Mary Is the Bennet Sister We Need
By Paula Byrne
Austen is masterly on family relationships and sibling rivalry, and her minor characters are always drawn with supreme skill, but she casts a wickedly critical eye on Mary. Mary is vain but flails in her efforts at self-improvement. She is judgmental of those around her whom we suspect she secretly envies. She desperately wants to say the smart thing but can’t think of it in time. She repeats opinions she’s read as her own.
Could it be that we’re obsessed with her because she is all of us?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/01/opinion/pride-prejudice-jane-austen.html