Mr Bennet Character Analysis Essay Example

whether they wanted to or not. Mr. Bennet, however, was not a strong believer of this method.

Mr. Bennet’s role in the novel, while not central, was to add comic relief and sarcasm to the stress put on by Mrs. Bennet to get her daughters married. While he wanted to get his daughters married, like Mrs. Bennet, he also cared about his daughter’s happiness and, primarily, the reputation of the Bennet family name. Mr. Bennet was an exceptionally comical character and enjoys fooling around with his wife in a sarcastic tone.

Jane Austen chose to immediately show this trait in the very first pages of the novel when Mrs. Bennet asked Mr. Bennet to go and meet Mr. Bingley and grant permission for their daughters to go and visit and possibly marry him. When Mrs. Bennet explained to him why their daughters should marry Mr. Bingley by saying that he makes four or five thousand a year. He sarcastically responds, “‘how can it affect them? ’”(Austen 6). During that time period, making four or five thousand a year would be a fortune, yet Mr. Bennet likes to be difficult and fool around with his wife. Marvin Mudrick explains Mr. Bennet’s comical character in his essay that we read in class.

He stated that, “Mr. Bennet has become an ironic spectator almost totally self-enclosed, his irony rigidly defensive, a carapace against the plain recognition of his own irrevocable folly” (Mudrick 401). This shows that Mudrick, although he uses a different word, agrees that Mr. Bennet is a sarcastic, comical character. Another example of Mr. Bennet’s comical comments comes after Mrs. Bennet explains that she is “thinking of [Bingley’s] marrying on one

of them” (Austen 6).

Mr. Bennet again comically responds, “‘is that his design in settling here? ’” (Austen 6), making fun of Mrs. Bennet’s assumption that Mr. Bingley came to Netherfield to marry one of their daughters. Despite all of his sarcastic remarks, it is evident that Mr. Bennet cares for the happiness of his daughters when “Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley” (Austen 8). Here, Mr. Bennet shows his businessman side by not being sarcastic or comical and being professional in his ways of talking to Mr. Bingley. By this action, it is clear that he thinks it is important to present his daughters in society to make his daughters and his wife happy.

Once his daughters are out in society at social occasions, Mr. Bennet plays a quiet, background role unless his family’s reputation is at stake. An example of this can be seen at the Netherfield ball. With Mary, the odd and youngest sister, playing the piano and singing at the same time, something she wasn’t very good at, Elizabeth felt the need to try and stop her. She did this because she was trying to make a good impression for her and her family on Darcy and everyone else at the ball. She turned to her dad to tell Mary to stop playing.

Since Mr. Bennet believes that keeping the family reputation up is extremely important, he agreed to have her stop. Not surprisingly, he used his comical, sarcastic tone to get her to stop; “‘that will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let other young ladies have time to exhibit”’ (Austen 99). This quote

proves that Mr. Bennet believes that family reputation is more important than his daughter’s happiness, even though both are important to him. Even though Mary was enjoying herself, playing and singing in front of other people, Mr.

Bennet thought that it would be better to stop her to save the family’s reputation. Mudrick also agrees with the statement that Mr. Bennet cares to keep the reputation of the family name on the positive side. He shows this through the marriage between Mr. Bennet and his wife, arguing that Mr. Bennet wants to divorce his wife. However, Mudrick argues that now Mr. Bennet “must stand by [his decision] because his class recognizes no respectable way out” (Mudrick 400). Mudrick is saying that if Mr. Bennet divorced his wife, he would be looked down upon because such an action is not respected in his society.

Mr. Bennet knows this and since he wants to keep the family name strong, he decides to stay married with his wife. While Mr. Bennet shows his businessman side in order to get his daughter’s presented in society, there is a part of him that truly wants his daughters to be happy when it comes to marriages. This trait, however, is not seen in Mrs. Bennet. Mrs. Bennet shows just her businesswoman side when it comes to her daughters getting married. This can be seen when Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth early in the novel.

Elizabeth, who clearly has no intentions to marry Mr. Collins, is almost forced to by her insane mother. With Elizabeth still not on board to marry Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet turns to Mr. Bennet to get the two married because she

knows that if Mr. Bennet asks Elizabeth to marry Mr. Collins, she will have to marry Mr. Collins sine Mr. Bennet is the man of the family. However, because Mr. Bennet cares more about the happiness of his daughters than getting them married, he says this comical line: “‘From this day you (Elizabeth) must be a stranger to one of your parents. –Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do”’(Austen 110).

Even though Mr. Bennet knew that he could have Elizabeth married to a man with a respectable amount of money, he turned the opportunity down because he knew Elizabeth desperately didn’t want to marry this man. This scene shows Mr. Bennet’s love for his daughters and his desire to make them happy. Another example of Mr. Bennet’s desire to make his daughter’s happy comes when Elizabeth actually wants to get married. When Elizabeth came back with the news that she and Mr. Darcy were engaged, she knew she had to get pprovals from he mom and especially her dad. However, Elizabeth “did not fear her father’s opposition, but he was going to be made unhappy…” (Austen 355).

Even Elizabeth knows that Mr. Bennet is going to approve of their marriage, as long as she wants it, even if it is going to make him unhappy. And, in fact, that is exactly the case. When Elizabeth goes and talks to her father about the engagement, Mr. Bennet replies, “‘Or in other words, you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be sure, and you may have more fine clothes and

fine carriages than Jane. But will they make you happy? ’ (Austen 356). Mr. Bennet goes on to say, “We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him”’ (Austen 356).

This conversation solidifies the statement that Mr. Bennet wants his daughters to be happy. Elizabeth just says to him that she is engaged to nearly the richest man in all of England and all Mr. Bennet can think about is “will you be happy? ” On the contrary, when Elizabeth told her mother that she was engaged to Mr. Darcy, all she could think about was “Ten thousand a year! Ten thousand a year! ” In short, Mr. Bennet does have a businessman side to get his daughters presented in society and getting them married.

But, when it comes down to it, he cares more about the happiness of his daughters. The Shmoop editoral team also agreed with the statement that Mr. Bennet cared for the happiness of his daughters saying: “The man actually really likes his family, as evinced by his desire to ‘have the family circle whole again. ’ He also warns Elizabeth against marrying someone she doesn’t care for or respect, and he really does make an effort to secure his daughters’ futures – remember, he was one of the first men to call on Mr. Bingley when the man arrived at Netherfield” (Shmoop).

He used the same examples as I did to expose the care Mr. Bennet showed for his daughters. The fact that Mr. Bennet told Elizabeth not to marry someone she didn’t want to marry, even when his wife was forcing

it upon her, truly shows that he wanted his daughters to be happy. Another example of Mr. Bennet caring for the reputation of the Bennet family name comes when Mr. Wickham and Lydia run off to London together. Back in the early 19th century, instances like this didn’t happen often.

Unmarried women just didn’t run off with another man and come back unmarried. This is why if the two didn’t come back married, Lydia and the rest of the Bennet family would have been looked down upon. With Mrs. Bennet ecstatic that one of her daughters could soon be married, it was up to Mr. Bennet to make sure that the two came back married in order to keep a good reputation for the family name. Jane, who is also greatly saddened and embarrassed by the departure of Lydia, writes in her letter to Elizabeth, “…and as to my father, I never in my life saw him so affected….

My father is going to London with Colonel Forster instantly, to try to discover [Lydia]”(Austen 262). The fact that Jane has “never in [her] life [seen Mr. Bennet] so affected” shows that Lydia nearly ruining the family reputation that he has worked so hard to build up angers him deeply. While Mr. Bennet cares for his daughter’s happiness (and we all know this marriage made Lydia truly happy), it is clear by his actions that Mr. Bennet’s premiere focus was to keep the reputation of the Bennet’s family name.

He knew that if the family’s reputation were down, his daughters would not be married and would therefore be unhappy. This can also be seen in his conversation with his

daughter, Kitty. After learning about the news that Lydia had ran away with Wickham to London without being married, Mr. Bennet was to be sure that none of his other daughters were going to almost ruin the family reputation. He told Kitty that she was “‘…never to stir out of doors, till [she] can prove, that [she has] spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner’” (Austen 284).

Mr. Bennet goes on to say, “‘If you are a good girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of them”’ (Austen 284). Austen uses a hyperbole here to show that Mr. Bennet thinks it is extremely important to keep the good reputation of the family name. While this will make his daughter unhappy, something he doesn’t want, Mr. Bennet would say this because he believes a bad reputation of the Bennet family name would result in no marriages for any of his daughters.

This would ultimately cause unhappiness throughout his entire family, especially Mrs. Bennet. Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice in the 19th century. Writing a novel was the last thing on the mind of a woman in that time period. However, Pride and Prejudice and her other novels made Austen a well-known author in the early 19th century until present. The romantic era, imagination over reason, took place in the late 18th century and the early 19th century, but Austen wrote in a more neoclassicist view. Neoclassicist’s view contradicted the romantics and they believed in reason over emotion.

In Pride and Prejudice, Austen uses many writing techniques such as epistles, deux ex machina, and foil and burlesque characters to

create a novel of manners and marriages. Mr. Bennet, while not a central character in Pride and Prejudice, was a sarcastic, comical character that cared about the happiness of his daughters. However, what he primarily cared about was the reputation of the Bennet family name. This was because he knew that if the family name were to be ruined, men wouldn’t want to marry his daughters, ultimately causing pain to him, his wife, and his five daughters.