The unfairly treated Mary Bennet 英语论文 没有被公平对待的玛丽贝内

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2024年3月5日发(作者：)

The unfairly treated Mary Bennet

There’s no doubt that Mary Bennet is an unimportant character in Jane Austen’s

“Pride and Prejudice”. While the conflicts and incidents develop with the growth of love

between Eliza and Darcy, Mary only appears for a few times. Every time she is mentioned,

she is disgraced and affected. However, though she is unpleasant, she is certainly poor.

The formation of Mary’s disposition is related to her experience. As John Bayley said,

“the unfortunate Mary is the only one among Jane Austen’s characters who never gets a

fair deal from the author at all, any more than she does from her father.” On the one

hand, under the influence of limited heritage, Mary and her sisters would not have a

stable and comfortable life provided that they should not be able to marry. On the other

hand, compared to her sisters, Mary was ordinary-looking, less-talented and unintelligent.

Even when compared with plain Charlotte Lucas, she was more unfortunate since the

former was deeply caring by her family. On the contrary, in Mary’s family, the father

showed preference to Eliza, the mother doted on two younger daughters, the two older

sisters were intimate. It is conceivable that Mary had been living in solitude and being

ignored since an early age.

Vanity was the most obvious sign of Mary. In her own words, “Vanity and pride are

different things, though the words are often used synonymously.” A person may be

proud without being vain. On the surface, she was very proud of her intelligence, but in

fact, she cared more about the outside views than anyone else and was more eager to gain

the compliment of others. In order to establish a more knowledgeable image, she liked to

show off her talent, always wanted to express profound comments and strongly believed

in reason.

Nevertheless, at the end of the novel, Mary played the role as the only unmarried

daughter, in which case she had to take part in several activities at the request of her

mother. “She was no longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters' beauty and

her own, it was suspected by her father that she submitted to the change without much

reluctance”. Here the author pointed out that Mary’s indifference attitude towards

sociality possibly because of her unwillingness to be compared with her sisters. As a

conclusion, Mary’s eagerness for knowledge was not so sincere. She hoped to become a

knowledgeable woman in order to win attention and cover the plain image in the shadow

of her sisters.

Mary’s fate is pretty unjust. Compared to Jane Eyre who is equally ordinary, she is

less independent and less confident. As a consequence, though she had paid a lot of

efforts, she didn’t get the recognition and care of others which she had been pursuing.

The unfortunate of Mary comes from three aspects. Firstly, she was unconfident and

vanity, and the two characters promoted each other. Secondly, her family found her

shortcomings without giving her enough care, which leads to her character defect. Thirdly,

the era was not conducive for women to improve themselves through efforts. To some

extent, Mary is pitiful. Perhaps this is why Cowling McCullough wrote the book “the

Independence of Miss Mary Bennet”, imagining the wonderful life she could have owned.

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