The young people exploit Sotherton's allegorical potential, particularly in the garden and the wilderness.Edwards (JSTOR) p. 53-54 Henry, looking across the locked gate by the ha-ha says, "You have a very smiling scene before you". Maria responds, "Do you mean literally or figuratively?" She complains of being trapped behind the gate and having "a feeling of restraint and hardship".Austen, Jane. Mansfield Park, ch 10 (Kindle Location 1344-1349). The dialogue is full of innuendo. Fanny, also present, urges Maria not to climb the gate, warning of spikes, a torn garment and a fall, all unconsciously suggestive of moral violence.Edwards, Thomas (1965) “The Difficult Beauty of Mansfield Park.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 53-54.  www.jstor.org/stable/2932492 (Also in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, New York: Chelsea House, 1987)Edwards (JSTOR) p. 53-54 Lucy Worsley calls this Austen's most striking incidence of phallic symbolism.Worsley, Lucy (2017) Jane Austen at Home: A Biography . Hodder & Stoughton. Kindle Edition.ch. 9.
