Page 2 | To ask which Bennett sister you are?

LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet · 2023-01-04T22:58:07+00:00

I hate to say it but when I was 18 I would have been a total Lydia. Thought myself excellent, liked to party and get attention from boys. I’d definitely have done something fucking stupid like run away with a handsome but twattish commander who didn’t know when to put his little solider away. These days I’m far more Lizzie. A bit cynical, attracted to men with nice houses and like a to wind up arrogant obnoxious men. Could never be a Jane. I’m not nearly nice enough [grin]

Squabbledee · 04/01/2023 23:13

I would love to have been a Lizzie or better still a Jane but I am definitely a Charlotte.. 🙄

BrioNotBiro · 04/01/2023 23:13

I do recommend 'The Other Bennet Sister' - Mary's tale. She's written as a far more rounded character than in P&P and Mr Collins is tempered by Charlotte's influence.
www.waterstones.com/book/the-other-bennet-sister/janice-hadlow/9781509842049

BernieBarks · 04/01/2023 23:14

It's Bennet , not Bennett .
I would have been Mary , evidently .

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LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet · 04/01/2023 23:14

Kanaloa · 04/01/2023 23:06

Was Mr Collins really that bad though? As a teen I really pitied Charlotte, but now looking back I think she kind of had the right idea. He’s a bit embarrassing, but he is a respectable man who offered her a comfortable and secure life. I think if I lived back then I could settle like that.

I absolute think Jane Austen was going for this. In those times marriages were largely business transactions to make heirs and whatnot, and only the truly lucky fell in love as well. Charlotte Lucas was 27, which was considered embarrassingly ancient and it was a sensible move seeing as she may have never got another offer. She’d have ended up like the Dashwood sisters, if she was lucky.

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StillMedusa · 04/01/2023 23:14

I like to think I'd be Lizzie, but I'm probably more of a Charlotte (but wouldn't have married Mr Collins)
My DD1 is definitely Jane, way too nice for her own good, and DD2 is absolutely Lizzie!

Great question OP, I really enjoyed thinking about that!!! (One of my all time favourite books

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LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet · 04/01/2023 23:15

hopelessbusiness · 04/01/2023 23:09

@Untitledsquatboulder I used to think like that but as I've got older I think she played a blinder! Pop out a couple of children to give her a focus, then shut up shop due to 'women's issues'. Mr Collins was many things but I reckon he'd respect that. Then of course she'd become the mistress of Longbourne and find plenty to amuse her there... certainly could have been a lot worse for her!!

I agree and I think it is touched upon in the novel that she could shoo Mr Collins away for long enough with very little effort.

There are MNers who maybe wanna take a lead from Charlotte Lucas’s book and be one step ahead of their annoying husband’s 🤣

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Kanaloa · 04/01/2023 23:17

LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet · 04/01/2023 23:14

I absolute think Jane Austen was going for this. In those times marriages were largely business transactions to make heirs and whatnot, and only the truly lucky fell in love as well. Charlotte Lucas was 27, which was considered embarrassingly ancient and it was a sensible move seeing as she may have never got another offer. She’d have ended up like the Dashwood sisters, if she was lucky.

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Lol, I think Marianne even makes a throwaway comment early on in S&S about ‘who could possibly feel love at seven and twenty!’

So really I think in perspective that Charlotte wasn’t getting an altogether bad deal. And Mr Collins wasn’t cruel or mean or unkind. Just a bit… cringe.

Needhelp101 · 04/01/2023 23:18

LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet · 04/01/2023 23:14

I absolute think Jane Austen was going for this. In those times marriages were largely business transactions to make heirs and whatnot, and only the truly lucky fell in love as well. Charlotte Lucas was 27, which was considered embarrassingly ancient and it was a sensible move seeing as she may have never got another offer. She’d have ended up like the Dashwood sisters, if she was lucky.

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Charlotte is a baller. Completely made the right choice for the time she lived in.

Isn't there a bit in P&P where she actually tells Elizabeth she was quite content? (And has arranged her house so that she doesn't have to encounter Mr Collins too often 😁)

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LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet · 04/01/2023 23:18

So pleased to see people recommending The Other Bennet Sister.

It takes place before, during and many years after P&P. Which I loved because you knew what was coming in the first part of the book and it was great to see it from another character’s perspective. I’ve never viewed the piano scene the same way after reading TOBS

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MilkyYay · 04/01/2023 23:18

Bit of lizzy bit of mary.

Kanaloa · 04/01/2023 23:19

I will say I’ve never read any of the Austen spin-offs though, such as Death Comes to Pemberley, The Other Bennett Sister etc. I feel they would spoil it for me if they weren’t really good!

JudgementalRaccoon · 04/01/2023 23:19

LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet · 04/01/2023 23:14

I absolute think Jane Austen was going for this. In those times marriages were largely business transactions to make heirs and whatnot, and only the truly lucky fell in love as well. Charlotte Lucas was 27, which was considered embarrassingly ancient and it was a sensible move seeing as she may have never got another offer. She’d have ended up like the Dashwood sisters, if she was lucky.

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I’d be Eleanor.

rolloverbeethoven · 04/01/2023 23:20

Mary, definitely.

RoseAndGeranium · 04/01/2023 23:21

hopelessbusiness · 04/01/2023 23:00

Think I'd be Lizzie too...I love her quick wittedness and her ability to stand up for herself.
Wonder if there's any Mary's out there?

Mary at 18, Lizzie by 26 with a bit of Kitty in between!

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LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet · 04/01/2023 23:22

Needhelp101 · 04/01/2023 23:18

Charlotte is a baller. Completely made the right choice for the time she lived in.

Isn't there a bit in P&P where she actually tells Elizabeth she was quite content? (And has arranged her house so that she doesn't have to encounter Mr Collins too often 😁)

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Yes I’m sure she alludes to being able to do things like saying “Oh you should pop to Rosings and show Lady De Burgh your thoughts on that sermon, I’m sure she’d have an opinion” and that would be the annoying fucker gone for half a day 😂 Mr Collins is the 19th century equivalent of a MN husband with an ‘unusual hobby, it would be too outing to put on here’. Next time I read that in a post I’m going to wonder if the DH’s hobby is to pop along to the local stately home to bore the tits off an elderly aristocrat 🤣🤣

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Worldpeaceandallthat · 04/01/2023 23:22

Untitledsquatboulder · 04/01/2023 23:03

Sadly I'd probably have been a Mary, certainly the plain one hiding behind a book.

I was going to write the same.

I loved studying this book all those years ago too.

Youwhatnowbiggles · 04/01/2023 23:24

Oh, I was Kitty as a teen but a Jane by 21. One of my dc is a Lydia - they’re really feckin painful to parent😖🙈😂

Needhelp101 · 04/01/2023 23:24

In fact, thinking about it, Mr Collins is less of a dick than Mr Bennett...

Great question, OP!

TinyBagEnergy · 04/01/2023 23:25

I'm a Lizzy but with less wit and an abundance of sarcasm 😁

WineCap · 04/01/2023 23:26

I think I would be Lizzie. I wish I was a bit more like Jane sometimes.

Lydia was always my least favourite!

MummersMumming · 04/01/2023 23:27

I'd like to think I'm Lizzie but really I'm more like Mary

BrightYellowDaffodil · 04/01/2023 23:27

Was Mr Collins really that bad though?

Oh, he was. All those carefully studied graces, his piety and his obsequious veneration of anyone above him in the social pecking order, not to mention being a crashing bore who was completely indifferent to the notion of Elizabeth not wanting to marry him.

But I quite agree with a@hopelessbusiness that Charlotte played a duff hand very well.

As for me, I’m a hefty dollop of Lizzie. Too much time spent getting my hems dirty in muddy puddles

FortunaMajor · 04/01/2023 23:28

I loved The Other Bennet Sister.

There's also Charlotte by Helen Moffett which tells the story from Charlotte Lucas's perspective.

Mrs Wickham by Sarah Page (on Audible) is really good fun.

I wasn't that keen on Longbourn by Jo Baker, which tells it from the servant's perspective, but I know others really rate it.

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LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet · 04/01/2023 23:29

Needhelp101 · 04/01/2023 23:24

In fact, thinking about it, Mr Collins is less of a dick than Mr Bennett...

Great question, OP!

I feel like I could write a book about what a total nobber Mr Bennet is. Marries a stupid woman because she’s pretty, sits about doing fuck all about the fact that his DD’s and wife will end up destitute when he dies, shits himself in his study and doesn’t check his daughters when they make total tits of themselves thus ruining the marriage prospects of his lovely older daughter who is very deserving of love.

I did read a parody version of 50shades/P&P once called 50 Shades of Mr Darcy where Mr Bennet “ retired to his study and waited for the television to be invented”. There’s also a part where “Lizzie coloured” (taking the piss out of the over use of ‘coloured’ to mean the woman in 50 shades was blushing) and Mr Darcy said “For goodness sake will you put the crayons away” 😂😂

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tadjennyp · 04/01/2023 23:30

I think I was Lydia as a teen (ran off to get married, was a disaster!) Now a healthy mix of Lizzie and Charlotte. Love P&P, never tire of it