Mr. Bennet

[Vort]

@Jamie123's interesting thread about Mr. Collins has led me to reflect once again on the character of Mr. Bennet. Austen's greatest genius may have been in creating and portraying highly realistic, fully fleshed-out characters, and Mr. Bennet is one of my favorite Austen characters. His flaws invite reflection. Mr. Bennet is such an enjoyable character, not because he's a cynical and sarcastic troll, but because he is a basically decent and caring individual who indulges his own worst self to so often become a cynical and sarcastic troll.

Mr. Bennet (I don't believe any first name is ever given) is a highly intelligent, basically good-natured man with a sharp sense of humor and a cutting wit. His family situation is as follows: He married the beautiful but not-very-intelligent (or at least not very clever) Miss Gardiner. (The BBC/A&E miniseries names her "Fanny", but no given name is ever specified in the novel.) It is worth noting that Miss Gardiner's brother, aptly named Mr. Gardiner, is a highly intelligent man, one of those charming and impressive lawyers I was talking about. So the intelligence is in her bloodline somewhere, but apparently found little expression in her. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet were parents to five daughters. It is worthwhile understanding the basic personalities and characteristics of these five young women:

• The eldest, Jane, is blessed with striking beauty, a sharp mind and wit, and a very calm and pleasing demeanor.
• The second, Elizabeth, is similarly endowed with beauty and intelligence, though she is portrayed as perhaps not quite as beautiful as Jane—in speaking with Jane, Elizabeth humorously notes that she (Jane) is "about five times as pretty as every other woman in the room"—but perhaps even more clever. Moreover, she inherited her father's sense of humor and occasionally cutting wit.
• The third, Mary, is the odd duck out in that she is not as beautiful as her four sisters, and attempts to make up for her comparative plainness by nurturing her other feminine charms, such as piano playing.
• The fourth is named Catherine and is familiarly called Kitty, and had never really developed her own mind or wit. She's a bit of a follower, and tends to follow her younger sister Lydia's lead.
• The youngest, Lydia, has all the charm of her sisters and, like her sisters (except perhaps Mary) is quite pretty, but also headstrong and unconcerned about trifles such as reputation and decorum.

In the book, Mr. Bennet must be at least in his mid to late forties, and is probably in his fifties.

Mr. Bennet tolerates his wife, but only barely. He is not cruel or harsh, but he is not kind to her, and he does not protect her from societal evils that he thinks she has brought on herself. On the contrary, he allows himself to laugh at and mock his wife's weaknesses. This reprehensible habit does not go unnoticed by his daughters, and is one deep and important way that he fails them.

Mr. Bennet authentically loves his daughters, and is especially fond of Elizabeth and Jane. This is important: Bennet likes his two oldest daughters exactly because they are intelligent and show some depth of character. He loves his other three daughters, but he "teases" them mercilessly, meaning he constantly makes fun of them and points out their stupidity for his own amusement.

Mary, Bennet's middle daughter, is perhaps the most extreme victim of this neglect. She lacks much of the beauty, grace, and charm of her sisters, and thus needs her father's support and encouragement all the more. But she doesn't get it. Jane Austen herself didn't seem to like Mary very much; how sad is that? Of all the sisters, I think Mary is the unhappiest and most to be pitied. Yes, she exposed herself to ridicule and contempt several times. But how much less likely would that have been if Mary had been directed, corrected, and encouraged by a loving father instead of simply laughed at?

The same is true with Kitty, but with different results. Kitty seems to be the younger daughter potentially most sharing in the gifts of her two oldest sisters, but with little parental direction, she takes her cues from her strong-willed younger sister, Lydia. Austen does allow that Kitty would go on to improve dramatically once she left her parent's home and lived in the households of her older sisters. But again, how much better and happier would she have been with an attentive and affectionate father?

And Lydia...ah, Lydia. Everyone's favorite bad girl. Lydia is done in by her own temperament. She is not a horrible, vindictive person or calculating shrew. But she applies her intelligence to vapid pursuits and vanity, living the life of a wild child. Where is her father to offer some discipline? Why did Mr. Bennet not take it upon himself to curb her foolishness and demand better of her? Because he was too busy laughing at her and enjoying the spectacle of her buffoonish behavior.

Bennet even admits that he failed in his duty to provide for his daughters. He assumed he would father a son to inherit his entailment, which instead passed to a distant cousin (the very Mr. Collins of the original thread I'm referencing). Bennet rues his lack of foresight and discipline in not making or saving any fortune for his daughters. Bennet is reduced to seeing his youngest daughter in a desperate scandal, watching as his brother-in-law (as he supposes) pays off a cad named Wickham to marry her after despoiling her. In his typical sarcastic manner, he berates his own financial laziness when he complains to Elizabeth that "I cannot help regretting that I did not [...] enable you to lay by an annual sum out of your income, to bribe worthless young men to marry your sisters."

Mr. Bennet fully recognizes his own foolishness and failure of duty toward his daughters, though that realization apparently does not come until after all the destruction and humlilation has been set into motion. At some level, I have to imagine that he recognizes his failure to be a proper husband to his wife, though Austen doesn't seem to say much on that account.

I love Mr. Bennet's character because I think it's true-to-life. Austen restricted her "omnipotent author" mode to her female characters, once remarking that she wasn't a man and couldn't speak for men (or something to that effect). But I see her keen insight into human behavior and motives in her male characters as well, none moreso that Mr. Bennet. He was a deeply flawed but also deeply likeable character. I feel like if I had actually known a real Mr. Bennet, I would have liked him and probaby considered him a friend. But I would not have modeled myself on him. Too much laughing at other people's stupidity and too little self-reflection to recognize his own.

Edited February 9 by Vort