Mrs Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is not the
type of mother that you would expect. From the very beginning, she is
noticeably concerned about finding husbands for her five daughters as she
encourages her husband to go and become acquainted with their new neighbor Mr.
Bingley. Not only is the prospect of marriage important to her, but also the
idea of marrying rich. When describing Bingley in the beginning, Mrs. Bennet
claims, “Oh single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or
five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls” (Austen 1). Right away,
it is discovered that Mrs. Bennet will be very involved in her daughter’s
quests in finding a suitable husband.
Mrs. Bennet is very serious in the matters of finding husbands for
her children, so much so that rejecting a man is unacceptable for her. When
Elizabeth rejects Mr. Collin’s proposal, Mrs. Bennet was very upset and said, “
I have done with you from this very day. - I told you in the library, you know,
that I should never speak to you again, and you will find me as good as my
word” (98). Instead of being there to comfort and encourage Elizabeth,
Mrs. Bennet casts her away and moves on to assist one of her other daughters.
This contrasts dramatically with Alcott’s character Mrs. March in Little
Women. If Mrs. March’s children would have rejected a marriage proposal she
would have assured them that they made the right decision and most likely ended
with some kind of teaching or moral lesson. Additionally, Mrs. Bennet is so
delighted to see that her youngest daughter Lydia has found herself a husband,
even if it is to Wickham, whom the rest of the Bennet family finds very
disagreeable. Her excitement surrounding this marriage proves that she more
focused on marrying off her daughters and not worried about the prospect of a
happy marriage or even the kind of person the husband is. Conversely, Mrs.
March focuses on the character of a man in order to anticipate a happy marriage
and therefore show her approval.
One of the most indecisive characters in the novel is Mrs. Bennet.
Several times throughout the story, she is easily persuaded to change her
opinion about a topic she so adamantly disagreed with before. When the Bennet's
learn of Mr. Bingley’s return to Netherfield after a long absence, Mrs. Bennet
replies with, “He [Bingley] is nothing to us, you know, and I am sure I
never want to see him again” (275). However, the news of Jane’s engagement with
Mr. Bingley quickly changes her mind, and she could not hide her excitement.
The same could be said about Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage. Upon seeing
Mr. Bingley accompanied by Mr. Darcy, she claims “Well, any friend of Mr.
Bingley’s will always be welcome here to be sure; but else I must say that I
hate the very sight of him” (275). However, Mrs. Bennet’s opinion swiftly
shifts after hearing about the marriage proposal, saying “I am so pleased - so
happy. Such a charming man… pray apologise for my having disliked him so much
before” (316). These drastic shifts in opinion can only be attributed to the
fact that Jane and Elizabeth had finally married, and they married very rich
men.
Sarah, your post really got me thinking about just how ridiculous of a character Mrs. Bennet is throughout Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Your comparison between her and Mrs. March especially made this apparent; where Mrs. March is a “super mom,” always looking out for her daughters’ best interests and holding the family together while Mr. March is away, Mrs. Bennet is entirely her foil. Without Mr. Bennet there, I highly doubt Mrs. Bennet could keep things in their house afloat. Although her marriage concerns do seem to come from a good place, you’re right in the fact that she looks over huge character flaws that she previously saw in male characters once her daughters are engaged to them. The more I thought about it, the more I think that Austen uses Mrs. Bennet as a metaphor for how society viewed marriage in the 19th century. From the first line of the book, Austen makes a bold assumption about marriage: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” (5). This line, which starts out the book, seems to come from Mrs. Bennet’s mouth herself. However, the novel does emphasize that societal norms put a lot of pressure on young people to settle down as quickly as they can. Mrs. Bennet seems to be Austen’s human manifestation of these pressures, and just how ridiculous this idea seems. Yet, by the end of the novel, all of the main characters end up married well, just as Mrs. Bennet (a.k.a society) wanted.
ReplyDeleteI think all of these examples demonstrate Mrs. Bennet's tendancy to feel things to the extreme. When she is happy about something she is vocally overjoyed. When she is upset she is drastically gloomy. Austen shows this clearly within the first three chapters of the novel with Mrs. Bennet's insistence that her husband call upon Mr. Bingley. In the first chapter, she speaks incessantly of Mr. Bingley's worth and her desire to meet him. In the second, upon Mr. Bennet's apparent refusal to see the man, she claims, "I am sick of Mr. Bingley" (Austen 5). However, in the third, she is deeply entrenched in Bingley's life again because of her desire for him to marry one of her daughters. To summarize, from the offset Austen portrays Mrs. Bennet as intensely annoying because of her flippant nature. In contrast, Elizabeth's level-headed character makes her all the more desirable, something portrayed later in the novel with her growing relationship with Darcy.
ReplyDelete