Comment on the role of women characters in “Pride and
Prejudice”.
The novels of Jane Austen contain
numerous character- studies. Her studies of women are more searching and more
life – like than those of men. In other words, she shows a much greater skill in
the delineation of women than in that of men. Perhaps, because she was herself a
woman, she knew more about female psychology than about the working of men’s minds.
The special quality of her delineation of women is that she individualizes them,
and differentiates each from the others. In ‘Pride and Prejudice’, we have a
whole crowd of women characters; but each of these women is clearly distinguished
from the others. Each woman in the novel stands as a distinct figure in her own
right.
First of all, there are the
Bennet girls and their mother. Mrs. Bennet is drawn with such skill and in such
detail that we never forget her after going through the novel. She is
differentiated from all the other women in the novel by her obsession with the
marriage of her daughters, and this preoccupation with the marriage of her
daughters continues throughout the novel. Mrs. bennet is described as a women
of a mean intelligence, little information and an uncertain temper. Wherever
she feels discontented with anything, she imagines herself nervous. The business
of her life is to get her daughters married; and the consolation of her life
lies in visiting other families and getting news of what is going on around
her. Mrs. Bennet’s foolishness, ignorance and vanity are sources of great amusement
to us, as they are to her husband who is always poking fun at her. Mrs. Bennet
is, indeed, an unforgettable comic character.
