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Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

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through her thoughtlessness and shallowness. She<br />

understands only the consequences of the entail, though<br />

she is not able to form a plan for the future to<br />

counteract it. The entail for Mrs. Bennet was something<br />

"beyond reason," the object against which she "continued<br />

to rail bitterly," bemoaning the "cruelty of settling an<br />

estate away from a family of five daughters, in favour of<br />

a man whom nobody cared anything about" (54). If there<br />

were anyone to blame for five daughters, the eighteenth-<br />

century would generally blame her. Medical tradition<br />

would have laid the penchant for having daughters<br />

squarely on the shoulders of the wife. Notwithstanding,<br />

Mrs. Bennet's whining accusations silence her daughters<br />

and her husband to the detriment of everyone in the<br />

family.<br />

Mrs. Bennet's silence comes from her useless<br />

chatter, which, more than being harmless, hinders her<br />

daughters' futures, for her own conduct comes into<br />

question even with Darcy, who is not sure he wants to<br />

bring someone like Mrs. Bennet into his distinguished<br />

family. Austen is careful to develop both Mrs. Bennet<br />

and Miss Bingley with the same backgrounds, contrasting<br />

them with the more ephemeral qualities of the Bennet<br />

daughters and Miss de Bourgh, who have inherited a

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