Pride and Prejudice Returns
Lest you think I’ve abandoned the P&P discussion, here I am again! I thought I’d share some interesting insights from an essay in Flirting with Pride and Prejudice concerning Mary. The author wondered why Mary had such a position of non-importance in the novel. It wasn’t her embarrassment level; Lydia and Kitty and Mrs. Bennet were just as bad. It wasn’t her pedantic moralizing. Mr. Collins was far more annoying. So why does Austen give poor Mary short shrift? The author proposed that she didn’t advance the ideal of the book, marriage.
Mary wasn’t going to be married (pun on her name?). She doesn’t have any beaus, she doesn’t ogle the officers, nor does she cast the longing looks at Mr. Collins that the movies seem to imply. As a matter of fact, her position is often replaced by another who is more central to the marriage plot. When the girls walk to Meryton, Mary does not go. Mr. Collins, a marriageable prospect, takes her place.
Although a quick Google search didn’t turn up anything, I recall reading that Jane Austen liked to tell her father and sister what befell her characters after the novel ended. I believe that Mary was resigned to a fate of spinsterhood. If so, then Austen had it in her mind all along that there was no man to be had for Mary. The last chapter of the book alludes to this fact: “Mary was the only daughter who remained at home.”
I wonder what you think of Mary. It will be hard to separate the movie version adaptations of this character from what is actually in the text, but it bears thinking. What is her chief fault? Do you think that she wanted to be married? What do you think she thought of her sisters? Why was the gaining of accomplishments so important to her? I realize that a strict reliance on the text will not yield all these answers, so have some fun!
Now, I’m off to continue reading The Thirteenth Tale, which is an interesting read.
Comments (17)
O.k….. I wasn’t gonna do this right now, so, I gotta be quick about this,….. I’ve got to get to bed early tonight. But I do have an opinion on this subject….. plus your definition of a “peppermiz” tickled me & I had to come and say…. You made that up, didn’t you!!? What a crack up!
As to Mary. To my surprise, she illustrated far more pride in the book than I ever observed in the movies. She was not so much a nerdy book worm (pardon the expression for all you “totally rocking” book worms!) as I had thought. Of course this is just my opinion, but she seemed quite proud of her lofty thoughts and head knowledge. Like you said, Mr. Collins was far more annoying, but, possibly, her pride was even greater than his….. just less expressed. I think her pride was simply a much quieter type. She didn’t need a man to dote over her…… she doted over her own, self-righteous, pensive, philosophical self! Maybe I’m being a bit harsh on the poor, fictional character. Maybe she really just thought that knowledge was greater than a relationship with a man and, therefore, found pleasure and satisfaction in the gaining of knowledge above all else. That’s all I have time for!! Bye!
p.s. – you know…… when you read books like this, all of a sudden, you begin thinking and writing in a much more English/Brittish way and using much more proper English when addressing such topics….. don’t cha think!!??
hmmm…i will have to think on that mary issue. i wonder if being youngest, she was so fed up with it all, having watched all her sisters go through such drama to secure husbands. idk. i will have to think on it. i like how they made her so “goth” in the latest version. added some humor to it…
ryc: i had to go and search out this other mary sellers. lol i only found one picture of her though and she had just died in the scene she had performed–stabbed to death. how gruesome. lol
and sugar reindeer cookies! yum!
RYC: I love massages……but I also love shoulder and back rubs. It is a total stress reliever! I like the deal in the mall because you just sit right down and away they go! (Plus you are fully dressed!)
ryc: you are right! o dear! i always think of her as the youngest. lol how funny! okay i switch my theory to middle child syndrome. my hubby’s a middle child of five and he’s definitely the different one in his family–has to stand out somehow!. hee hee.
Just lyrics. Although maybe I should have written them… That way I would negate this feeling of laziness. I don’t know how you manage to write so much in a post!
Well, my first comment on P&P. (I had been behind on the reading schedule and so felt unable to comment.)
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I don’t think that Mary had given up hope of securing a husband. She came across as not caring for men, only her accomplishments, but I think she did care. In a society where the only respectable thing she can do is marry I think she would care very much. I think her desire for accomplishments was in the hopes of finding a husband. She was plain and poor, so what kind of husband can she ever hope to snag? I sort of think she hoped to find a man who cared more for intelligence and accomplishments than for looks or money.
Considering an interest in Mr. Collins, although she didn’t cast longing looks at him in the book I think it might be possible that she had hoped to appeal to him at first. I think she might’ve felt that with him being a minister her accomplishments and pursuit of knowledge might make her his choice. Also, in the book it says of Mary and Mr. Collins “She 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.” That, to me, says that she had thought quite seriously of Mr. Collins as a prospective husband.
As for her small part in the book, I don’t think it’s that much smaller than Kitty’s. Both Mary and Kitty aren’t central characters, so there is not much about either of them. Kitty has a larger part in the story just by being paired with Lydia, who has a larger part in the story then both Kitty and Mary. Also, Mary seems sort of left out in the Bennet family. Lizzie and Jane were the favorites of the father, Lydia was the mother’s favorite, Lizzie and Jane are such good friends, and the same goes for Kitty and Lydia, who is left for Mary to pal around with? Maybe she stayed at home and to herself so often because she was left out.
I can’t speculate much on her future and possible spinsterhood, although I like to think that she eventually found someone to marry. After all, Charlotte Lucas was also described as plain and poor, but she found someone. Charlotte wasn’t married until 27, Mary was only about 18 in the book, she had time. The book sort of implies that she somewhat blossomed out after her sisters left Longbourn, so I think that it’s quite possible. At any rate, I like to think that she did end up married and lived happily ever after.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Sorry for such a long post, once I start writing I can’t seem to stop! Oh, and aj1965, I quite agree with your statement that one tends to think and write in a more English/Brittish way when reading such books as Pride and Prejudice.
I’m so glad you have turned the spotlight on Mary for once. What I think about Mary is that she saw she could have not distinguished herself as beautiful or “lively” because of being preceded in birth by Jane and Elizabeth, so she dove deeply into moral philosophy as her distinguishing characteristic. It says also that being accomplished was very important to her. Middle children often get lost in the crowd, and Mary was trying to do something to set herself apart.
I think Mary was just a serious girl by nature. She took everything seriously and therefore was easily provoked and teased by her sisters. Thus, a vicious cycle! They rolled their eyes at her and she would dig her heals in and stand her righteous ground. She is endearing to me. I think it is another example of the satire of Austen’s work. The society was so proud and prejudice that the sensible, serious girl was overlooked by her best prospect and suitable match, Mr. Collins.
I can’t remember, is the capitol of Texas named for Jane or someone else? Also, to stay closer to the current Mary discussion, I note that one anagram for “MARY BENNET” is “BAN EM ENTRY”, which has interesting significance given Teacherperson‘s first initial.
I agree with faithcd…… I had hoped that Mr. Collins would pick Mary, too. I’m really just a matchmaker at heart!!
Everyone has such good thoughts!! ……. TP – where are we supposed to be in the book right now?? I’d set the book down for a while with all this sickness duty I’ve had, but I’m on chapter 22 & about to read a few more chapters tonight….. am I behind, on track, or jumping the gun?
Hmm worst exam was prolly history. And I definitely won’t have a 4.0 this semester :-/. Ah well, I learned a lot! Hahaha, for the next three glorious weeks I am going to relax like no other can. We’ll be in the Carabbean after the 19th (G-Parents Christmas present to our family). We’ll be home for Christmas, and then I will work on my book, and then I actually have off until midway through Febuary. I will have to find something profittable to do with myself, but that is too far in the future!
Tell everyone dpeck says hi.
Love,
Daniel
P.S. I talked about myself too much in that note–how is YOUR family doing?!?!
RYC: I would love to do a buddy study! And yes I do love boggle. I normally play against the computer, but sometimes Mr. Bear, although lately he has been such a grumpy bear the computer is my only partner.
Do you love any teachers in particular? I adore RC Sproul and would love to study anything written by him, I’m sure he has books on grace. Or would you prefer a book of the bible? Phillipians is big on living in peace and grace.
I can’t believe I wrote “heals” instead of “heels”!! :O hehehehe….YIKES!
I liked faithcd’s comments. I guess I don’t think Mary was all that proud. I think she was very insecure about herself, being outshined by two remarkable (in their own ways) sisters, and did put on a show of being full of herself. It really is too bad about Mr. Collins not courting HER instead of Elizabeth, but being so obsessively concerned with propriety, he really couldn’t have gone past Elizabeth, who was next in line to be married by her birth order, and courted Mary instead. Wasn’t there some sort of “rule” that the girls should marry in order of age? Of course Lydia blows that out of the water, but nobody could accuse Mr. Wickham of being concerned with propriety, or Lydia either.
I think I read somewhere that the Bennets engaged a governess for the older two, then decided to save some money by expecting the older two to teach the rest. It might have helped Mary a lot to have had a governess, -an ill-timed attack of thrift for her sake.
Keep the P&P thoughts comming! It’s nice to have something else to think about other than “did I remember to buy/wrap/mail that?”
Some people might think that talking about a book so much spoils it. Not me! Isn’t it wonderful to find books that can bear so much scrutiny?
I should have waited to comment. I finally finished the reading late last night and read that they did not engage a governess at all. Whose idea was that, do you think? I wonder at their spending priorities… Mrs. Bennet succeded in securing a husband with her good looks, so I suppose she thought there was no need of education, and I still think Mr. Bennet, when he woke up to the kind of woman he’d married, just sort of “gave up” and decided to find everything funny. I have an urge to give him a good shaking.
It was obviously important for a woman to marry, but I hope Mary was more like my great great aunt, who had one great romance, and lost the man (I think in a war), then never married. My mother wondered if she just didn’t care for men in general and used the tragic loss of her love as an excuse to never seek another beau. She was a beauty and could have had others. Perhaps Mary used her moral philosophising as a shield against such a relationship because she just didn’t care for the idea of marriage?
I’ll probably read something else later that will make me wish I’d waited to comment.