Did Mary Bennet fancy Mr Collins for herself? Jane Austen’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE style analysis

hello and welcome to close reading classic literature with me Dr Octavia Cox today I'm going to analyze Jane Austen's marvelous novel Pride and Prejudice focusing on the character of Mary Bennett did Mary Bennett fancy Mr Collins for herself that's the question I'm going to be considering and in answering this question we can see just how brilliant a writer Jane Austen is because it gives us an excellent example I think of her particular writing style and a technique that's very particular to Austin I think in creating fictional worlds in terms of how she constructs this imaginary world that the characters all live in and in the second half of the video and with reference to Virginia Woolf I'm going to describe Jane Austen's World building that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about the imaginary world created for the characters what we might Now call World building and in doing this I will elucidate a characteristic element of Jane Austen's writing style and which is I think one of the reasons why Jane Austen is so popular and so successful as a writer so let's get on with the analysis in the 1995 BBC television series of Pride and Prejudice which was adapted by Andrew Davies the actress who plays Mary Bennett called Lucy Breyers presents her character subtly and rather touchingly I think as interested in Mr Collins but is this accurate well yes I think it is accurate in terms of conveying the spirit of Jane Austen's World building even if these moments do not explicitly appear or are not described explicitly in the text of the novel to investigate this more Let us look at Jane Austen's text itself so the extract that I want to unpick today is from chapter 22 of Pride and Prejudice so this is after Elizabeth Bennett who is of course Mary Bennett's sister has rejected Mr Collins's proposal of marriage so Mr Collins is taking his leave he's going back to Kent and um then he says that he's going to come back to Harper to meriton uh again soon to the uh surprise and consternation of some of the Bennett's family the paragraph reads with proper civilities the ladies then withdrew all of them equally surprised to find that he meditated a quick return Mrs Bennett wished to understand by it that he thought of paying his addresses to one of her younger girls and Mary might have been prevailed on to accept him she and here Jane Austen uses the the technique The Narrative technique of free indirect style where we have moved into the mind of the character into the mind of Mary Bennett and into her thoughts but into Mary's own thoughts from her own perspective so that that technique is called free indirect Style so we've moved from third person narrative and into the mind of Mary but it's remained third person narrative she Mary rated his abilities much higher than any of the others there was a solidity in his Reflections which often struck her and though by no means so clever as herself she thought that if encouraged to read and improve himself by such an example as hers he might become a very agreeable companion but on the following morning every hope of this kind was done away Miss Lucas called soon after breakfast and in a private conference with Elizabeth related the event of the day before that is that she Charlotte Lucas has already become engaged to Mr Collins it is a tiny hint in a whole novel full of text but as ever with Jane Austen details Mata from two sentences it is clear that Mary Bennett did indeed fancy Mr Collins for herself she had every hope that she would be able to mold him into her own very agreeable companion Mary Bennett had clearly thought about it she has thought about how she's going to teach him to be her mate so in these two condensed sentences Jane Austen has created access to Mary Bennett's thought processes over some period of time there was a solidity in his Reflections which often struck her Jane Austen's choice of diction here that is including the word often shows readers that this is a repeated observation of Mary Bennett's there have been many occasions on which the validity of his Reflections have struck her likewise we are told that after Charlotte Lucas's visit every hope of this kind was done away what kind of hope is that I think it's an interesting way that Jane Austen has phrased this every hope of this kind was done away obviously that he will become her very agreeable companion and Mary Bennett's hope here is multiple every hope of this kind as if she has rethought this thought about him many times over has thought and hoped about the different kinds of way that he might become her agreeable companion there is a certain vanity to Mary Bennett's character as we are told by The Narrative voices we are shown by The Narrative voice throughout the text in chapter five for example readers are told with beautiful irony Pride observed Mary who peaked herself on the solidity of her Reflections is a very common feeling I believe peaked here meaning to take pride in or to congratulate oneself on and that's from the Oxford English Dictionary Mary Bennett's thought process in the paragraph under discussion confirms this to us readers in other words we are not just told by The Narrative voice that Mary Bennett is slightly Vain and Prides herself on her Reflections on other people's Pride but we are provided with evidence of it within Mary's thinking in in the past the main passage we're looking at Mr Collins by no means so clever as herself and she thinks that he will improve himself by such an example as hers so that's evidence within Mary's thinking of Mary's own vanity but comparing the two quotations more closely we can see just how densely textured and highly brought how tightly constructed Jane Austen's prose is so in chapter five the quotation I just read out Mary Bennett had peaked herself upon the solidity of her Reflections and in chapter 22 Mary Bennett thinks of Mr Collins that there was a solidity in his Reflections which often struck her so Jane Austen has Mary Bennett pried herself on the solidity of her Reflections and be struck and admire in Mr Collins the solidity in his Reflections so Jane Austen's repetition very explicit repetition of diction which by the way spans 17 chapters so you have to wait a long time for the kind of payoff of of being able to compare these two but Jane Austen's repetition of diction exemplifies Mary Bennett's belief in their mental compatibility what does this construction of the text involving Mary Bennett reveal about Jane Austen's writing style Mary Bennett is a mighty character within the novel Pride and Prejudice she does not have a function in terms of the mechanics of the central plot Mary Bennett could not be in the novel and the main events of the story could still happen exactly as they do this is unlike Lydia Bennett for example who has an ex who has an essential function within the plot's construction Lydia's elopement with Wickham impels Darcy into action in in rescuing her shall we say thus showing his true colors and bringing about the union between Darcy and Elizabeth of course Mary Bennett is important in other ways which are not part of the scope of this video today to explore in detail for example she provides context for and a Counterpoint to Conventional moralizing of the period and do please share your thoughts in the comments below about these elements of Mary Bennett's character that you think are particularly interesting or particularly relevant or that you want to explore a bit more but in terms of the plot Mary Bennett is an unessential character indeed the whole paragraph that we are examining in this video is not necessary even to the scene that it is within to the episode of Mr Collins's rejection by Lizzie Bennett and then engagement to Charlotte Lucas this paragraph might not be functionally necessary but it is wonderful because it adds to the richness of the imaginary world that has been created so what Jane Austen does with even this minor character in a functionally Superfluous paragraph as an example I think of her brilliant skill in creating characters and imaginary worlds that feel complex that feel Vivid that feel real even very minor characters in Jane Austen's fiction are shown to have active inner lives readers have explicit access to these internal Realms we are aware of their inner lives their psychology their motivations their feelings their hopes their dreams their plans for the future even when no other character in the novel is aware of them although perhaps in this case Mrs Bennett with a mother's instinct might suspect Mary's feelings given that she thinks to herself Mary might have been prevailed on to accept him Mr Collins Virginia Woolf in her perceptive work from 1925 the common reader described Jane Austen's ability to create such evocative imaginary worlds that they exist in the reader's imagination beyond the novel itself she wrote the characters of a Jane Austen or of a Tolstoy have a million facets compared to these that is to the characters of Charlotte Bronte in the novel Jane Eyre they live and are complex by means of their effect upon many different people who serve to mirror them in the round they move hither and thither whether their creators watch them or not and the world in which they live seems to us an independent World which we can visit now that they have created it by ourselves Virginia Woolf's observation that Jane Austen's characters think and move hither and thither whether they're creators and readers watch them or not applies to the creation of Mary Bennett in the paragraph We are given a moment of access into Mary's thinking but even from that snapshot that tiny snapshot we see that much has been going on in the background while we have been looking elsewhere we might compare this for example with Mrs Fairfax or even with Adele from Charlotte bronte's Jane Eyre there is not the same sense that they have inner lives thoughts perceptions motivations of their own we see them Through The Eyes Of Jane Eyre and only through her eyes so what we learn about those characters is what is important to Jane Eyre about those characters we don't have these moments of access into those characters inner lives and inner worlds and inner motivations to see things that Jane Eyre herself is not aware of or hasn't observed in them the novel of Pride and Prejudice might focus on what is happening to Lizzie and Darcy and even to to some extent uh Mr Collins and Charlotte Lucas's schemes for snaring him but even though the text of the novel has not been focusing on it even though Mary Bennett has been unwatched the paragraph that we have been looking at today reveals that all the while unbeknownst to us and other characters Mary Bennett has been thinking and hoping and planning to make Mr Collins her agreeable companion thank you very much indeed for watching and for supporting my work here on this channel it really is very much appreciated remember if you like what I do here on my channel where I analyze classic literature then do subscribe and if you have liked the video then do please press the thumbs up button it helps me out in YouTube's algorithm and what do you think what do you make of the way that Jane Austen constructs the character of Mary Bennett leave your thoughts in the comments below