Views of Women in Pride and Prejudice

Views of Women in Pride and Prejudice
By Mary Arnold

In her novel, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen does not portray her female characters in a favorable light. As Mr. Bennet remarks early in the novel, all his daughters are "silly and ignorant" (Austen 2). While he does give Elizabeth "something more of quickness than her sisters," he nonetheless does not exclude her from being silly also (Austen 2). Mrs. Bennet and the Bennet daughters vary in their exhibitions of silliness, but none of them, in the words of Mr. Bennet, have "much to recommend them" (Austen 2). Despite being a knowledgeable woman herself, Austen conforms to the stereotypical views of women in British society.

Mrs. Bennet is portrayed as the proverbial nag plaguing her husband and children with her mysterious ailments of which she never complains, and therefore is "never pitied" (Austen 98). The only employment Mrs. Bennet has is to "get her daughters married" (Austen 3). To achieve those ends, she resorts to many subterfuges, such as sending Jane to Netherfield on horseback when the weather looks bad in the hopes that she will need to stay the night (Austen 25). Instead of being concerned when Jane falls ill from being exposed to the rain, Mrs. Bennet is overjoyed that now Jane will have to remain at Netherfield for several days. Mrs. Bennet also displays bad manners by talking of Jane's engagement to Mr. Bingley at a dinner party before the engagement is settled (Austen 86). And when it seems that the engagement will not take place, Mrs. Bennet remarks that her only comfort is that she "is sure Jane will die of a broken heart, and then [Mr. Bingley] will be sorry for what he has done" (Austen 194). Throughout the novel, Mrs. Bennet displays a lack of regard for her daughters' well being, and unconcern for proper social behavior.

The youngest Bennet daughter, Lydia, is described as having a vacant mind, whose primary occupation is "running after the officers" with her sister Kitty (Austen 44). Elizabeth, along with the rest of her family, does not see any problem with Lydia's and Kitty's behavior until Mr. Darcy points out to Elizabeth the impropriety of their actions. Indeed, Elizabeth does her share in this by encouraging Mr. Wickham's attentions to herself (Austen 65). Lydia shows no shame or sense of wrongdoing in her running off with Wickham and living with him before their marriage when she visits her family. Instead she is proud of marrying before her elder sisters and even proposes that they come to stay with her so that she can "get husbands for them" (Austen 269).

The next youngest daughter, Kitty, seems to have no will of her own and instead follows the behavior of whomever she is in company with at the moment. Before Lydia's marriage, Kitty joined in pursuing the officers and displayed the same vanity and coquettish behavior that Lydia indulged in. She is seen as selfish and self-centered when, upon hearing of Jane's engagement to Bingley, she immediately thinks of what the marriage will mean to herself, i.e. in petitioning for Jane and Bingley to have numerous balls (Austen 297). When Kitty removes to living with her two sisters, Jane and Elizabeth, her disposition improves due to being in society "so superior to what she had generally known" (Austen 329). This easy improvement marks Kitty as pliable to whatever hand is in control at the moment, which is no credit to her character.

Mary, the middle daughter also turns Jane's marriage to her own advantage by requesting the unlimited use of the Netherfield library. Mary is characterized as the studious daughter who is always wrapped up in her books. However, her family does not admire her educational endeavors, and she is frequently the brunt of many of their jokes. One example of this is when Mr. Bennet asks Mary's opinion on the importance of the forms of introduction since she is "a young lady of deep reflection" and reads "great books and makes extracts" (Austen 4). Austen writes that "Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how" (Austen 5). In the few instances where Mary does speak in the novel, she is relegated with pompous moralizations (Austen 26, 75, 189, 244). However when Mary is left alone in the house with her parents, she also improves by going out into society more now that she is no longer "mortified by comparisons between her sisters' beauty and her own" (Austen 330). This seems to imply that Mary's self-imposed education was not something she particularly wished to be involved with, but was rather an escape from being found deficient to her sisters.

The eldest daughter, Jane, demonstrates her silliness by her repeated attempts to believe only the best of everybody. When Mr. Bingley does not return from London, Jane would rather believe him guilty of inconstancy than to believe that Bingley's sisters are working to separate the two (Austen 103). In many instances in the novel, e.g. the dispute between Darcy and Wickham, and Lydia and Wickham's elopement, Jane willingly blinds herself to the truth of those circumstances and endeavors to acquit everyone of any wrongdoing.

Even the female protagonist of the novel, Elizabeth, does not escape from her share of silly female behavior. Because Darcy does not rave over her beauty at first sight and calls her only "tolerable," Elizabeth determines to think only the worst of him, without giving him the justice of deferring an opinion until they are better acquainted (Austen 8). She eagerly seizes on Wickham's account of Darcy's character without first trying to determine if it is justified.

Elizabeth displays hypocrisy on many occasions in the novel, for instance when she condemns Darcy for interfering with Bingley's life, while shortly later she does the same with Lydia. She also excuses Wickham's seeking to marry for financial gain, while she berates Charlotte for acting in the same manner. Elizabeth, while speaking out against her mother's and sisters' actions of impropriety, does the same when she appears at Pemberley (Austen 212). She feels that it is wrong, but she goes anyway. It is at this point that Elizabeth begins to consider that being "mistress of Pemberley might be something" (Austen 207).

Whether the female characters are oblivious to the morals and conduct of good society or willing to believe the best, or worst, of everybody, all of the women portrayed in Pride and Prejudice are invariably seen as silly women. Not one of them is characterized in a manner differing from the traditional views of women in Victorian society.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1994.

Mary Arnold holds a B.A. in literature and history.

She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writing.

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