Mrs. Bennet has many flaws other than her greed for money. First, she picks favorites. The book even says, “ Elizabeth was the least dear to (Mrs. Bennet) of all her children”. Jane is her favorite daughter, and Mrs. Bennet does everything to try to make her seem more suitable to marry than her other daughters. She has very, very crude manners, and often shares her feelings with the public. These feelings are often not ones that should be shared, either. She also tries to “force” love, like when she created a plot to keep Jane at Netherfield for a while so that Jane and Mr. Bingley would “fall in love”.
George Wickham is a described as a “handsome and cunning” man by Alicia Carrasquillo of Harvard University in her analytic character summary (which can be found on ). Alicia also says, “Mr. Wickham is able to convince everyone in Meryton that he is a wonderful, respectable man, wronged by Mr. Darcy but worthy of an excellent wife”. Wickham is a liar. He lies about Darcy’s ill-treating him, when Darcy has actually helped Wickham. Darcy had even offered him a job in the church earlier, but Wickham had refused. Later, once Wickham had spent all of his money, he went back to Darcy and begged Darcy for the position at the church he had once been offered. Darcy refused this request, and so Wickham holds a grudge against him. He gets what he has bargained for in the end, upon marrying Lydia: the two are unhappy and always in debt. Darcy and Elizabeth often pay that dept.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh is a horrible woman. With a heart of stone, she looks only to please herself. The book describes her as “a tall, large woman, with strongly-marked features, which might once have been handsome.” The book also says that, “Her air was not conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving (Elizabeth) such as to make her visitors forget their inferior rank”. Her love for money causes her to have many faults that are derived from that love. For instance, upon hearing that Darcy will not marry her daughter (but Elizabeth), she goes to the Bennet home and gives Elizabeth an atrocious talk. When Elizabeth asks her why she can’t marry Darcy, Lady Catherine de Bourgh says
Because honor, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yet, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, and if you willfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by every one connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned to any of us.
Miss Bingley is the very snobby sister of Mr. Bingley, who (as described by ) is “rather handsome, educated, but proud and conceited”. She, too, has faults that derive from her greed for money. She tries to make herself seem better than the other women (especially Elizabeth) who are attempting to wed Darcy. She tries to make herself seem more intelligent, civilized, and refined than the other women. And to Darcy, she never puts a good word in for any other woman than herself. She once says, while talking to Darcy about Elizabeth
I must confess that I never could see any beauty in her. Her face is too thin; her complexion has no brilliancy; and her features are not at all handsome. Her nose wants character; there is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are tolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes, which have sometimes been called so fine, I never could perceive any thing extraordinary in them. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do not like at all; and in her air altogether, there is a self-sufficiency without fashion, which is intolerable.
As we see, Pride and Prejudice has no blood thirsty, murderous, apocalyptic type villains, but rather the everyday, greedy and stuck-up people who live amongst us. These people appear in the book simply to make it more interesting and to make it possible to develop a good plot. Almost anywhere in the world at a given time, there will be at least one Mrs. Bennet, someone who just wants her kids to marry for wealth. There will be at least one Wickham, someone who lies to make him or herself look better. Anywhere, a Lady Catherine de Bourgh can be found, someone who wants everything to go just his or her way. Similarly, any inhabited place on earth houses a Miss Bingley, who wrongly downplays others to make them self look better. And we all know the greedy for money type. These are the type of people who also exist in Pride and Prejudice. Although they all want money above any other, they all also have their own unique faults.
