From
the first two pages of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, it is immediately clear that Mr. Bennett thinks very highly
of his daughter, Elizabeth. In fact, he even states that his other daughters
are "silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of
quickness than her sisters" (7). However, his wife, Mrs. Bennett
disagrees, arguing, "Lizzy is not a bit better than the others" (6). Besides this instance, there are also several other cases in the novel when Mrs. Bennett shows favoritism
to all of her daughters except Elizabeth. It is obvious from the beginning of the novel that Mrs. Bennett is truly obsessed with
marrying her daughters off, and this soon becomes a dividing issue between her
and her daughter, Elizabeth. Although the reason Mrs. Bennett does not favor
Elizabeth is not explicitly stated during the beginning of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth’s
differing opinions on marriage are the reason that her mother favors her sisters
over her.
While Mrs.
Bennett simply wants to marry the girls off to gain wealth, Elizabeth knows that
this will only lead to unhappiness in the future. In fact, the reason that she
knows this is because of her mother’s marriage to her father. Austen explains
that, “had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family,
she could not have formed a very pleasing opinion of conjugal felicity or
domestic comfort” (228). Witnessing her father and mother’s unloving marriage
causes Elizabeth to stubbornly refuse to give into her mother’s requests. Seeing a marriage that occurred for all of the wrong reasons led Elizabeth to be stubborn in her beliefs. Elizabeth
refuses to marry for money and will only marry someone if he is truly suited
for her and is a gentleman, and this is clear based on her refusal to accept both Mr. Collins’
and Mr. Darcy’s proposals, both of which would have secured wealth for her
family. This becomes a conflict between Mrs. Bennett’s motives and Elizabeth’s
motives for her marriage. Therefore, the true reason that Mrs. Bennett favors her
other daughters over Elizabeth is because of Elizabeth’s stubbornness when it
comes to marriage as well as Elizabeth’s refusal to marry for the sake of the
Bennett family’s wealth.
I agree that Mrs. Bennet shows favoritism for her other daughters over Elizabeth because she is not as concerned with getting married as soon as possible. As Austen points out, “the business of her life was to get her daughters married” (7). When Elizabeth refuses Mr. Collins, she views it as a personal attack on herself, rather than it simply showing that Elizabeth was uninterested in spending the rest of her life with someone she finds “very disagreeable” (76). Mrs. Bennet does not understand this, nor does she even attempt to. Instead, she becomes quite cross with Elizabeth, telling her that she will never see her again if she does not change her mind and marry Mr. Collins. Mr. Bennet, on the other hand, does the exact opposite. He tells Elizabeth that he “will never see her again if” she does marry him (110). This is representative of the fact that Mr. Bennet does favor Elizabeth, and it tells the readers why. Mr. Bennet likes the fact that Elizabeth does not give in to the idea of marrying anyone with money that asks. She understands that there should be more to a marriage than that. This feeling may come from viewing his own marriage, and seeing that he may have been better off marrying someone he loved more than Mrs. Bennet.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth’s connection to her father drives a wedge between her and her mother alongside their competing views of the value of pragmatism. The Bennets, quite simply, do not have a happy marriage. Mr. Bennet is intelligent and sarcastic while Mrs. Bennet is concerned chiefly with her daughters’ marriages. Their relationship is confined to his amusement at her ignorance because her “weak understanding and illiberal mind, had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her” (228). Mr. Bennet’s pleasure comes in annoying his wife as he proclaims her nerves to be his “old friends … [having] heard [her] mention them with consideration” over twenty years (7). His favoritism of Elizabeth does not promote her virtues in her mother’s eyes; his opinion is not one she esteems.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, Elizabeth possesses a similar personality to that of her father. Upon Elizabeth’s rejection of Mr. Collins, her father threatens that either way she shall “be a stranger to one of [her] own parents” as he desires the opposite for Elizabeth of his wife (110). Elizabeth’s similar concerns and wittiness do not advance her image in her mother’s mind. The intelligence of father and daughter contrasts to the simplicity of Mrs. Bennet’s mind; this fundamental difference in personality reduces the common ground between Elizabeth and her mother. They have different priorities and personalities; thus, Mrs. Bennet’s favoritism of her other daughters over Elizabeth is something that makes sense.