Point of View

Mansfield Park is written from the third-person omniscient point of view. Because of this point of view, the reader gets to see what's happening to many different characters without the other characters' knowledge. In third-person narrative, the reader is not as intimately connected with the protagonist as s/he would be if the narrative were written in the first person, but the author's command of letter writing and dialogue is so thorough that the reader often does hear first-person accounts.

The author uses a literary technique in some parts to increase suspense. The point of view is third-person omniscient, meaning the narrator knows more than the characters do. The narrator reveals Henry Crawford's scheme to the reader, so the reader know that Fanny is danger. Fanny, however, has no idea that Henry Crawford is scheming to make her fall in love with him. When Fanny smiles...