Vanity's Influence on the Bennets

Mrs. Bennet’s vanity and pride cause her to make a great fool of herself in many instances. These situations are often the root cause of problems throughout the novel. All Mrs. Bennet ever talks about is having her daughters married off to someone very rich. She is not subtle about these wishes, and many dislike her because of this. One such example of a conflict caused mostly due to Mrs. Bennet’s ridiculous vanity is Mr. Darcy trying to keep Mr. Bingely away from Jane. Yes, he did it partially because he thinks Jane did not feel the same toward Mr. Bingely, but it was also because he finds her family disagreeable, particularly Mrs. Bennet. He says in his letter, “The situation of your mother’s family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison of that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father” (Austen 193). Mrs. Bennet’s pride makes her seem extremely disagreeable and it rubs off on the rest of the family, casting a bad light on the rest of them.

            Not only does Mrs. Bennet’s foolish pridefulness cause Jane’s happiness to be delayed, it also can explain Lydia’s actions with running off with Mr. Wickham without getting married first. Lydia is also a vain soul.  She is shown many times to be inconsiderate of others, such as on page 67 when she rudely interrupts Mr. Collins. She also brazenly flirts with the officers—a social faux-pas for the time. These things reflect badly on the family, but Lydia doesn’t seem to care. This comes to a head when she elopes with Wickham. When she visits home after the marriage she isn’t at all sorry, despite dragging the family name through the mud with her actions. Her vanity closely mirrors her mother’s. Like mother, like daughter; both don’t care about the means, as long as the desired result is achieved. For the entirety of Chapter 51, Lydia is bragging about her new marriage as her family (minus her mother) cringes in disgust of her boastfulness. At one point, “Her father lifted his eyes, Jane was distressed. Elizabeth looked expressively at Lydia,; but she, who never heard nor saw any thing of which she chose to be insensible, gaily continued…” (Austen 299). Her forgetfulness of her scandal mirrors that of Mrs. Bennet’s. After Mrs. Bennet found out Lydia was to be married:

[H]er joy burst forth… She was not in an irritation as violent from delight, as she had ever been fidgety from alarm and vexation. To know that her daughter would be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her felicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct. (Austen 289)

Both Mrs. Bennet and the new Mrs. Wickham ignore what had happened in order to boast of their newly gained marriage. They care nothing of the people that were hurt along the way.