SOURCE: “Incestuous Sibling Relationships: Mansfield Park, Emma and Sense and Sensibility,” in Sibling Love and Incest in Jane Austen's Fiction, Macmillan, 1992, pp. 33-60.

In the following excerpt, Hudson proposes that far from being elegiac and nostalgic, most of Austen's novels conclude with an optimistic expulsion of menacing intruders from the home and family. Hudson maintains that, in Austen's works, incest creates a loving family circle where familial bonds are tightened and strengthened.

Jane Austen's sister Cassandra attempted to persuade her to change the dénouement of Mansfield Park. According to Cassandra, Austen's failure to allow Henry Crawford to marry Fanny, and Fanny's cousin Edmund to marry Mary Crawford, constituted a major flaw in the work.¹ Mansfield Park concludes with the heroine happily securing a place as a member of the family at Mansfield and with the removal of the immoral, unprincipled Crawfords. However, Cassandra Austen's assessment, like that...