Pride and Prejudice; Elizabeth Bennet

The heroine of Pride and Prejudice, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, is one of classical fiction`s most celebrated and loved characters. Indeed she is so popular that a television series named Lost in Austen played on the fantasy of literally inhabiting her world. Austen`s assessment that Elizabeth was `as delightful a creature to have ever appeared in print` seems even today to be shared by a great many members of the reading public.

Elizabeth is a popular heroine partly because of her wonderful wit; her perfectly formed arguments, quips and rebuttals are as unobtainable to the average person as the size zero figures that mark most of today`s female icons, but her lack of extraordinary physical beauty makes her both an aspirational character and also a kind of girl-next-door with whom everyone can identify.

Miss Bennet is an icon of modern femininity, with her `liveliness` and wit out of step with the generally passive female protagonists of the time. Her spirit is one of the chief reasons she is attractive to Mr. Darcy. Darcy, who is of course fabulously wealthy, confesses that Elizabeth`s lack of obsequiousness in her dealings with him showed him `how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.` She is also forthright in her rebuttals to the powerful and domineering Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

Elizabeth Bennet`s independent spirit of course has its limits. She is acutely aware of her society`s moral norms and expectations, and treats them with no great sense of injustice. Among her family members, Elizabeth is Lydia`s most consistent critic, due to the latter`s increasing reputation for flirtation and impropriety. She is angry, not just at Lydia`s immorality for its own sake but for the effect on her family`s reputation; she explicity tells her father that `our importance, our respectability in the world, must affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia`s character.`

Indeed, the keenest railer against the status quo in the book is the much maligned Mrs Bennet. It is Mrs Bennet who complains `bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of five daughers.` Of course she is correct in her assessment; while her attempts to have the Bennet sisters all settled in advantageous marriages are unbearable, she has no love for the system that placed her family in this position. The rest of the family, including Elizabeth, expresses no particular disdain for the system that leaves them beholden to Mr. Collins, heir to the estate.

It is perhaps Elizabeth`s ambiguity that has contributed to her enduring success. She seems to be willing to forgo financial security when she rejects Mr. Collins` proposal, but the reverend is such a ridiculous character that Elizabeth is actually shocked that anyone – even her pragmatic friend Charlotte – could accept. Likewise, she refuses to rule out marriage to the penniless Wickham, but at no point does their marriage seem likely. She is able to make her decision based on love, but it happily transpires that the love of her life is one of England`s richest men! Her rebelliousness comes at no cost; indeed it helps to advance her further in status and wealth.

Major Dramatic Interpretations of Miss Elizabeth Bennet

Greer Garson in Pride and Prejudice 1940

Greer Garson brings 1940s glamour to the role of Elizabeth Bennet. Her Lizzy is feisty but also very feminine. In this version it's Lizzy who attracts most of the male attention for her looks as well as her liveliness. Watch Greer Garson in Pride and Prejudice 1940 online here.

Elizabeth Garvie in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice 1980

Elizabeth Garvie's Lizzy is soft and gentle in her wit. Her confrontations with Mr. Darcy are cool, yet civil, with none of the fiery passion that characterizes the same scenes in the 1995 and 2005 adaptations. Her`s is an altogether lighter Lizzy; her sensitivity and lack of malice certainly do a good job of explaining why Darcy was not completely scared away by their early conversations, and also increases the severity of his crime of slighting such a sweet girl at the town ball.

Jennifer Ehle in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice 1995

Jennifer Ehle in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice adaptation portrays Elizabeth with a kind of piercing critical intelligence and passion that, even if you believed the damning account of his character from Wickham, would leave you feeling sorry for Darcy under the weight of her verbal attacks. She nevertheless endows the character with a wonderful warmth and affection for her family and friends.

Keira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice 2005

Keira Knightley in the 2005 dramatization was much closer to the age of the character as written by Jane Austen. She also brings to life Lizzy`s `delight in the absurd,` yet the other side of her character – the social embarrassment she feels at the vulgar antics of her family.