I've been trying to think of a less harsh way to put it, but every time I see an ostensible expert say that Mr Bennet and Darcy have the same social position and the only difference between them is that Darcy has more money, it's like ... um, either this person doesn't know what they're talking about or assumes their audience is so unsophisticated and ignorant that they can't handle the slightest degree of nuance.

Yes, it's obvious why this always comes up with P&P specifically, and explaining all the many differences and gradations in socioeconomic hierarchies between then and now is a steep task and not always necessary or useful. But Darcy and Mr Bennet are both untitled hereditary landowners. This means they have the same rank, yes—the technicality Elizabeth uses with Lady Catherine—but it also means that their status, incomes, reach of influence, and general consequence in their world are going to be primarily based on their inherited land, not that all these things except income would be functionally identical in their social world.

Awhile ago, I quoted a fairly concise description of England's class system at the time by the historian Dorothy Marshall, made decades ago, but—unusually—managing to convey some of the RL complexity around social position without belaboring the point too much. One of the most critical points she makes is this:

The difference between someone like Mr Bennet and someone like Darcy in terms of socioeconomic power and status (often termed "consequence" at the time) is inevitably going to be more about hereditary land ownership than any other factor, including incomes and connections. Their incomes provide important information about the scale and value of the land they own, but wealth alone only tells a portion of the story here.

It's really, really clear in the novel that Mr. Bennet and Mr. Darcy are on different levels. I cannot understand why someone would even try to smooth over that nuance.

This is excellent clarification! Also remember that Darcy’s aunt is a lady. She’s a lady by marriage but that connection to a title alone elevates him in the hierarchy of the time.

Thanks!

Just to be clear, Lady Catherine is a lady by birth, not marriage, like her sister, Lady Anne Darcy—Darcy's own mother. Lady Catherine's title would be Lady de Bourgh if it came from her husband, Sir Lewis de Bourgh. Her own status, however, supersedes any title a mere knight or baronet could give her—Lady Catherine and Lady Anne were the daughters of an earl, a high-ranking nobleman.

This certainly affects Darcy's social status, though I think it's sometimes a bit overstated in terms of where Darcy's prestige comes from. A lot of his status comes from the scale of inherited land the Darcys control and the power it represents (we are told that basically his entire income is generated by Pemberley, not a smaller genteel estate + a separate inheritance, as we see with more typical wealthy gentry in other novels). Darcy isn't literally a nobleman, but Pemberley is aristocratic in scale and the Darcys are the kind of family who would have close blood relatives in the higher echelons of the nobility, as he does.

That's really unusual for an Austen hero, or really any Austen character who's portrayed at all favorably. The very powerful landowners and those with close associations or alignments with them tend not to come out looking good in her work, but P&P is so central to so much of the general sense of what Austen is doing as a writer that I think it's easy to overlook how much of Austen's relatively sympathetic depiction of Darcy is unique to him personally.

(@bethanydelleman - thanks as well. I also don't get it, but it's seemed increasingly common in the last 10-15 years from public-facing scholars who should and, I think, do know better.)

one of the things that continues to strike me on reread is how much the character of Darcy, and Austen through him, finds Mr. Bennet dead. And how much Elizabeth, in growing and changing and discarding her past blindness, has to move past her way of seeing her father and thus of seeing reality, because the two are connected! Darcy’s letter exposes her father’s flaws to Elizabeth in a way she’d never been able to see before. Most especially the way his laziness and neglect of his own gifts have hurt his family and that ultimately he doesn’t. care. Not enough to change. It literally says that she comes home from Hunsford and tries to laugh at her sisters’ and mother’s folly (the way she used to; the way her father has taught her to by example for her whole life) and she can’t anymore! It sticks in her throat. She is grieved by the failures that she sees in him, all the more so because she IS his favorite and she loves him! And the thing about Mr. Bennet is he never changes. The Lydia/wickham situation exposes to him sharply his own conduct and the consequences and he feels it! Because he is neither stupid nor unfeeling. But he, like everyone, has free will. And he chooses not to change when the opportunity presents itself. He even jokes about how quickly his feeling bad will pass and how soon everything will go back to normal, to his laziness and his selfishness. He is set in his ways and he serves as a contrast to Elizabeth’s personal journey because he embodies a version of a person she could have become and was in danger of becoming if her only goal at all times was to laugh at and judge people from the sidelines.

Donald Sutherland talking about the Director Joe Wright.

Mr. Bennet’s Favourite Pet

Someone said on Facebook today that Mr. Bennet treats Elizabeth like a “particularly amusing pet” and I was like YES! THOSE ARE THE WORDS I HAVE BEEN SEARCHING FOR! There seems to be this prevailing idea that Mr. Bennet likes and spends time with Elizabeth and Jane, but the relationship we see is very one-sided and selfish.

Mr. Bennet calls all his daughters silly, distinguishing that Elizabeth might be a little less bad, ““They have none of them much to recommend them,” replied he; “they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters.”” Let me just say, Father of the YEAR.

Anyway, the interactions we see between Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth are often like this, “Elizabeth, I want to tell you a joke *laugh together* Okay, bye.” He does like having her around because she’s the only one who gets his sense of humour, but he doesn’t seem to give much back.

And then when Elizabeth comes to her father to talk about Lydia, he dismisses all her concerns. He does not view her as entirely his equal, or at least he doesn’t want to acknowledge that someone might judge better than himself.  This answer of his is so dismissive, “Mr. Bennet saw that her whole heart was in the subject, and affectionately taking her hand said in reply: “Do not make yourself uneasy, my love…” He gives her a little pat on the head for being so worried and sends her away. He doesn’t listen to her at all.

Yes, Mr. Bennet doesn’t force Elizabeth to marry Collins, because he does recognize that she would hate the marriage and she is somewhat special, but I’m not going to give him all the points for respecting his daughter’s autonomy. The last mention of him, that he shows up at Pemberley when least expected, shows his continued selfishness. He comes when he wants, when he desires his daughter’s company, with no reference to what she actually needs. It’s far closer to a relationship between a man and his pet than a father and his allegedly beloved daughter.

To add, a lot of people assume that Mr. Bennet invested time and effort into teaching Jane and Elizabeth since they are the most mannered of the sisters. I don’t think there is any evidence that supports that in the book. It’s possible the older sisters kind of figured it out on their own from example (they’ve also been out in society the longest) or that they picked up good manners from the Gardiners. Mr. Bennet doesn’t seem to care at all that his youngest daughters are vulgar, he just laughs about it, so I’m not sure he cared enough to train the older ones.

I’ve always felt like the five Bennet sisters are just an example of what shakes out when you leave five children to shift for themselves. It worked for 2/5.

Some thoughts--way too many--of Mr. Bennet of Pride and Prejudice, all leading to a question.

First, he's married to an idiot, a woman "of weak understanding and illiberal mind." She's crass, not self-aware, immune to irony, narcissistic, self-indulgent, trivial-minded, overly anxious, and contradictory. He's stuck with her. Divorce literally takes an act of the national legislature. The national ruler, the Prince Regent, is unable to end his marriage. What chance does a minor gentleman farmer have? He is so stuck.

Second, I don't think he's a misogynist. Far from it: he appreciates the goodness and intelligence of his eldest daughter, and the great intelligence, wittiness, perceptiveness, and independence of his favorite, his second daughter, Elizabeth. He is deeply disappointed that the youngest three turned out so much like his wife, and not like him, her brother (Mr. Gardiner), or one of his siblings (very likely at the time, but canonically not mentioned). Indeed, I think he very much wanted an intelligent wife, someone like Lady Elliot, Mrs. Gardiner, Eleanor Tilney, or Elinor Dashwood. He would thrive with such a spouse, and he tells Elizabeth, "My child, let me not have the grief of seeing you unable to respect your partner in life." This strongly implies that that he wanted to respect his partner in life; instead, he ends up with Jane Bennet, née Gardiner. (Eldest children usually took their same-sex parent's first name, as pointed out here more than once, I think by @bethanydelleman.)

Third, his emotional state is complex. He's angry, of course, and frustrated--bitter, even. But he's angry at whom? Himself, but he's not strong enough to admit it fully--only partially. He got suckered. He was "captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good-humour which youth and beauty generally give." As men like to say, the little head did his thinking, not the big head, and it played him for an absolute fool. (Sorry for the crudity, but I would be surprised if something like this very phrase had not occurred to Mr. Bennet at some point.) He is very likely to be self-aware enough to recognize this--he totally knows when he screwed up with Lydia--but not in control of himself enough, not mature enough, to hold only himself fully accountable. And every time his wife is ... herself, it just reinforces, in his mind, that initial mistake.

Fourth, we don't know the circumstances of their marriage. Were they in an area, such as Highbury (in Emma) with very few potential romantic partners? If so, he would probably be more philosophical about all this. Since he's so bitter, I infer that there were plenty of eligible young women available, and he went with stupid hot--and stupid. Just like Lady Elliot, he made one stupid, disastrous mistake.

Finally, he is moral enough and strong enough not to cheat on her: "Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice." Instead, his anger and frustration all come out in ridicule of his wife: "her ignorance and folly ... contributed to his amusement." He plays a joke on her quite early in the novel, and it's not too bad--certainly she treats it as a good joke. Still, to accomplish it he stoked her anxiety before the big reveal, causing her to suffer unnecessarily, before relieving her of her worries. Indeed, this bears the earmarks of something that has happened before: he knows how to fool her. So he messes with her just to amuse himself, insults her and the three "silly" daughters to their faces, and avoids them by hanging out in his man-cave library. At one point he is "fatigued by the raptures of his wife" and withdraws, probably more than once.

Here is my question: why is the heroine saddled with such parents? As many here on Janeite Tumblr have pointed out, if she's a bad mom--and she is--he's a bad dad. He's way smarter than his wife, but fails his daughters in lack of savings (because of the entail) and failing to limit Lydia, to their collective reputational disaster (as Lady Catherine is so happy to point out).

In other words, with this character what point was Jane Austen trying to make?

I think the main point of Mr. Bennet is to serve as a caution to Elizabeth, who is very similar to him in personality. He is what she may become if she gets it wrong. He highlights the importance of an intelligent person choosing an equal partner and not marrying based on superficial attributes. It is not until after her self-discovery at Hunsford that Elizabeth/the narrator tells us the whole truth about the Bennet marriage, because Elizabeth becomes fully aware of it herself:

I keep thinking about Mr. Bennet when Elizabeth asks for him to stop Lydia from going to Brighton

“Already arisen?” repeated Mr. Bennet. “What, has she frightened away some of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of pitiful fellows who have been kept aloof by Lydia’s folly.”

I kind of want Lizzy to whip out the letter and scream, "TWO MEN! We lost Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy." She has written proof! Those are clearly not "pitiful fellows".

Also, his daughters have one path out of financial ruin, how could he care so little about Lydia's behaviour and its effect on the others?

I remember when i first read pride and prejudice the first time i was so confused as to why Mr bennet called Mr Wickham as his favorite son in law. Then i read it again and i was like - Oh he likes to joke

If I was Elizabeth I’d be like, too soon Father, too soon.

Proving that his guilt at about failing as a father did pass *very* quickly...

His guilt might have passed away but he did ensure though, not to repeat his mistakes by ensuring kitty doesn't goes lydia's way.

I give him only half points for doing the bare minimum and keeping Kitty away from Lydia. Elizabeth and Jane are the ones who took the time to help her improve.

Thoughts on Pride and Prejudice

Part 1: Mr. Bennet is the worst

We have to talk about Mr. Bennet and his general uselessness.

The entail on the estate is a major obstacle, but it’s also Mr. Bennet’s own mismanagement of the family that will leave them in the lurch after his death. It’s not as if he didn’t know about the entail. Surely he could have done more to arrange for this daughters and wife to be taken care of if he died prematurely. But nope. Mr. Bennet’s financial negligence and his refusal to help his family in society are equally to blame. He has to be harangued into introducing his daughters to Mr. Bingley. He complains when his wife prattles on about everyone he danced with (”If he had any compassion for me,” cried her husband impatiently, “he would not have danced half so much! For God’s sake, say no more of his partners. Oh! that he sprained his ankle in the first dance!” Lizzy also mentions to Lady Catherine that Mr. Bennet never bothered to take the family to town or employ a governess. Dude… this is your family’s future at stake. Would it kill you to show a little interest? Get a grip, good sir. This is on you.

I sympathize with Mrs. Bennet so much more now than when I first read the book. Yes, she’s overbearing and silly, but at least she’s trying. She’s just going about it in the wrong way. But what else can she do? Her husband is no help.

It’s interesting how the two most well-known TV/film adaptations soften the character in order to make him more sympathetic. The 2005 version in particular portrays Mr. Bennet as a charming recluse. (See the “Good heavens! People!” scene.) Mr. Bennet in the 1995 version just seems kind of wimpy by comparison, but there was a scene where they show him looking at the household accounts and doing the math, as if only just realizing what a bad financial situation the family was in. This scene does not exist in the book.

Of course we wouldn’t have a story at all if Mr. Bennet had been a more involved family man, but still. Smh, Mr. Bennet. Do better.

the whole build up of mr. collins coming to visit the bennets in pride and prejudice is absolutely comedy gold. like mr. bennet get this random letter from his nephew and future inheritor requesting to come and visit in a couple of weeks. and this is all fine and dandy at first but within a few seconds of reading this letter mr. bennet realizes that his nephew mr. collins is a complete and utter idiot and also annoying as shit. and that if he allows mr. collins to come and stay he will likely make the entire family’s life a living hell for two weeks and the household will eventually descend into chaos. but then his immediate follow-up thought is “that would be the most Hilarious Thing Ever” and writes back to mr. collins telling him he can’t wait for him to arrive. and then for a little extra razzle-dazzle he doesn't tell his family about the visit until the day of so they can’t even prepare for the shitshow coming their way. anyway mr bennet is literally the original sitcom dad