Overbearing Bennet In Pride And Prejudice

In this excerpt of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Austen uses witty diction, irony, and archetypes to characterize Mr. Bennet as sarcastic, and Mrs. Bennet as overbearing.

The author's attitude towards Mrs. Bennet is that she is overbearing this can be seen in lines 19 and 20 when Mr. Bennet says, “You want to tell me, and I have no obligation to hearing it.” What Mr. Bennett is saying is that because his wife is so overbearing, he knows that if she wants to talk about something he has no choice but to listen. Another example of Mrs. Bennet being overbearing is when she says, “He may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes” (line 43-45). Since she believes that what she thinks is right, she takes almost complete control over the situation, and practically demands that Mr. Bennet go visit Mr. Bingley.

The author uses irony to show

Bennet being ironically overbearing is when she says, “I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others” (line 74-75). She’s being overbearing by trying to tell Mr. Bennet what to say to Mr. Bingley. She is telling him not to put in a good word for their daughter Lizzy, and this is ironic because previously she stated that the reason she wanted Mr. Bennet to go visit Mr. Bingley is so that Mr. Bingley might want to marry one of their daughters, so it would be assumed that she would want a good word put in for any of them.

The characteristics of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are archetypes themselves. They’re the bantering couple with the overbearing wife and the sarcastic, laid-back husband. An example of this type of archetype can see on TV shows like Modern Family and Married With Children. Mrs. Bennet is frantic, always panicking about things, and trying to control what her husband is doing while Mr. Bennet on the other hand is more silly, sarcastic, and laid-back and never really worried about anything much like the main couples in those