Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice is set in rural England at the turn of the 19th century, and it follows the Bennet family, which includes five very different sisters. The eldest, Jane, is sweet-tempered and modest. She is her sister Elizabeth’s confidant and friend. Elizabeth, the heroine of the novel, is intelligent and high-spirited. She shares her father’s distaste for the conventional views of society as to the importance of wealth and rank. The third daughter, Mary, is plain, bookish, and pompous, while Lydia and Kitty, the two youngest, are flighty and immature.

Mr. Bennet is the family patriarch. He is fond of his two eldest daughters—especially his favourite, Elizabeth—but takes a passive interest in the younger ones, ultimately failing to curb their childish instincts. An intelligent but eccentric and sarcastic man, he does not care for society’s conventions and mocks his wife’s obsession with finding suitable husbands for their daughters. As several scholars have noted, however, Mrs. Bennet is rightfully concerned. Because of an entail, the modest family estate is to be inherited by William Collins, Mr. Bennet’s nephew, who is the next male in line. Indeed, as Austen scholar Mary Evans noted, “If Mrs. Bennett is slightly crazy, then perhaps she is so because she perceives more clearly than her husband the possible fate of her five daughters if they do not marry.” Unfortunately, Mrs. Bennet’s fervour and indelicacy often work against her interests. A woman of little sense and much self-pity, she indulges her lively youngest daughters.