title: Cheri Oteri

text: She starred in two TV pilots that did not make it to air: "Loomis" and "With You in Spirit". Shows on which she made guest appearances include "Just Shoot Me!", "Strangers with Candy". She portrayed Martine, the emotionally unstable nanny on "Curb Your Enthusiasm".


title: Cheri Oteri

text: In 2009, Oteri became a regular voice cast in the Fox animated comedy series, "Sit Down, Shut Up". She voices Helen Klench, the unappreciated librarian who often gets mistaken for objects, such as brooms or toilet brushes. The series premiered on April 19, 2009 and moved to Comedy Central in May 2010.


title: Cheri Oteri

text: Oteri played a tooth fairy on Imagination Movers, a regular on the Playhouse Disney block. She starred in the AMC web series "Liza Life Coach" in 2010. Oteri appeared in the pilot episode of "Glory Daze", which premiered on TBS on November 16, 2010. She hosted AXS TV's "Gotham Comedy Live" on May 26, 2016, in New York City.


title: Cheri Oteri

text: Cheri is an occasional guest on Jeff Lewis' talk radio show on Radio Andy, the Andy Cohen channel on SiriusXM.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: The Iron Lady is a 2011 biographical drama film based on the life and career of Margaret Thatcher, a British politician who was the longest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the office. The film was directed by Phyllida Lloyd and written by Abi Morgan. Thatcher is portrayed primarily by Meryl Streep, and, in her formative and early political years, by Alexandra Roach. Thatcher's husband, Denis Thatcher, is portrayed by Jim Broadbent, and by Harry Lloyd as the younger Denis. Thatcher's longest-serving cabinet member and eventual deputy, Geoffrey Howe, is portrayed by Anthony Head.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: Despite the film's mixed reception, Streep's performance was widely acclaimed. She received her 17th Oscar nomination for her portrayal and ultimately won the award for the third time, 29 years after her second Oscar win. She also earned her third Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama award (her eighth Golden Globe Award win overall), and her second BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. The film also won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and the BAFTA Award for Best Makeup and Hair.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: The film was loosely based on John Campbell's biography "The Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher, from Grocer's Daughter to Prime Minister".


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: The story begins with Thatcher in the present, then in a series of flashbacks, the audience is presented with a young Margaret Roberts working at the family grocer's shop in Grantham, listening to the political speeches of her father, whom she idolised it is also hinted that she had a poor relationship with her mother, a housewife. We learn she has won a place at Oxford University, revealing her struggle, as a young lower-middle-class woman, attempting to break into a snobbish male-dominated Conservative Party and find a seat in the House of Commons, along with businessman Denis Thatcher's marriage proposal to her. Her struggles to fit in as a "Lady Member" of the House, and as Education Secretary in Edward Heath's Cabinet are also shown, as are her friendship with Airey Neave, her decision to stand for Leader of the Conservative Party, her eventual victory, including her voice coaching and image change.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: Further flashbacks examine historical events during her time as Prime Minister, after winning the 1979 general election, including the rising unemployment related to her monetarist policies and the tight 1981 budget (over the misgivings of "wet" members of her Cabinet – Ian Gilmour, Francis Pym, Michael Heseltine, and Jim Prior), the 1981 Brixton riot, the 1984–1985 UK miners' strike, and the bombing in Brighton of the Grand Hotel during the 1984 Conservative Party Conference, when she and her husband were almost killed. Also shown is her decision to retake the Falkland Islands following the islands' invasion by Argentina in 1982, the sinking of the ARA "General Belgrano" and Britain's subsequent victory in the Falklands War, her friendship with U.S. President Ronald Reagan and emergence as a world figure, and the economic boom of the late 1980s.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: By 1990, Thatcher is shown as an imperious but aging figure, ranting aggressively at her cabinet, refusing to accept that the "Poll Tax" is unjust, even while it is causing riots, and fiercely opposed to European integration. Her deputy, Geoffrey Howe, resigns after being humiliated by her in a cabinet meeting, Heseltine challenges her for the party leadership, and her loss of support from her cabinet colleagues leaves her little choice but reluctantly to resign as Prime Minister after eleven years in office. A teary-eyed Thatcher exits 10 Downing Street for the last time as Prime Minister with Denis comforting her. She is shown as still disheartened about it almost twenty years later.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: Eventually, Thatcher is shown packing up her late husband's belongings, and telling him it's time for him to go. Denis' ghost leaves her as she cries that she actually is not yet ready to lose him, to which he replies "You're going to be fine on your own... you always have been" before leaving forever. Having finally overcome her grief, she contentedly washes a teacup alone in her kitchen.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: In preparation for her role, Streep sat through a session at the House of Commons in January 2011 to observe British MPs in action. Extensive filming took place at the neogothic Manchester Town Hall.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: Streep said: "The prospect of exploring the swathe cut through history by this remarkable woman is a daunting and exciting challenge. I am trying to approach the role with as much zeal, fervour and attention to detail as the real Lady Thatcher possesses I can only hope my stamina will begin to approach her own."


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: NPR commentator Robert Seigel and Thatcher biographer John Campbell accused writer Abi Morgan and star Meryl Streep of having the most say in the film's production and dictating some historical inaccuracies, such as the film's photography showing no other woman serving in the House of Commons during the time Thatcher was serving, with the hopes of presenting a different image of Thatcher to the film's American audience.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: It is suggested in the film that Thatcher had said goodbye to her friend Airey Neave only a few moments before his assassination by the Irish National Liberation Army, and had to be held back from the scene by security officers. In fact, she was not in Westminster at the time of his death and was informed of it while carrying out official duties elsewhere.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: The film does not portray any other female MPs in Parliament. In fact, during Thatcher's time in Parliament, the total number of female MPs ranged between 19 and 41. Additionally, her cabinets are always depicted as all-male, but The Baroness Young, who served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and later Lord Privy Seal, was a cabinet member between 1981 and 1983, while also serving as leader of the House of Lords.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: The Labour Party leader Michael Foot is depicted as a critic of the decision to send a task force to the Falkland Islands, and Thatcher is shown admonishing him in the wake of Britain's victory over Argentina. In fact, Foot supported the decision to send a task force, something for which Thatcher expressed her appreciation. John Campbell noted that her decisions in office became an inspiration for the Labour Party's pro-middle ground policies enacted when Tony Blair served as Prime Minister.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: Campbell also noted that while Thatcher thought the House of Commons was dominated by a patronising male environment, and that the film showed the representation from her point of view, it did not encourage her to maintain the upper middle class image she used early in her political career as the film suggests and that Thatcher did in fact exploit the fact that she was raised by a grocer in a small Lincolnshire town and had a very ordinary background when she was running for leader of the Conservative Party.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: Thatcher's staunch opposition to the 1990 reunification of Germany is not mentioned. The Prime Minister had felt that reunification might pave the way for the expansion of Nazi sympathy, and distrusted the West German government.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: "The Iron Lady" received mixed reviews from critics, although there was strong praise for Streep's performance. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 52% and an average score of 5.70/10, based on 234 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "Meryl Streep's performance as "The Iron Lady" is reliably perfect, but it's mired in bland, self-important storytelling." At Metacritic, the film has a score of 54 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: The film's depiction of Thatcher has been criticised by her children, Mark and Carol, who are reported to have said, before completion of the film, that "it sounds like some left-wing fantasy." Stuart Jeffries of the British newspaper "The Guardian" was cautiously optimistic about a non-British actor playing Thatcher. Karen Sue Smith of "America" wrote that "by combining the Baroness's real roles of wife, mother and leader, the film's portrait of her does what many purported 'lives of great men' fail to do – namely, show the person in context, in the quotidian."


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: "The Daily Telegraph" reported in January 2012 that "it is impossible not to be disturbed by [Streep's] depiction of Lady Thatcher's decline into dementia" as part of an article that was headlined: ""The Iron Lady" reflects society's insensitive attitude towards people with dementia." Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four, praising Streep's performance but lamenting that "she's all dressed up with nowhere to go" in a film that cannot decide what it wants to say about Thatcher: "Few people were neutral in their feelings about her, except the makers of this picture."


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: Despite the film's mixed reviews, Streep's performance in the title role garnered much critical acclaim. Kevin Maher of "The Times" said: "Streep has found the woman within the caricature." David Gritten in "The Daily Telegraph" commented: "Awards should be coming Streep's way; yet her brilliance rather overshadows the film itself." Xan Brooks of "The Guardian" said Streep's performance "is astonishing and all but flawless". Richard Corliss of "Time" named Streep's performance one of the Top 10 Movie Performances of 2011.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: Streep's portrayal ultimately won her the Academy Award for Best Actress (her 17th nomination and third award overall), as well as several other awards, including the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama. The film also won the Academy Award for Best Makeup.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: In an interview with the BBC, then Prime Minister David Cameron described Streep's performance as "great" and "fantastic" but opined that the filmmakers should have waited before making the movie and focused more on Thatcher's time in office rather than her personal life and struggles with dementia. Former Conservative Party chairman Norman Fowler was more critical of the film and stated "She [Thatcher] was never, in my experience, the half-hysterical, over-emotional, over-acting woman portrayed by Meryl Streep." Thatcher's Home secretary Douglas Hurd described the dementia storyline as "ghoulish" in an interview with the "Evening Standard."


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: Thatcher stated before her death on 8 April 2013 that she did not watch films or programmes about herself.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: The film grossed $30 million in the North American market, and $85 million in other markets, for a worldwide gross of $115 million.


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: The trailer for the film features Madness's ska/pop song "Our House". The teaser trailer features Clint Mansell's theme tune for the science-fiction film "Moon".


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: "The Iron Lady" was released on DVD in the United States and the United Kingdom on 30 April 2012. The special features in the DVD include "Making The Iron Lady, Bonus Featurettes, Recreating the Young Margaret Thatcher, Battle in the House of Commons, Costume Design: Pearls and Power Suits, Denis: The Man Behind the Woman".


title: The Iron Lady (film)

text: "The Vagenda" was a feminist online magazine launched in January 2012; it used the tagline "Like King Lear, but for girls," taken from "Grazia" magazine's summary of "The Iron Lady".


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: Roswell () is a city in, and the seat of, Chaves County in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Chaves County forms the entirety of the Roswell micropolitan area. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 48,422, making it the fifth-largest city in New Mexico. It is home of the New Mexico Military Institute (NMMI), founded in 1891. The city is also the location of an Eastern New Mexico University campus. Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge is located a few miles northeast of the city on the Pecos River. Bottomless Lakes State Park is located east of Roswell on US 380.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: The Roswell incident was named after the town, though the crash site of the alleged UFO was some from Roswell and closer to Corona. The investigation and debris recovery was handled by the local Roswell Army Air Field. On the 50th anniversary of the Roswell UFO incident the UFO Festival was started.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: In the 1930s, Roswell was a site for much of Robert H. Goddard's early rocketry work. The Roswell Museum and Art Center maintains an exhibit that includes a recreation of Goddard's rocket engine development workshop. One of the town high schools, Goddard High School, is named after Robert H. Goddard.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: Roswell's tourism industry is based on aerospace engineering and ufology museums and businesses, as well as alien-themed and spacecraft-themed iconography. The city also relies on New Mexico and Americana related tourism. New Mexican cuisine restaurants, such as Martin's Capitol Café, are located near downtown on Main Street, near the International UFO Museum and Research Center. Local American folk and New Mexico music performances occur near Pioneer Plaza and in parks around the city. It is a center for acequia-like irrigated farming, dairying, and ranching; it is also the location of several manufacturing, distribution, and petroleum related facilities. This regional pride has resulted in Roswell receiving the All-America City Award multiple times, in 1978–79 and 2002.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: The first non-indigenous settlers of the area around Roswell were a group of pioneers from Missouri, who attempted to start a settlement southwest of what is now Roswell in 1865, but were forced to abandon the site because of a lack of water. It was called Missouri Plaza. It also had many Hispanic people from Lincoln, New Mexico. John Chisum had his famous Jingle Bob Ranch about from the center of Roswell, at South Spring Acres. At the time, it was the largest ranch in the United States.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: Van C. Smith, a businessman from Omaha, Nebraska, and his partner, Aaron Wilburn, constructed two adobe buildings in 1869 that began what is now Roswell. The two buildings became the settlement's general store, post office, and sleeping quarters for paying guests. In 1871, Smith filed a claim with the federal government for the land around the buildings, and on August 20, 1873, he became the town's first postmaster. Smith was the son of Roswell Smith, a prominent lawyer in Lafayette, Indiana, and Annie Ellsworth, daughter of U.S. Patent Commissioner Henry Leavitt Ellsworth. He called the town Roswell, after his father's first name.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: In 1877, Captain Joseph Calloway Lea and his family bought out Smith and Wilburn's claim and became the owners of most of the land of Roswell and the area surrounding it. The town was relatively quiet during the Lincoln County War (1877–1879). A major aquifer was discovered when merchant Nathan Jaffa had a well drilled in his back yard on Richardson Avenue in 1890, resulting in the area's first major growth and development spurt. The growth continued when the Pecos Valley Railroad arrived in 1892.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: During World War II, a prisoner-of-war camp was located in nearby Orchard Park. The German prisoners of war were used to do major infrastructure work in Roswell, such as paving the banks of the North Spring River. Some POWs used rocks of different sizes to create the outline of an iron cross among the stones covering the north bank. Later, the iron cross was covered with a thin layer of concrete. In the 1980s, a crew cleaning the river bed cleared off the concrete and revealed the outline once more. The small park just south of the cross was then known as Iron Cross Park. On November 11, 1996, the park was renamed POW/MIA Park. The park displays a piece of the Berlin Wall, presented to the city of Roswell by the German Air Force.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: Roswell was a location of military importance from 1941 to 1967. In 1967, the Walker Air Force Base was decommissioned. After the closure of the base, Roswell capitalized on its pleasant climate and reinvented itself as a retirement community.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: Roswell has benefited from interest in the alleged UFO incident of 1947. It was the report of an object that crashed in the general vicinity in June or July 1947, allegedly an extraterrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s, the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of a conspiracy theory regarding a classified program named "Project Mogul". Many UFO proponents maintain that an alien craft was found and its occupants were captured, and that the military then engaged in a cover-up. In recent times, the business community has deliberately sought out tourists interested in UFOs, science fiction, and aliens.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: Roswell is located in the High Great Plains of southeastern New Mexico, approximately west of the Pecos River and some east of highlands that rise to the Sierra Blanca range. U.S. Routes 70, 285 and 380 intersect in the city. US 70 leads northeast to Clovis and west to Alamogordo; US 285 leads north to Santa Fe and south to Carlsbad; and US 380 leads east to Brownfield, Texas, and west to Socorro.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, Roswell has a total area of , of which is land and , or 0.19%, is covered by water.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: Roswell is located in both the High Plains and the Chihuahuan Desert and has four very distinct seasons, giving it a "BSk" or "BSh" semiarid climate according to the Köppen climate classification. Winters are cool, but usually sunny, and snowfall can occur. Spring is mild and usually warm, but can still be cold on occasion. Summers are very hot (as is common with the High Plains of New Mexico and Colorado) and averages around 30 days per year when the temperature rises above , which can be unpleasant. The North American monsoon occurs during the summer, and can bring torrential downpours, severe thunderstorms (with high winds and hail) and sometimes even tornadoes. The rain can provide a cooling relief from the scorching great plains heat. Fall is usually warm and pleasant, but can be cold late in the season. Snow is possible in October and November.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: The record low in Roswell is on January 11, 1962, and February 8, 1933. The record high is on June 27, 1994.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: As of the 2010 census, 48,366 people, in 17,506 households, resided in the city. The population density was 1,619.9 people per square mile (604.3/km). The racial makeup of the city was 58.3% Hispanics or Latinos, 36.5% White, 2.0% Native American, 1.8% African American, 1.3% Asian, and 2.3% from two or more races.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: In the city, the population was distributed as 26.5% under 18, while 15.6% were 65 years of age or older.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: The median income for a household in the city was $43,372, and per capita income was $22,119 (2015–2019 in 2019 dollars). In 2019, 19.7% of the population were living below the poverty line.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: The Roswell Invaders play in the Pecos League of professional baseball clubs. The Invaders wear lime-green uniforms to represent the city's extraterrestrial connections. Home games are played at the Joe Bauman Ballpark.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: Previously, Roswell was home to the Roswell Giants (1923), Roswell Sunshiners (1937), Roswell Rockets (1949–1956), and Roswell Pirates (1959), who played in the Panhandle-Pecos Valley League (1923), West Texas-New Mexico League (1937), Longhorn League (1949–1955), Southwestern League (1956), and Sophomore League (1959).


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: Joe Bauman hit a minor-league record 72 home runs for the 1954 Roswell Rockets. Overall, Bauman hit .400 with 72 home runs and 224 RBI, 150 walks and 188 runs in the 1954 season. Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Willie Stargell played for the 1959 Roswell Pirates. Roswell was an affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1959.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: Roswell is home to Leprino Foods, one of the world's largest mozzarella factories. It is also the location of the former Transportation Manufacturing Corporation factory, best known for producing various iterations of the RTS city bus since 1987. The factory was operated by Nova Bus from 1994 to 2003 and subsequently by Millennium Transit Services.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: Roswell's tourism industry is based on aerospace engineering and ufology museums and businesses, as well as alien-themed and spacecraft-themed iconography.


title: Roswell, New Mexico

text: The Roswell Museum maintains an exhibit that includes a recreation of Goddard's rocket engine development workshop, as well as a planetarium and a collection of fine art. The Roswell Artist-in-Residence (RAIR) program has an associated museum, the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art which features more than 200 artists in the collection.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Mansfield Park is the third published novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1814 by Thomas Egerton. A second edition was published in 1816 by John Murray, still within Austen's lifetime. The novel did not receive any public reviews until 1821.


title: Mansfield Park

text: The novel tells the story of Fanny Price, starting when her overburdened family sends her at the age of ten to live in the household of her wealthy aunt and uncle and following her development into early adulthood. From early on critical interpretation has been diverse, differing particularly over the character of the heroine, Austen's views about theatrical performance and the centrality or otherwise of ordination and religion, and on the question of slavery. Some of these problems have been highlighted in the several later adaptations of the story for stage and screen.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Fanny Price, at the age of ten, is sent from her impoverished home in Portsmouth to live with the family at Mansfield Park, the Northamptonshire country estate of Sir Thomas Bertram. Lady Bertram is her aunt. The Bertrams have four children – Tom, Edmund, Maria and Julia – who are all older than Fanny. There she is mistreated by all but Edmund. Her other aunt, Mrs Norris, the wife of the clergyman at the Mansfield parsonage, makes herself particularly unpleasant to Fanny.


title: Mansfield Park

text: When Fanny is fifteen, Aunt Norris is widowed and the frequency of her visits to Mansfield Park increases, as does her mistreatment of Fanny. A year later, Sir Thomas leaves to deal with problems on his plantation in Antigua, taking his spendthrift eldest son Tom. Mrs Norris, looking for a husband for Maria, finds Mr Rushworth, who is rich but weak-willed and considered stupid. Maria accepts his proposal for his money.


title: Mansfield Park

text: The following year, Henry Crawford and his sister, Mary, arrive at the parsonage to stay with their half-sister, the wife of the new incumbent, Dr Grant. With their fashionable London ways, they enliven life in Mansfield. Edmund and Mary then start to show interest in one another.


title: Mansfield Park

text: On a visit to Mr Rushworth's estate, Henry flirts with both Maria and Julia. Maria believes Henry is in love with her and so treats Mr Rushworth dismissively, provoking his jealousy, while Julia struggles with jealousy and resentment towards her sister. Mary is disappointed to learn that Edmund will be a clergyman and tries to undermine his vocation. Fanny fears that Mary's charms are blinding Edmund to her flaws.


title: Mansfield Park

text: After Tom returns, he encourages the young people to begin rehearsals for an amateur performance of the play "Lovers' Vows". Edmund objects, believing Sir Thomas would disapprove and feeling that the subject matter of the play is inappropriate for his sisters. But after much pressure, he agrees to take on the role of the lover of the character played by Mary. The play provides further opportunity for Henry and Maria to flirt. When Sir Thomas arrives home unexpectedly, he finds the play still in rehearsal; it is cancelled. Henry departs without explanation and Maria goes ahead with marriage to Mr Rushworth. They then settle in London, taking Julia with them. Sir Thomas sees many improvements in Fanny and Mary Crawford initiates a closer relationship with her.


title: Mansfield Park

text: When Henry returns, he decides to entertain himself by making Fanny fall in love with him. Fanny's brother William visits Mansfield Park, and Sir Thomas holds what is effectively a coming-out ball for her. Although Mary dances with Edmund, she tells him it will be the last time, as she will never dance with a clergyman. Edmund drops his plan to propose and leaves the next day. So do Henry and William.


title: Mansfield Park

text: When Henry next returns, he announces to Mary his intention to marry Fanny. To assist his plan, he uses his family connections to help William achieve promotion. However, when Henry proposes marriage, Fanny rejects him, disapproving of his past treatment of women. Sir Thomas is astonished by her continuing refusal, but she does not explain, afraid of incriminating Maria.


title: Mansfield Park

text: To help Fanny appreciate Henry's offer, Sir Thomas sends her to visit her parents in Portsmouth, where she is taken aback by the contrast between their chaotic household and the harmonious environment at Mansfield. Henry visits, but although she still refuses him, she begins to appreciate his good features.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Later, Fanny learns that Henry and Maria have had an affair that is reported in the newspapers. Mr Rushworth sues Maria for divorce, and the Bertram family is devastated. Tom meanwhile falls gravely ill as a result of a fall from his horse. Edmund takes Fanny back to Mansfield Park, where she is a healing influence. Sir Thomas realises that Fanny was right to reject Henry's proposal and now regards her as a daughter.


title: Mansfield Park

text: During a meeting with Mary Crawford, Edmund discovers that Mary's only regret is that Henry's adultery was discovered, rather than the actual adultery. Devastated, he breaks off the relationship and returns to Mansfield Park, where he confides in Fanny. Eventually the two marry and move to Mansfield parsonage. Meanwhile, those left at Mansfield Park have learned from their mistakes and life becomes pleasanter there.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Although "Mansfield Park" was initially ignored by reviewers, it was a great success with the public. The first printing in 1814 sold out within six months. The second in 1816 also sold out. The first critical review in 1821 by Richard Whately was positive.


title: Mansfield Park

text: At first, critics praised the novel's wholesome morality. The Victorian consensus treated Austen's novels as social comedy. In 1911, A. C. Bradley restored the moral perspective, praising "Mansfield Park" for being artistic while having "deeply at heart the importance of certain truths about conduct". The influential Lionel Trilling (1954), and later Thomas Tanner (1968), maintained emphasis on the novel's deep moral strength. Thomas Edwards (1965) argued that there were more shades of grey in "Mansfield Park" than in her other novels, and that those who craved a simple dualist worldview might find this off-putting. In the 1970s, Alistair Duckworth (1971) and Marilyn Butler (1975) laid the foundation for a more comprehensive understanding of the novel's historical allusions and context.


title: Mansfield Park

text: By the 1970s, "Mansfield Park" was considered Austen's most controversial novel. In 1974, the American literary critic, Joel Weinsheimer, described "Mansfield Park" as perhaps the most profound of her novels, certainly the most problematic.


title: Mansfield Park

text: The American scholar John Halperin (1975) was particularly negative, describing "Mansfield Park" as the "most eccentric" of Austen's novels and her greatest failure. He attacked the novel for what he saw as its inane heroine, its pompous hero, a ponderous plot, and "viperish satire". He described the Bertram family as appalling characters, full of self-righteousness, debauchery and greed, personal financial advantage being their only interest. He complained that the scenes set in Portsmouth were far more interesting than those in Mansfield Park, and that having consistently portrayed the Bertram family as greedy, selfish and materialistic, Austen, in the last chapters, presented life at Mansfield Park in idealised terms.


title: Mansfield Park

text: The latter part of the twentieth century saw the development of diverse readings, including feminist and post-colonial criticism, the most influential of the latter being Edward Said's "Jane Austen and Empire" (1983). While some continued to attack, and others to praise the novel's conservative morality, yet others saw it as ultimately challenging formal conservative values in favour of compassion and a deeper morality, and posing an ongoing challenge to subsequent generations. Isobel Armstrong (1988) argued for an open understanding of the text, that it should be seen as an exploration of problems rather than a statement of final conclusions.


title: Mansfield Park

text: To Susan Morgan (1987), "Mansfield Park" was the most difficult of Austen's novels, featuring the weakest of all her heroines yet one who ends up the most beloved member of her family.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Readings by the beginning of the 21st century commonly took for granted "Mansfield Park" as Austen's most historically searching novel. Most engaged with her highly sophisticated renderings of the character's psychological lives and with historical formations such as Evangelicalism and the consolidation of British imperial power.


title: Mansfield Park

text: In 2014, celebrating the passing of 200 years since the novel's publication, Paula Byrne wrote: "Ignore its uptight reputation, Mansfield Park ... seethes with sex and explores England's murkiest corners". She called it pioneering for being about meritocracy. In 2017, Corinne Fowler revisited Said's thesis, reviewing its significance in the light of more recent critical developments in imperial history.


title: Mansfield Park

text: The novel has many autobiographical associations; some of these are indicated in the following sections about critical discussions of important themes. Austen drew considerably on her own experience and the knowledge of her family and friends. Her acute observation of human behaviour informs the development of all her characters. In "Mansfield Park", she continues her practice, like that of the portrait miniaturist, painting on ivory "with so fine a brush". Apart from a day's visit to Sotherton and three months' confinement in Portsmouth, the novel's action is restricted to a single estate, yet its subtle allusions are global, touching on India, China and the Caribbean.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Austen knew Portsmouth from personal experience. She records that Admiral Foote, then Second-in-Command at Portsmouth, was "surprised that I had the power of drawing the Portsmouth-Scenes so well". Her brother, Charles Austen served as a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic Wars. In the novel, Fanny's brother William joins the Royal Navy as an officer, whose ship, HMS "Thrush", is sited right next to at Spithead. Captain Austen commanded HMS "Cleopatra" during her cruise in North American waters to hunt French ships from September 1810 to June 1811. If the novel refers to the ship in its historical context, this would date the main events of the novel as 1810–1811. William's tales of his life as a midshipman recounted to the Bertrams would have indicated to early readers that he had sailed with Nelson to the Caribbean. Lady Bertram requests two shawls if he goes to the East Indies.


title: Mansfield Park

text: William gives Fanny the gift of an amber cross. This echoes the gift of topaz crosses given by Charles Austen to his sisters before he set sail to the Royal Navy's North America stations in Halifax and Bermuda. In Fanny's East room, Edmund speculates from her reading that she will be 'taking a trip into China' in the footsteps of Lord Macartney's pioneering cultural mission.


title: Mansfield Park

text: The first critic to draw attention to the novel's extensive use of symbolic representation was Virginia Woolf in 1913. Three overtly symbolic events are: the visit to neighbouring Sotherton and the ha-ha with its locked gate (ch. 9–10), the extensive preparation for the theatricals and its aftermath (ch. 13–20), and the game of Speculation (ch. 25) where, says David Selwyn, the card game is a "metaphor for the game Mary Crawford is playing, with Edmund as stake". 'Speculation' also references Sir Thomas's unpredictable investments in the West Indies and Tom's gambling which causes financial embarrassment to Sir Thomas and reduced prospects for Edmund, not to mention the speculative nature of the marriage market. Also to be found are underlying allusions to Biblical themes of temptation, sin, judgement and redemption. The 'keys' to these are found at Sotherton. Felicia Bonaparte argues that in a striking post modern way, Fanny Price is a realistic figure, but also a figure in a design. She sees Fanny as the 'pearl of great price' in the parable of the Kingdom recorded in Matthew 13:45-46, the 'kingdom' relating to both contemporary society and a kingdom yet to be revealed.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Nina Auerbach (1980), identifying with the ambivalence experienced by many readers, asks "how ought we to feel about Fanny Price?"


title: Mansfield Park

text: Austen's mother thought Fanny insipid, though other unpublished private reviewers liked the character (Austen collected comments by those in her social circle). Many have seen Fanny Price as a nineteenth century "Cinderella".


title: Mansfield Park

text: A major debate concerns whether or not the character of Fanny is meant to be ironic, a parody of the wholesome heroines so popular in Regency novels. Lionel Trilling (1957) maintained that Austen created Fanny as "irony directed against irony itself". William H. Magee (1966) wrote that "irony pervades, if (it) does not dominate, the presentation of Fanny Price". By contrast, Andrew Wright (1968) argued that Fanny "is presented straight-forwardly, without any contradiction of any kind".


title: Mansfield Park

text: Thomas Edwards (1965) regarded Fanny as the most vulnerable of all the Austen heroines and therefore the most human. He argued that even Fanny's limited morality had much to commend it. Austen biographer Claire Tomalin (1997) argues that Fanny rises to her moment of heroism when she rejects the obedience that, as a woman, she has been schooled to accept and follows the higher dictate of her own conscience.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Clara Calvo (2005) says that many modern readers find it difficult to sympathise with Fanny's timidity and her disapproval of the theatricals, finding her "priggish, passive, naive and hard to like". Priggishness has been a longstanding criticism of Austen's heroine. Wiltshire (2005) challenges the negative judgement of Fanny suggesting that it is the "apparent" conservatism of the novel that makes it confronting, and that "many readers cannot get past it".


title: Mansfield Park

text: Tomalin sees Fanny as a complex personality who, despite her frailty, shows courage and grows in self-esteem during the latter part of the story. Her faith, which gives her the courage to resist what she thinks is wrong, sometimes makes her intolerant of the sinners. Fanny, always self-reflective, is intolerant of her own intolerance. Change in her character is most marked during her three months exposure to Portsmouth life. Initially, shocked by the coarseness and impropriety of her parental home and its neighbourhood, she condemns it. Her father's attitude is one that modern readers might also condemn, given the tone of incestuous sexual harassment in a man who scarcely notices her except "to make her the object of a coarse joke". While now recognising she can never be at home in Portsmouth, she gradually overcomes her acknowledged prejudices, recognises the distinctive qualities of her siblings, and works hard not to cause offence. In the wider community, judgement is more even-handed; Fanny does not take to the young ladies of the town and they, offended by the 'airs' of one who neither plays on the pianoforte nor wears fine pelisses, do not take to her. She comes to see that part of her physical frailty stems from the debilitating effect of the internal arguments, conversations and identifications that sap her energy.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Auerbach suggests that Fanny, as the quiet observer, adopts "the audience's withering power over performance". She says, "our discomfort at Fanny is in part our discomfort at our own voyeurism", and that we implicate ourselves as well as Fanny "in a community of compelling English monsters".


title: Mansfield Park

text: Paula Byrne (2014) says, "At the centre of the book is a displaced child with an unshakeable conscience. A true heroine."


title: Mansfield Park

text: Fanny is unique amongst the Austen heroines in that her story begins when she is ten and traces her story up to age eighteen. Byrne says, ""Mansfield Park" is perhaps the first novel in history to depict the life of a little girl from within". By the beginning of the 21st century, says John Wiltshire, critics, appreciating Austen's highly sophisticated renderings of her character's psychological lives, now understood Fanny, formerly seen as the principled pivot of moral right (celebrated by some critics, berated by others) as "a trembling, unstable entity, [an] erotically driven and conflicted figure, both victim and apostle of values inscribed within her by her history of adoption". Joan Klingel Ray suggests that Fanny is Austen's insightful study of "the battered-child syndrome", a victim of emotional and material abuse in both households. From early on she is seen as mentally and physically fragile, a little girl with low self-esteem, vulnerable and thin-skinned. The rock on which she stands, enabling her to survive, is the love of her older brother William. At Mansfield, her cousin Edmund gradually takes on a similar role; both young men fulfil the essential role of care-giver left vacant by the adults. The East room, which Fanny gradually appropriates, becomes her safe place, her "nest of comforts" to which, though unheated, she retreats in times of stress. Here she reflects on her sufferings; the misunderstanding of her motives, her disregarded feelings, and her understanding undervalued. She considers the pain of tyranny, ridicule and neglect, but concludes that nearly every incident led to some benefit and the chief consolation had always been Edmund.


title: Mansfield Park

text: The trauma of her dislocation at the age of ten is recalled by Fanny eight years later when she is promised a visit to her birth family. "The remembrance of all her earliest pleasures, and of what she had suffered in being torn from them, came over her with renewed strength, and it seemed as if to be at home again would heal every pain that had since grown out of the separation." The pain of separation is as evident as is the idealisation of her former life at Portsmouth, an idealisation that masks the deeper pain of an abandonment soon to be acknowledged. John Wiltshire, returning to the theme in 2014, describes Fanny as "a heroine damaged early by her upbringing, as well as by her quasi-adoption, who experiences intense conflict between gratitude to her adoptive family and the deepest rebellion against them", a rebellion scarcely conscious.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Negative criticism of Fanny sometimes identifies with that voiced by characters in the novel. For some early feminists, Fanny Price was close to being considered, as she was by Mrs Norris, "the daemon of the piece". Many have despised her as "creepmouse", as her cousin Tom does.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Margaret Kirkham (1983) in her essay "Feminist Irony and the Priceless Heroine of Mansfield Park" argued that Austen was a feminist writer who liked complexity and humour and enjoyed presenting puzzles for her readers. Many have missed the feminist irony of the character of Fanny. Austen was a feminist in the sense that she believed women were as endowed with reason and common sense as men, and that the ideal marriage should be between two people who love each other. Ironically, the love match portrayed between Fanny's parents is far from ideal.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Kirkham sees "Mansfield Park" as an attack on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's popular 1762 work, "Emile, or On Education", which depicted the ideal woman as fragile, submissive, and physically weaker than men. Rousseau stated: "So far from being ashamed of their weakness, they glory in it; their tender muscles make no resistance; they affect to be incapable of lifting the smallest burdens, and would blush to be thought robust and strong." The contemporary philosopher, Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote at length against Rousseau's views in "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman". She also challenged followers of Rousseau like James Fordyce whose sermons had long been a part of a young woman's library.


title: Mansfield Park

text: At the beginning of the novel, Fanny, with her constant illnesses, timid disposition, submissiveness and fragility, conforms outwardly to Rousseau's ideal woman. Subversively, her passivity is primarily that of a victim determined to survive, the result of the trauma of her dislocation and the internal complexities of her mental well-being. The once beautiful aunt Bertram, in her indolence and passivity, also satirises the stereotype. In the end, Fanny survives by unwittingly undermining prevailing attitudes to propriety as she finds the strength to place conscience above obedience and love above duty. Fanny's refusal to capitulate to Sir Thomas' wish that she marry Henry Crawford is seen by Kirkham as the moral climax of the novel. Through her deep-seated integrity and compassion, her reason and common sense, she is able to triumph, thus challenging the prevailing ideal of femininity (and propriety) in Regency England.


title: Mansfield Park

text: The American literary critic Harold Bloom calls Fanny Price "a co-descendant, together with Locke's association-menaced will, of the English Protestant emphasis upon the will's autonomy".


title: Mansfield Park

text: He draws attention to C. S. Lewis's observation that "into Fanny, Jane Austen, to counterbalance her apparent insignificance, has put really nothing except rectitude of mind, neither passion, nor physical courage, nor wit, nor resource". Bloom agrees with Lewis but argues that he misses the importance of Fanny's "will to be herself" as a causal agent in the plot. Bloom argues that paradoxically it is Fanny's lack of the "will to dominate" that enables her 'will' to succeed. Her struggle just to be herself causes her to exercise moral influence, and this leads her to triumph in the end.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Nina Auerbach recognises an extraordinary tenacity in Fanny "with which she adheres to an identity validated by none of the conventional female attributes of family, home, or love". By so doing, Fanny "repudiates the vulnerability of the waif to the unlovable toughness of the authentic transplant". Fanny emerges from the isolation of the outcast, becoming instead the conqueror, thus "aligning herself rather with the Romantic hero than with the heroine of romance".


title: Mansfield Park

text: To Auerbach, Fanny is a genteel version of a popular archetype of the Romantic age, "the monster", who by the sheer act of existing does not and cannot ever fit into society. In this interpretation, Fanny has little in common with any other Austen heroine, being closer to the brooding character of Hamlet, or even the monster of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (published only four years later). Auerbach says there is "something horrible about her that deprives the imagination of its appetite for ordinary life and compels it toward the deformed, the dispossessed".


title: Mansfield Park

text: Auerbach argues that Fanny defines herself best in assertive negatives. Fanny's response to the invitation to take part in "Lovers' Vows" is, "No, indeed, I cannot act." In life she rarely acts, only counteracts, watching the world around her in silent judgement. Fanny is "a woman who belongs only where she is not". Her solitude is her condition, not a state from which she can be rescued. "Only in Mansfield Park does Jane Austen force us to experience the discomfort of a Romantic universe presided over by the potent charm of a heroine who was not made to be loved." Auerbach's analysis seems to fall short when Fanny finally experiences the love of her adopted family and, despite its traumas, achieves a sense of home.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Alistair Duckworth noted that a recurring theme in Austen's novels is the way the condition of the estates mirrors that of their owners. The very private landscape (and house) of Mansfield Park is only gradually revealed, unlike transparent Sotherton where the reader is given an introduction to its environs by Maria, a tourist's introduction to the house by Mrs Rushworth, and finally a tour of the estate guided by the serpentine wanderings of the young people.


title: Mansfield Park

text: The theme of country in conflict with city recurs throughout the novel. Symbolically, life-renewing nature is under attack from the artificial and corrupting effects of city society. Canadian scholar David Monaghan draws attention to the rural way of life which, with its careful respect for the order and rhythm of times and seasons, reinforces and reflects the values of "elegance, propriety, regularity, harmony". Sotherton with its carefully maintained avenue of trees is Austen's reminder of the organic principles which form the basis of society. Austen portrays Mr Rushworth and Sir Thomas as landed gentry who are unable to appreciate the principles that lie beneath received standards, consequently leaving "landed society ... ripe for corruption". Henry Crawford, as an absentee landlord, is portrayed as having no moral appreciation at all.


title: Mansfield Park

text: On a visit to London in 1796, Austen wrote jokingly to her sister, "Here I am once more in this Scene of Dissipation & vice, and I begin already to find my Morals corrupted." Through the Crawfords the reader is given glimpses of London society. They represent London's money-grubbing, vulgar middle class, the opposite of Austen's rural ideal. They come from a world where everything is to be got with money, and where impersonal crowds have replaced peace and tranquillity as the social benchmarks. Austen gives further glimpses of London society when Maria is married and gains what Mary Crawford describes as "her pennyworth", a fashionable London residence for the season. For Monaghan, it is Fanny alone who senses the moral values that lie beneath the old unfashionable manners. It falls to her to defend the best values of English society, despite in many ways being unequipped for the task.


title: Mansfield Park

text: At Sotherton, Mr. Rushworth considers employing popular landscape improver, Humphry Repton, his rates being five guineas a day. Repton had coined the term "landscape gardener" and also popularised the title "Park" as the description of an estate. Austen is thought to have based her fictional Sotherton partly on Stoneleigh Abbey which her uncle, Rev Thomas Leigh, inherited in 1806. On his first visit to claim the estate, he took Austen, her mother, and her sister with him. Leigh, who had already employed Repton at Adlestrop, now commissioned him to make improvements at Stoneleigh where he redirected the River Avon, flooded a section of the land to create a mirror lake, and added a bowling green lawn and cricket pitch.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Over family dinner, Mr Rushworth declares that he will do away with the great oak avenue that ascends half a mile from the west front. Mr Rushworth misunderstands Repton. In his book, Repton writes cautiously of 'the fashion ... to destroy avenues', and he parodies fashion that is merely doctrinaire. Rushworth's conversation follows closely that of Repton's parody. Fanny is disappointed and quotes Cowper, valuing what has emerged naturally over the centuries. David Monaghan (1980) contrasts Fanny's perspective with that of the others: materialistic Mary Crawford thinks only of the future, willing to accept any improvements money can buy as long as she does not have to experience present inconvenience, and Henry lives for the present moment, solely interested in playing the role of improver. Introverted and reflective Fanny, alone, can hold in her mind the bigger picture of past, present and future.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Henry Crawford is full of his own ideas for improvements when exploring Sotherton's landscape. He is described as the first to go forward to examine the 'capabilities' of the walled garden near the wilderness, hinting at ironic comparison with Repton's celebrated predecessor, Lancelot "Capability" Brown.


title: Mansfield Park

text: The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) are part of the novel's hidden background. Calvo, quoting Roger Sales, says "Mansfield Park" can be read as a Condition-of-England novel that 'debates topical issues such as the conduct of the war and the Regency crisis'. Duckworth (1994) believes that Austen took the landscaping symbol from Edmund Burke's influential book, "Reflections of the Revolution in France" (1790). Burke affirmed the beneficial "improvements" which are part of conservation, but decried malign "innovations" and "alterations" to society which led to the destruction of heritage. Duckworth argues that "Mansfield Park" is pivotal to an understanding of Austen's views. Estates, like society, might be in need of improvements, but the changes allegedly advocated by Repton were unacceptable innovations, alterations to the estate that, symbolically, would destroy the entire moral and social heritage. Austen, aware of the fragility of a society uninformed by responsible individual behaviour, is committed to the inherited values of a Christian humanist culture.


title: Mansfield Park

text: The French Revolution was in Austen's view an entirely destructive force that sought to wipe out the past. Her sister-in-law, Eliza, was a French aristocrat whose first husband, the Comte de Feullide, had been guillotined in Paris. She fled to Britain where, in 1797, she married Henry Austen. Eliza's account of the Comte's execution left Austen with an intense horror of the French Revolution that lasted for the rest of her life.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Warren Roberts (1979) interprets Austen's writings as affirming traditional English values and religion over against the atheist values of the French Revolution. The character of Mary Crawford whose 'French' irreverence has alienated her from church is contrasted unfavourably with that of Fanny Price whose 'English' sobriety and faith leads her to assert that "there is something in a chapel and chaplain so much in character with a great house, with one's idea of what such a household should be". Edmund is depicted as presenting the church as a force for stability that holds together family, customs and English traditions. This is contrasted with Mary Crawford's attitude whose criticism of religious practice makes her an alien and disruptive force in the English countryside.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Juliet McMaster argued that Austen often used understatement, and that her characters disguise hidden powerful emotions behind apparently banal behaviour and dialogue. This is evident during the visit to Sotherton where Mary Crawford, Edmund Bertram and Fanny Price debate the merits of an ecclesiastical career. Though the exchanges are light-hearted, the issues are serious. Edmund is asking Mary to love him for who he is, while Mary indicates she will only marry him if he pursues a more lucrative career in the law.


title: Mansfield Park

text: To subtly press her point, Austen has set the scene in the wilderness where their serpentine walk provides echoes of Spencer's "The Faerie Queene" and the "serpentining" pathways of the Wandering Wood. Spencer's "Redcrosse Knight" (the novice knight who symbolises both England and Christian faith) is lost within the dangerous and confusing Wandering Wood. The knight nearly abandons Una, his true love, for Duessa, the seductive witch. So too, Edmund (the would-be Church of England minister) is lost within the moral maze of Sotherton's wilderness.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Others have seen in this episode echoes of Shakespeare's "As You Like It". Byrne sees a more direct link with regency stage comedy with which Austen was very familiar, in particular George Colman and David Garrick's highly successful play, "The Clandestine Marriage" (inspired by Hogarth's series of satirical paintings, "Marriage A-la-Mode"), which had a similar theme and a heroine called Fanny Sterling. (Sir Thomas later praises Fanny's "sterling" qualities.)


title: Mansfield Park

text: Byrne suggests that the "serpentine path" leading to the ha-ha with its locked gate at Sotherton Court has shades of Satan's tempting of Eve in the Garden of Eden. The ha-ha with its deep ditch represents a boundary which some, disobeying authority, will cross. It is a symbolic forerunner of the future moral transgressions of Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford. Colleen Sheehan compares the scenario to the Eden of Milton's "Paradise Lost", where the locked iron gates open onto a deep gulf separating Hell and Heaven.


title: Mansfield Park

text: 'Wilderness' was a gardening term used to describe a wooded area, often set between the formal area around the house and the pastures beyond the ha-ha. At Sotherton, it is described as "a planted wood of about two acres ...[and] was darkness and shade, and natural beauty, compared with the bowling-green and the terrace." The alternative meaning of wilderness as a wild inhospitable place would have been very familiar to Austen's readers from several uses in the King James Version of the Bible, such as the account of the testing of the Israelites through the wilderness - John Chapter 3 links this story ("as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness ...") with redemption through Jesus.


title: Mansfield Park

text: The characters themselves exploit Sotherton's allegorical potential. When Henry, looking across the ha-ha, says, "You have a very smiling scene before you", Maria responds, "Do you mean literally or figuratively?" Maria quotes from Sterne's novel "A Sentimental Journey" about a starling that alludes to the Bastille. She complains of being trapped behind the gate that gives her "a feeling of restraint and hardship". The dialogue is full of double meanings. Even Fanny's warnings about spikes, a torn garment and a fall subtly suggest moral violence. Henry insinuates to Maria that if she "really wished to be more at large" and could allow herself "to think it not prohibited", then freedom was possible. Shortly after, Edmund and Mary are also "tempted" to leave the wilderness.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Later in the novel, when Henry Crawford suggests destroying the grounds of Thornton Lacy to create something new, his plans are rejected by Edmund, who insists that although the estate needs some improvements, he wishes to preserve what has been created over the centuries. In Austen's world, a man truly worth marrying enhances his estate while respecting its tradition: Edmund's reformist conservatism marks him out as a hero.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Jocelyn Harris (2010) views Austen's main subject in "Mansfield Park" as the moral and social status of theatricality, a controversy as old as the stage itself. Some critics have assumed that Austen intended the novel to promote anti-theatrical views, possibly inspired by the Evangelical movement. Harris says that, whereas in "Pride and Prejudice" Austen shows how theatricality masks and deceives in daily life, in "Mansfield Park" "she interrogates more deeply the whole remarkable phenomenon of plays and play-acting".


title: Mansfield Park

text: Returning unexpectedly from his plantations in Antigua, Sir Thomas Bertram discovers the young people rehearsing a production of Elizabeth Inchbald's "Lovers' Vows" (adapted from the German August von Kotzebue). Scandalized, he halts the play and burns the rehearsal scripts. Fanny Price is astonished that the play was ever thought appropriate, and considers the two leading female roles as "totally improper for home representation—the situation of one, and the language of the other so unfit to be expressed by any woman of modesty".


title: Mansfield Park

text: Claire Tomalin (1997) says that "Mansfield Park", with its moralist theme and criticism of corrupted standards, has polarised supporters and critics. It opposes a vulnerable young woman with strong religious and moral principles against a group of worldly, cultivated, well-to-do young people who pursue their pleasure and profit without principle.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Jonas Barish, in his seminal work, "The Antitheatrical Prejudice" (1981), adopts the view that by 1814 Austen may have turned against theatre following a supposed recent embracing of evangelicalism. Austen certainly read and, to her surprise, enjoyed Thomas Gisborne's "Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex", which stated categorically that theatricals were sinful, because of their opportunities for "unrestrained familiarity with persons of the other sex". She may well have read William Wilberforce's popular evangelical work that challenged the decadence of the time and also expressed strong views about theatre and its negative influence on morality.


title: Mansfield Park

text: However, Tomalin argues that Austen is not known to have condemned plays outside "Mansfield Park". Austen was an avid theatregoer and a critical admirer of the great actors. In childhood her family had embraced the popular activity of home theatre. She had participated in full-length popular plays (several written by herself) performed in the family dining room at Steventon (and later in the barn), supervised by her clergyman father. Many elements observed by the young Austen during family theatricals are reworked in the novel, including the temptation of James, her recently ordained brother, by their flirtatious cousin Eliza.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Paula Byrne (2017) records that only two years before writing "Mansfield Park", Austen had played with great aplomb the part of Mrs Candour in Sheridan's popular contemporary play "The School for Scandal". Her correspondence shows that she and her family continued as enthusiastic theatre-goers. Byrne also argues that Austen's novels, particularly "Mansfield Park", show considerable theatricality and dramatic structure which makes them particularly adaptable for screen representation. Calvo sees the novel as a rewrite of Shakespeare's "King Lear" and his three daughters, with Fanny as Sir Thomas's Regency Cordelia.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Eight chapters discuss anti-theatrical prejudice from shifting points of view. Edmund and Fanny find moral dilemmas, and even Mary is conflicted, insisting she will edit her script. However, theatre as such is never challenged. The questions about theatrical impropriety include the morality of the text, the effect of acting on vulnerable amateur players, and performance as an indecorous disruption in a respectable home. Fanny's anti-theatrical viewpoint goes back as far as Plato, and continued to find expression into the 20th century.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Austen's presentation of the intense debate about theatre tempts the reader to take sides and to miss the ambiguities. Edmund, the most critical voice, is actually an enthusiastic theatre-goer. Fanny, the moral conscience of the debate, "believed herself to derive as much innocent enjoyment from the play as any of them". She thought Henry the best actor of them all. She also delighted in reading Shakespeare aloud to her aunt Bertram.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Stuart Tave emphasises the challenge of the play as a test of the characters' commitment to propriety. The priggish Mrs. Norris sees herself as the guardian of propriety. She is trusted as such by Sir Thomas when he leaves for Antigua, but fails completely by allowing the preparation for "Lovers' Vows". Edmund objects to the play, believing it somehow improper, but fails to articulate the problem convincingly. His intense objection to an outsider being brought in to share in the theatricals is not easy for the modern reader to understand. Mr Rushworth's view, that "we are a great deal better employed, sitting comfortably here among ourselves, and doing nothing", is affirmed only by Sir Thomas himself.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Fanny alone understands the deepest propriety; she knows from her penetrating observations of the household that the acting will dangerously inflame the emotions of the actors, but she lacks the strength to persuade the others. During rehearsals, Fanny observes the ongoing flirtation between Henry and the about-to-be-married Maria, "Maria acted well, too well." She also sees the sexual tension and attraction between Edmund and Mary as they play the part of the two lovers. This fills her with misery but also jealousy. Later, Mary describes to Fanny her favorite episode, playing the dominant role of Amelia with Edmund as Anhalt her besotted admirer. "I never knew such exquisite happiness ... Oh! it was sweet beyond expression."


title: Mansfield Park

text: Tave points out that, in shutting down "Lovers' Vows", Sir Thomas is expressing his hidden hypocrisy and myopia. His concern is with an external propriety, not the principles that motivate moral behaviour. He is content to destroy the set and props without considering what had led his children to put on such a play. Only later does he come to understand his shortcomings as a parent.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Another classical anti-theatrical theme is the need for sincerity in everyday life, avoiding pretence and hypocrisy. Fanny is often criticised because she 'does not act', but beneath her timid surface is a solid core.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Henry Crawford, the life of any party, is constantly acting; he has many personas but no firm character or stable principles. Thomas Edwards says that even when Henry tries to please Fanny by denouncing acting during a discussion about Shakespeare, he is still performing. He measures his every word and carefully watches the reaction on her face. He is a man who constantly reinvents himself in the pattern of those around him: he considers a career as a minister after encountering Edmund, and as a sailor after meeting William. At Sotherton, Henry acts the part of a landscape improver, a role he later reprises for Thornton Lacey, though he lacks the consistency to manage effectively his own Norfolk estate. At the first suggestion of a theatre at Mansfield Park, Henry, for whom theatre was a new experience, declared he could undertake "any character that ever was written". Later still, in reading "Henry VIII" aloud to Lady Bertram, Henry impersonates one character after another, even impressing the reluctant Fanny with his skill. When Henry unexpectedly falls in love with Fanny, he enthusiastically acts out the part of devoted lover, but even the hopeful Sir Thomas recognises that the admirable Henry is unlikely to sustain his performance for long.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Edwards suggests that the inherent danger of "Lovers' Vows" for the young actors is that they cannot distinguish between acting and real life, a danger exposed when Mary says, "What gentleman among you am I to have the pleasure of making love to?"


title: Mansfield Park

text: David Selwyn argues that the rationale behind Austen's apparent anti-theatricality is not evangelicalism but its symbolic allusion to Regency political life. "Mansfield Park" is a book about the identity of England. Tom, whose lifestyle has imperilled his inheritance, and the playboy Henry are Regency rakes, intent on turning the family estate into a playground during the master's absence. If the Regent, during the King's incapacity, turns the country into a vast pleasure ground modelled on Brighton, the foundations of prosperity will be imperilled. To indulge in otherwise laudable activities like theatre at the expense of a virtuous and productive life leads only to unhappiness and disaster.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Following the publication of "Pride and Prejudice," Austen wrote to her sister, Cassandra, mentioning her proposed Northamptonshire novel. "Now I will try to write of something else; it shall be a complete change of subject: Ordination." Trilling believed Austen was making ordination the subject of "Mansfield Park;" Byrne argues (as do others) that although this is based on a misreading of the letter, "there is no doubt that Edmund's vocation is at the centre of the novel". Decadence in the Georgian church had been seriously challenged over several decades by the emerging Methodist movement that had only recently seceded from the mother church, and also by the parallel Evangelical movement that stayed within it. Brodrick describes the Georgian church as "strenuously preventing women from direct participation in doctrinal and ecclesiastical affairs". However, disguised within the medium of the novel, Austen has succeeded in freely discussing Christian doctrine and church order, another example of subversive feminism.


title: Mansfield Park

text: In several set pieces, Austen presents debates about significant challenges for the Georgian church. She discusses clerical corruption, the nature of the clerical office and the responsibility of the clergyman to raise both spiritual awareness and doctrinal knowledge. Topics range from issues of personal piety and family prayers to problems of non-residence and decadence amongst the clergy. Dr Grant, who has the living at Mansfield, is portrayed as a self-indulgent clergyman with very little sense of his pastoral duties. Edmund, the young, naive, would-be ordinand, expresses high ideals, but needs Fanny's support both to fully understand and to live up to them.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Locations for these set pieces include the visit to Sotherton and its chapel where Mary learns for the first time (and to her horror) that Edmund is destined for the church; the game of cards where the conversation turns to Edmund's intended profession, including conversations about Thornton Lacey, Edmund's future 'living'.


title: Mansfield Park

text: Austen often exposed clergy corruption through parody. Although Mary Crawford's arguments with Edmund Bertram about the church are intended to undermine his vocation, hers is the voice that constantly challenges the morality of the Regency church and clergy. Edmund attempts its defence without justifying its failures. On the basis of close observations of her brother-in-law, Dr Grant, Mary arrives at the jaundiced conclusion that a "clergyman has nothing to do, but be slovenly and selfish, read the newspaper, watch the weather and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work and the business of his own life is to dine."


title: Mansfield Park

text: In the conversation at Sotherton, Mary applauds the late Mr Rushworth's decision to abandon the twice daily family prayers, eloquently describing such practice as an imposition for both family and servants. She derides the heads of households for hypocrisy in making excuses to absent themselves from chapel. She pities the young ladies of the house, "starched up into seeming piety, but with heads full of something very different—specially if the poor chaplain were not worth looking at". Edmund acknowledges that long services can be boring but maintains that without self-discipline a private spirituality will be insufficient for moral development. Although Mary's view is presented as a resistance to spiritual discipline, there were other positive streams of spirituality that expressed similar sentiments.