Tom Bertram gives the audience a graphic pictorial of slavery in the film version of Mansfield Park. He has drawn pictures of rape, lynching and Sir Thomas having a sex act performed on himself. One could only wonder why Sir Thomas in the novel, comes back a changed man – more relaxed.
Austen’s novel alludes to slavery without any mention or showing the horrible effects of it. These drawings, very effectively show an evil within an evil.
In the film, Edmund, the clergyman to be, reminds Fanny that she lives off of the profits of slavery, but he does not seem to be troubled by it.
The film does a much better job of showing the ill effects and moral wrong that the novel barely touches.
