Catherine Driscoll wrote:
>
> Let me put it another way...
>
> how is it that the dependence of MP is 'mutual'?
O.K. I'll calm down, a little. Just a little.
Dependence in mansfield park (the place, the symbol, the institution, the complex of social relations fictionalized, is NOT (repeat NOT) mutual. Mrs Norris is the Guiding Spirit of the place -- & given Sir Thomas's entirely self-regarding satisfaction in the marriage of Fanny & Edward, Lady B's calm readiness to absorb, amoeba-like, Susan's life into her own (this little tidbit could be the source of _The Sacred Fount_), and other details from the narrator's intensified intrusion at the novel's end it is certainly left up for cosideration whether that spirit is really banished along with Mrs N & her niece.
But my arm hurts. Maybe more on another day.
> in what way does that dependence 'define us as human'?
Read Rousseau, _discourse on inequality_. I dont think your vision of us all living likebull elephants in lordly isolation is very attractive. But Gordon's definition of freedom would also be more appropriate to bull elephants than to humans.
Carrol
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
> Date: Saturday, February 17, 2001 1:33 pm
> Subject: Catherine, can't you read? was Re: No Sex Please - We're Post-
> Human!
>
> >
> >
> > Catherine Driscoll wrote:
> > >
> > >> That's my question... what's pleasurable about dependence as
> > articulated in MP?
> > >
> >
> > Exactly -- that is what the book is about --
> > how mansfield park (the place) crushes, poisons,
> > corrupts the sin qua non of human as opposed
> > to merely animal life, the mutual dependency
> > which defines us as human.
> >
> > Carrol
> >