Three Characters Represented Materialism in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park

Abstract

Mansfield Park is a novel written by Jane Austen. It was written in 1811. This novel tells about the life style of English people in 18th Century where the three characters who want to reach their dreams as materialistic people. This thesis uses sociological approach to show the relation between social conditions with literature and to know the influence of the society to the ideology of someone. Furthermore, this thesis applies cultural materialism theory by Raymond Williams to obtain the deep analysis of the influences of society on the three characters ideologies. There are so many materialistic people in this era. It gives bad influence habit of the materialistic person and also the people around the materialistic person. The materialistic person in this era shows that he wants to add his wealth and material possession without considering his ways are right or not such as corruptors. They want to get much money and material possession easily. This condition is my reason to choose Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park because this novel consists of materialistic characters who meet bad life in the end of the novel. This novel shows the impact of materialism to the caracters’s life. Using this thesis, I want show to the reader the dangerous impacts of materialism. So, the people in this world can handle their selves to not to be materialistic people. In order to fully understand I conduct this thesis starts with the general idea about the social condition of the three characters in the novel and goes to specific idea about the relationship between materialism as the ideology of the three characters with the social condition. The result of the research shows that the society influences the three characters to be materialistic characters. They try hard to make themselves rich in order they can reach their happiness. They do everything without thinking about religious value. Therefore, it leads to the understanding that society affects the ideology of the three characters.