You make an excellent point, Ramya. What would happen to Fanny if she spoke out, even a little? What would Sir Thomas say if she retorted to his parting shot as he was leaving for Antigua, "Well if you actually listened to me once in a blue moon, you'd know I have changed!" What could Fanny have said to Mrs. Norris when she was giving her grief about not being outside riding, when Mary was keeping the mare for herself beyond the time that was agreed upon? Should she tell her to go soak her head--which I would very much like to do, by the way! ;-)--or roll her eyes at her and turn away? No, I'm convinced that even if she uttered a respectful, "I'm sorry, Ma'am, but Miss Crawford has not finished with the mare yet," Mrs. Norris would only find more fault with her for this.

More importantly, Fanny is not Elizabeth Bennett and I'm glad she is not. :-) Much as I love Lizzy--she's the Austen heroine I'd most want to be myself--this is Fanny's story and I think it's important to let her be herself, however difficult that can be. Sure, we can wish she had more pluck at times--and maybe she will, eventually--but she is, in fact, a timid soul. One of the things I love about JA is the fact that her heroines are not anything like one another. Fanny is probably the most timid of them all, which is probably why so many of us become frustrated with her.

Simply put, Fanny isn't as much the type of heroine that most readers want to be, but I do think that many of us feel a great deal of empathy for her.