Mrs. Bennet Character Analysis

Mrs. Bennet, Pride and Prejudice

Talkative, highly-strung, tiresome, foolish and unsophisticated – that’s Mrs. Bennet. She is described in the novel as “a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper.”

Mrs. Bennet is obsessed to a ridiculous degree with finding rich husbands for her five daughters. That is her main goal in life, we are told. She is more concerned with security for her girls rather than finding someone they will be happy with.

She is of lower social status than her husband and lacks the social graces and self-awareness. Her behavior often does more harm than good to her daughters’ chances of finding a husband.

The “total want of propriety” of Mrs. Bennet and her three youngest daughters leads Mr. Darcy to object to the marriage between his friend Charles Bingley and Jane Bennet.

Small-minded and tactless, Mrs. Bennet is Jane Austen’s most widely mocked character. Her husband Mr. Bennet delights in irritating her with his ironic wit.

Five important quotes with analysis that give us a glimpse into the personality of the foolish and empty-headed Mrs. Bennet:

“A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!”

Chapter 1. Mrs. Bennet defines Charles Bingley as “a fine thing for our girls.” It is the only thing on her mind when she learns of their new rich and single neighbor. To her Bingley is a commodity or piece of property: a potential husband to be snared for one of her five single daughters! It seems that no self-respecting wealthy bachelor is safe from the husband-hunting Mrs. Bennet!

“The business of her life was to get her daughters married.”

Chapter 1. Here Mrs. Bennet’s life is metaphorically compared to a business, one with a single purpose – to marry off each of her five daughters to wealthy husbands in order that they achieve financial stability. That is her single goal and primary occupation in life. To Mrs. Bennet marriage for a woman is less about following one’s heart and more about economic stability. Austen is satirizing this view of marriage through the character of Mrs. Bennet and her obsession with finding beaux for her daughters.

I am not afraid of her dying

“Oh! I am not at all afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling colds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is all very well. I would go and see her if I could have the carriage.”

Chapter 7. The incorrigible Mrs. Bennet is dismissive of Jane falling ill after being out in the rain when Mrs. Bennet obliged her to travel on horseback to Netherfield. She is more concerned with Jane getting closes to Mr. Bingley than she is with her daughter’s health. Mrs. Bennet wouldn’t win parent of the year award.

“Oh! Mr. Bennet, you are wanted immediately; we are all in an uproar. You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr. Collins, for she vows she will not have him.”

Chapter 20. The ridiculous Mrs. Bennet is satirized here as she reacts to Elizabeth’s rejection of Mr. Collins’s marriage offer. In her cry for help she appeals to the man of the house Mr. Bennet to use his fatherly authority and compel Elizabeth to marry Mr. Collins, despite her vowing she will not have him. Mrs. Bennet’s sole thought in life is to get her daughters married.

“Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! Who would have thought it? And is it really true? Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages you will have! Jane’s is nothing to it – nothing at all. I am so pleased – so happy. Such a charming man! – so handsome! so tall! Oh, my dear Lizzy! Pray apologize for my having disliked him so much before. I hope he will overlook it. Dear, dear Lizzy. A house in town! Everything that is charming!…Ten thousand a year, and very likely more! ‘Tis as good as a Lord!”

Chapter 59. A giddy Mrs. Bennet rhapsodizes over Elizabeth’s engagement to Mr. Darcy, hardly able to believe her ears when her daughter announces the good news. She is ecstatic that Elizabeth is going to be rich, even richer than Jane. Her previous dislike of Mr. Darcy all of a sudden vanishes. The person she once described as “a most disagreeable, horrid man” is now “charming” and “handsome.” Of course Darcy’s considerable wealth buys a lot of credit with Mrs. Bennet, it is his ten thousand a year income that she finds most attractive in him – “as good as a Lord!” For Mrs. Bennet, pin-money, jewels and carriages are what make Darcy and her daughter a good match. At the beginning of the novel we learned that the business of Mrs. Bennet’s life was to see her daughters married. Now with three of them finding husbands, one of the novel’s most mocked characters has achieved much of what she set out to do.