Description

Writing a century later than Jane Austen Whitbys work examines many of the same themes women and marriage concepts of honor and pride passion and love and selfsacrifice In The Awakening of Mary Fenwick we find a nave young woman who has been raised in a sheltered and isolated home by a grieving father Mary calm and responsible is contrasted with her younger sister Cicely whose birth resulted in the death of her mother Cicely is a freer spirit and her exuberance and the painful association with his wifes death leads the father to send her off to Paris to be raised by an aunt