Mary Bennet
Mary Bennet is the fictional middle daughter in Jane Austen's influential 1813 novel, Pride and Prejudice.[1][2][3]
In Jane Austen's original novel Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist, is the second oldest of five unmarried daughters.[1][2][3][4] Two of the other sisters are prominent supporting characters in the novel. Elizabeth has a close bond to Jane Bennet, the eldest sister. Much of the novel is focussed on whether or not Charles Bingley, the good friend of Elizabeth's eventual suitor, Mr. Darcy, will propose to Jane. The other sister who plays a prominent role is the recklessly flirtatious youngest sister, Lydia Bennet.
The two other sisters, Mary, and the rourth sister, Catherine (Kitty) Bennet, do not seem to play significant roles.[1][2][3][4][5] Neither sister is mentioned more than a couple of dozen times. Some adaptations, like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, leave her out, altogether.
Mary is widely recognized as "the plain one", in her family.[5]
In her thesis Blanca Sigalat Vayà noted[5]:
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Commentators have argued that all three of the younger sisters highlight Elizabeth's character, and characteristics, by how they differ from her.[2][3]
Mary is visibly religious, reading, and quoting from, religious tracts from a Reverend James Fordyce, who was full of advice for pious young women.[2][3] Fordyce was a real person, who really did write pious advice to pious women. Austen's portrayal of him is mocking.
Mary is also portrayed as dedicating herself to music, without realizing the limits to her talents. She embarrasses her family by a bad performance during a public ball.
Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice where Mary Bennet is the protagonist
[edit | edit source]Multiple adaptations of Pride and Prejudice have been published, which made Mary Bennet the protagonist. Harper's Bazaar magazine suggested that it was easier for women to identify with Mary, than with her older sister witty and fearless Elizabeth.[1] Some authors of novels based on Pride and Prejudice share Mary's humorless and narrow minded religiousity, and write novels where that humorless religiousity is vindicated.
In 2024 the BBC announced it had commissioned a 10 part television series, The Other Bennet Sister, based on Janice Hadlow's novel of the same name.[1]
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4
Kimberley Bond (2024-10-10). "The Other Bennet BBC announces Pride and Prejudice spin-off". Harper's Bazaar magazine. Archived from the original on 2024-10-31. Retrieved 2025-02-02.
Titled The Other Bennet Sister, the 10-part drama will focus on Mary Bennet – Lizzy’s supposedly unremarkable sister and the middle Bennet daughter that is typically overlooked.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4
Fatmanur Kalkan. "Family and Parenting in Pride and Prejudice" (PDF). Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Türkiye. p. 80. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2025-02-02. Retrieved 2025-02-02.
Self-education contributes to reading and writing but not further because there is no expectation from women to have better knowledge. Mary Bennet, the sister of Elizabeth Bennet, is an example of that. She is fond of reading, but her intellectualism is not praised by others so, she is depicted as boring
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4
Mary Bolton (April 2016). "The Other Bennet Sister: Mary Bennet in Pride and Prejudice" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2024-07-12. Retrieved 2025-02-02.
Most scholarly inquiry about the Bennet sisters focuses on Lizzy, Jane, and Lydia. Arguably, they are more important, because their relationships and struggles move the plot forward. Though Mary seems relegated to the footnotes, she is significant to the novel because she complicates the themes of social decorum.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1
Lin-Marita Sandvik. Pride and Prejudice Retold in the 21st Century: Traces of Austen´s Work in Contemporary Notions of Pride (PDF) (Thesis). Volda University College. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2025-02-02. Retrieved 2025-02-02.
The other four Bennet daughters are Jane, the eldest, seen as the most beautiful and kind of them, and Mary, the middle one, who is described as a reader, mediocre musician, and moralist. Then there are Kitty and Lydia, the youngest ones, with a playful, carefree, and giggling approach to life.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3
Blanca Sigalat Vayà (June 2016). Pater Familias in Pride and Prejudice: Disfunctionality in the Bennet Family and in the British Monarchy (PDF) (Thesis). Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-11-01. Retrieved 2025-02-02.
Both parents tend to ignore the children they do not like and support the qualities they detect as their own in the children they do like. Thus, the education of the Bennet girls is polarised in two extremes. Elizabeth and Jane are mainly sensible and concerned about their education, while Kitty and Lydia think only of clothes and marriage. Mary, for her part, relies on conduct books for guidance, since none of her parents seem to take an interest in her.