As Fanny’s two suitors in the novel, Henry and Edmund become foils for each other. Henry is charming and, over the course of the novel, flirts with all three eligible women at Mansfield Park (Julia, Maria, and Fanny), while Edmund remains faithfully interested in Mary, even when she toys with him because he is not as wealthy as she would want her husband to be.
Ultimately, of course, Edmund ends up with Fanny, but that is only after Mary proves to be selfish and uncaring. By ending his courtship with Mary due to her deficits of character, Edmund proves his integrity to Fanny. Meanwhile, Henry proves his lack of integrity or morality to Fanny by having an affair with her cousin Maria after declaring his faithful and unwavering love for Fanny.
Henry is also playful and rambunctious (enjoying preparing for their performance of the controversial Lovers’ Vows play and reading Shakespeare out loud), whereas Edmund is more serious, taking his position as a clergyman very earnestly.
Overall, Edmund is positioned as more moral and well-mannered than Henry, and ultimately is the right match for Fanny because of this. The one time that Fanny considers Henry to possibly be a good match for her is when he demonstrates that he is able to discuss “serious subjects” without an “air of levity which Edmund knew to be most offensive to Fanny”:
Edmund had already gone through the service once since his ordination; and upon this being understood, he had a variety of questions from [Henry] Crawford as to his feelings and success; questions which being made—though with the vivacity of friendly interest and quick taste—without any touch of that spirit of banter or air of levity which Edmund knew to be most offensive to Fanny […] This would be the way to Fanny’s heart. She was not to be won by all that gallantry and wit, and good nature together, could do; or at least, she would not be won by them nearly so soon, without the assistance of sentiment and feeling, and seriousness on serious subjects.
Though Henry is able to balance playfulness and seriousness in this moment, in the end he is still not as good of a match for Fanny as Edmund is.
As Edmund’s two potential love interests, Fanny and Mary act as foils for each other. Fanny is reserved, anxious, and well-mannered, while Mary is outgoing, charming, and occasionally offensive. This comes across in her suggestion that Tom’s death would be fine since it would guarantee Edmund more money, her “joke” that she would never settle for a dance with a clergyman like Edmund, and in the way that she blames Fanny for Henry and Maria’s affair (saying Fanny should have accepted his marriage proposal and the whole situation could have been averted).
While Henry is initially drawn in by Mary’s charm, he ultimately sees her character flaws and finds solace in Fanny’s moral purity. The narrator captures this when describing Edmund’s feelings in the aftermath of ending his courtship with Mary:
Time would undoubtedly abate somewhat of his sufferings, but still it was a sort of thing which he never could get entirely the better of; and as to his ever meeting with any other woman who could—it was too impossible to be named but with indignation. Fanny’s friendship was all that he had to cling to.
That Fanny and Edmund end up engaged ultimately shows how Austen believed them to be the right match for each other all along.
