I don't know anything about Jane Austen stuff, nor do I even know who Fanny is, but you have me VERY invested in her. Every time you post about the bs people are saying about her I'm like "ohmigod, they said WHAT about my girl???? The Slander!!!!!"
Thanks! I'm glad she has your sympathy, despite your not going there :)
The short version is: Fanny Price is the protagonist of Mansfield Park, which takes place in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century. She's from a financially struggling family with a lot of kids, and when she's ten, her rich relatives decide to take her in, ostensibly as a kindness. But they're rather awful to her, with the exception of one cousin whom she forms an extreme attachment to. She gets treated almost like a servant and is constantly being expected to perform gratitude and be "the lowest and least." She's got some kind of chronic illness that limits her activity and often goes disregarded by her family. She's already naturally shy and timid, and by the time she turns eighteen, her confidence and self-esteem are all but nonexistent, and she has learned to be extremely compliant. But she's got a rich inner life (that she doesn't feel she can share with most people), a love of nature and literature, a keen perception of others' natures, and a surprisingly strong moral compass.
The plot of the book is complicated, but at its core, it's about Fanny's coming-of-age, how she develops the inner strength to make and stand by her own choices based on her own principles despite what others want her to do--a feat of immense courage for someone who has been raised and still lives in an emotionally abusive/neglectful environment, in a society that didn't afford women, especially women living in financial dependency on others, much agency. She's a lot more complex and relatably human than most literary critics are willing to give her credit for, and a worthy addition to the interesting and varied array of Austen heroines.