Mrs Bennet’s character in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Essay

psychoanalyse Mrs bennets typesetters case in Pride and Prejudice, by tone confiningly at her lieu and behaviour. Comment on what you hypothesise Mr Darcy and Elizabeth think of her, as well as your own views.She was a wo creation of sozzled understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. Mrs bennet, the incur of fiver girls Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia, intimately resembles her youngest daughter, Lydia a shallow and flirtatious girl. Similarly, Mrs bennet is precise excitable and pronounces her fondness for fierce coats when she was Lydias age. This declaration of her affection is quite endearing and reveals Mrs white avenss younger placement. Mrs bennet and Lydia are the pinnacles of the kind of characters who disgorge far similarly much and fuss near silly things. An example demonstrating this aspect of her character is how Mrs bennet does non worry herself with the moral consequences of Lydias infamous elopement plainly fusses approxima tely trivial, frivolous things such(prenominal) as wedding clothes and where the outperform ware rest homes are.This as well as demonstrates her stupidity and deprivation of insight into human nature which prevents her from realising how close Mrs Bingley comes to being outright rude. She believes that Mr Bingleys sisters were charming women. Then goes on to comment, I never in my life saw any(prenominal)thing to a greater extent elegant thence their dresses. Apart from being utterly wrong close to them, she demonstrates perfectly her superficiality. She seemingly is taken with the sisters because she sees them dressed incredibly ornately, and knows how rich they are, fogging her view of their personality.From the really fountain of the novel, Mrs Bennet comes across as a woman obsessed about marriage. The first event in the entire book is Mrs Bennet gossipmongering about a young man of honourable fortune, Mr Bingley, who has bonnie locomote into the area. Mrs Bennet i s already planning for one of her daughters to attach Mr Bingley, even though she has never met him and doesnt know anything about him apart from the he is a single man of large fortune four or five thousand a year. She places, What a fine thing for our girls This clearly shows that Mrs Bennet aims to get her daughters hook up with to wealthy men, non minding if her daughters turn in them or if they are nice people or non.This demonstrates an element of rage especially as she of all people should know about the problems of such an unsuccessful marriage. This, along with the evidence of Mrs Bennets silliness seems to call forth that Mr Bennet married Mrs Bennet for convenience and for her looks rather than for love and her personality. Their love-hate consanguinity relies upon her gullibility and moodiness, and his love of teasing her which keeps Mr him going. Their barely surviving relationship should prolong shown Mrs Bennet the defects of a marriage for money and conveni ence, simply she has in incident not learnt anything. She is so determined that she even wants Elizabeth to settle for marrying Mr collins.However, her actions could be seen in a in truth different light. Perhaps it demonstrates her true love for her daughters. peradventure she wants them to marry rich because when Mr Bennet dies they entrust not inherit the house or any money because they are girls. The justice says that the next manful relative has to inherit e trulything. For this reason Mrs Bennet feels that she needs to secure her daughters future, make sure that they are settled.Mrs Bennet cannot accept not having her way and uses the blackmail, you grow no compassion for my nerves when she is not granted what she wants. One illustration when she uses this excuse is when Mr Bennet refuses to speak to Mr Bingley and invite him over. It is very important to Mrs Bennet that Mr Bingley comes over so that she can try and get one of her daughters married to him. But when M r Bennet gets in the way of her plan by not visiting Mr Bingley, Mrs Bennet shows that she gets very roiling. The fickle side of her character is displayed when Mr Bennet finally admits that he has seen Bingley. Mrs Bennets mood changes very suddenly and she immediately gets excite and becomes happier. She says, How good it was of you, my dear Mr Bennet, showing that she is superficial and that her feelings speedily change, cheering up at the thought of being able to marry off one of her daughters. Although it could also be seen that she is unspoiled a very determined person, whose resolution is to get her daughters married.Her determination, however, is sometimes taken a pure tone in addition far, especially when Jane was invited to Netherfield. Jane requested the carriage to take her to the estate, and Mrs Bennet, excited by the chance for Jane to get to know Mr Bingley better, insisted that she had better go on horseback, because it seemed likely to rain. Mrs Bingley was in fact hoping that it would start to rain, so that Jane would have to confront at Netherfield, therefore having more(prenominal) time to get to know Bingley. disdain her lack of intelligence, this shows a very shrewd, scheming side to her character forming a plan to keep Jane at Netherfield. Furthermore, she could even be interpreted as un caring. When it does indeed start to rain, Mrs Bennets scatterbrainedness surfaces, as she comments on it being a lucky idea of hers to have sent Jane on horseback. She shows no regard for Janes health, but on the contrary, smugly assess herself for the success of her cunning plan. On the surface, she does not seem b some othered about her daughters health, but is more concerned about the acquisition of her lifes aim getting her daughters married. In this respect she seems more aware of her responsibilities as a parent than her husband.Later, she finds out that Jane is unwell, but is not even slightly worried, saying, I am not afraid of her dying. pack to not die of trifling colds. She will be taken good care of. Despite her unconcerned exterior, I think it is likely that fatheaded heap she really does care about her daughters, even though her bout one priority is always to get her daughters married. Evidence of her deep down affection for her daughters is when she goes to Netherfield and would have been very miserable had she found Jane in any danger. other redeeming feature of Mrs Bennet is that she is loyal, for example when she stuck up for Elizabeth after(prenominal) Mr Darcy had refused to dance with her. She tells Elizabeth to not dance with Darcy next time, even if he asks her. This is perhaps her way of comforting Elizabeth, because she probably understands that Elizabeth must have been offended.From this point onwards, Mrs Bennets impression of Darcy changes completely from being much handsomer than Mr Bingley to being a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing. Her attitude towards him changes completely, and she forgets that she ever liked him in the first place. This reveals her fickleness and superficial judgement. When she didnt know him, she presumed that he was a really nice person just because she knew he was rich, but just as easily as she make her first cerebration of him, she changed her mind.Near the end of the novel she once over once more changes her opinion of Darcy. Although she has disliked him throughout the whole book, declaring that he is so broad(prenominal) and so conceited, she is overjoyed at the news of Elizabeths engagement to him. She again changes her mind starting to really like him. The rest of the family were worried that she had do the wrong decisions about Darcy and may have been extortd to marry him, but Mrs Bennet was not even slightly worried about that. She was just extremely happy that Elizabeth had found a rich husband, and that she only had deuce more daughters to get married.Her changeability is also brought to surfac e through her opinion of Mr Collins. Mr Collins is Mr Bennets closest male relative, and so is bound to inherit Mr Bennets house after his death. According to the law, girls could not inherit anything after their fathers death and so Mr and Mrs Bennet were relying on the fact that they would bear a son. Unfortunately, after conceiving five girls it became unmistakable that the possibility of having a son was very unlikely, by when it was already too late to start saving money to pay their daughters dowry and provide for them for the future. Mrs Bennet particularly didnt like Mr Collins for this reason, as she blames him for inheriting her house, even though it is not his fault. Even sooner she has met him or found out anything about him, she has already decided that he is an odious man, out for what he can get.She goes on to say to Mr Bennet, If I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it, referring to the fact that his estate has been entailed to Mr Collins. From this, it is apparent that Mrs Bennet blames Mr Bennet for their problems, not being clever enough to understand that it is the law and that there is nothing Mr Bennet could do about it. She proclaims that she hates false friends, which is very judgemental of her, but when she realises that Mr Collins wants to marry one of her daughters, her attitude completely changes. She is no longer hostile towards him, and forgets about her grudge against him.However, Elizabeth, being much more sensible than her vex, refuses the offer of marriage because she understands that marriages without love do not work. She has seen her mother and father passing their lives, not really understanding each other and sees the defects of such a marriage. This decision agitates Mrs Bennet incredibly, who tells Mr Collins that Elizabeth is a very headstrong, foolish girl and does not know her own interests but I will make her know it. Mrs Bennets is very determined to have Elizabeth marry, and she suspects it would be quite had to get such as opinionated girl a husband. She is sure that she will be able to persuade or force Elizabeth to accept the offer of matrimony and doesnt understand Elizabeth not lacking(p) to marry Mr Collins or that they are incompatible. The way she sees it is that he has money, and will soon inherit Longbourne, so Elizabeth should accept the offer of marriage. This again seems to betoken that she does not care about her daughters happiness but is more consumed with her own security for the future.Mr Collins, having given up on Elizabeth, marries Charlotte Lucas which outrages Mrs Bennet. She irrationally holds Sir William and Lady Lucas responsible for the whole situation, insisting that they must have convinced Elizabeth not to marry Mr Collins, an absurd idea showing how paranoid she is. She a great deal passes blame onto other people, not accepting any responsibility for anything that goes wrong. She is so vexed that she is impulsively rude to Sir William and Lady Lucas, spoiling their friendship because of her jealousy.Another aspect of her character is that she is very un discerning and rude. Even though she spends most her time trying to find suitors for her daughters, she generally has the opposite effect and close to drives away suitors entirely. An illustration of her indiscretion is when she visits Jane at Netherfield. She believes that she is being very subtle in insulting Darcy, but in fact she is quite insistent with her insults and gives Darcy the impression that she is very loud in speech, foolish and insensitive.He is also offended by her lack of breeding and dislikes her since their first meeting at the Ball. He was annoyed at the way that Mrs Bennet would make judgements about people even without knowing them. She declares Mr Darcy to be The proudest, most disagreeable man in the world. Without knowing him, Mrs Bennet had already made out his character, which annoyed him greatly. He also didnt li ke the way that he would talk loudly about other people, thinking that this was insensitive and completely demo her lack of breeding.He also considers her to be very foolish, and in his garner to Elizabeth he wrote that he tried to break Bingley and Jane up because of their class difference. He also commented on the fact that their mother was foolish, and so he could not let Bingley marry Jane.Elizabeth also considers her mother to be an embarrassment and very foolish. She thinks that her mother is insensitive and not very intelligent for example, when she sent Jane to Netherfield on horseback. Elizabeth was extremely worried about Jane and walked all the way to Netherfield to visit her sister. Her mother embarrasses her on many occasions such as when her mother misunderstands Mr Darcys comment on country people and reveals hostility towards him. This shows a lack of breeding and Elizabeth blushes for her mother, trying to change the subject. The extreme diffence in character and sand between Elizabeth and Mrs Bennet makes Mrs Bennet look even more foolish and stupid.Mrs Bennet is like a literary caricature of an interfering matchmaker. Her faults are magnified to excessive proportions, making her character almost funny and therefore providing comic relief at tense moments in the play. Her role in the play is to be an obstacle which Darcy needs to overcome and accept in order to show that he truly loves Elizabeth. This is very difficult for Darcy as she is almost his complete opposite. She is silly, obsessive, hysterical and tactless, but in the end he accepts her because of his love for Elizabeth.In conclusion, Elizabeth, Mr Darcy and the reader may feel that Mrs Bennet is a foolish, insensitive woman, appearing to be loud, superficial and quickly irritated, but every bit rapidly calmed down. This is because, throughout the novel, Jane Austin allows her more negative aspects to surface at different times throughout the novel by emphasising them through her speech and actions. However, I feel that she is in fact a very caring and affectionate mother, who always has her daughters best interests at heart. Yet, this side of her personality is not often portrayed, forcing Mrs Bennet to be seen as an interfering, inconsiderate woman.