Character analysis of the major character in Jane Austen's Mansfield park

ABSTRACT

Character is all of the mental and moral qualities that make a person different from others, expressed in utterance and action. Character, as one of the aspects of a novel, helps the plot grow and develop throughout the story. It is impossible to have a plot without character. By analyzing this novel, we may gain knowledge about the variety of characters of people and the factors that shape them. Therefore, the author was interested in analyzing the character of the major character, Fanny Price in *Mansfield Park*, because Fanny Price was described as having some characteristics that made her an unlikely heroine in her family.

To have a comprehensive understanding of Fanny Price's character and the factors shaping it, the writer formulated two research questions: what kind of characters are used for the major character in *Mansfield Park* and what is the characteristic of the major character in *Mansfield Park*. The objective of this study is to provide descriptions concerning the research questions, which are: to find out the kind of character of the major character used in *Mansfield Park* and to find out the characteristic of the major character in *Mansfield Park*.

The method used in this study is descriptive research, which means that the writer tries to describe the character of Fanny Price through dialogue, phrases, and paragraphs. This study uses a structural approach that focuses only on the specific object in the novel without relating it to any other elements. The data are chiefly collected from the original text of *Mansfield Park* by Jane Austen.

The result of this study reveals that Fanny Price is described as having five characteristics: silent, lacking in self-confidence, priggish, timid, and physically weak.