Mansfield Park Character Review: Julia Bertram

*The schedule for the Character Review posts will be changing to Friday (or Saturday at the latest from now on).

*Warning: This post contains spoilers about the characters from the novel Mansfield Park. Read at your own risk if you have not read the book or watched any of the adaptations. There is something to be said about a well-written, human character. They leap off the page and speak to us as if they were right in front of us, as flesh and blood human beings, instead of fictional creations.

It’s tough to be the younger sibling. There are often comparisons to the older brother or sister, forcing that person to fight for the attention and energy of their parents and other adults. In Mansfield Park, Julia Bertram is the youngest of the four Bertram children. Forever in the shadow of her elder sister, Maria, she is fighting for the spotlight. This feeling becomes even more complicated with the entrance of Mary and Henry Crawford.

Henry captures the curiosity of the sisters and flirts with both women, even though Maria is engaged. Julia does everything she can to become the sole benefactor of his time, but she is unable to convince him to see her as she would wish him to. This loss becomes even more apparent when her role in the family theatrical is downgraded when compared to the roles that her sister and Mary play.

Heartbroken when Henry leaves without proposing, she joins Maria and her new husband, Mr. Rushworth, on their honeymoon. Unlike her sister, Julia spends less time dwelling on what might have happened with him. When Maria runs away with Henry, the scandal leaves no one in the Bertram family and social circle untouched. Without an emotionally safe home to return to, she does what many women did back then. She marries the first man who pays attention to her, Tom Yates. When we last see her, she is a newlywed, running away from an unhappy home life and her potential fate as a spinster.

To sum it up: Fighting for the limelight in a large family is never easy. Julia Bertram is an example of someone who does everything they can to be seen, but ultimately fails to. Which leads her down a path of a possibly unhappy future, due to the feeling of being ignored in favor of her sister and brothers.

Which is why she is a memorable character.

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