Help! Importance of Caroline Bingley

[phant314]

Hey guys...I'm doing a persuasive essay trying to tell Austen NOT to eliminate Caroline Bingley from her book, Pride and Prejudice. Can any one of you help me with some ideas based on her "treatments of others" (basis of persuasion)?

[JBI]

She stands as a foil for Elizabeth throughout the first half of the book, and also stands as an anti-Jane, and a plot device much throughout the first half - there is that, and that she shows a great comic contrast against the Bennetts and Lady Catherine herself.

[Gladys]

Miss Bingley's scheming lets us see the boundless patience and virtue of Jane Bennet.

[IceM]

Because two of my ideas are already accounted for, why not just say she makes the plot interesting? Her two-faced personality adds to the monotony a reader may feel by swallowing the Wickham-Lydia and Darcy-Elizabeth plot.

Or, Caroline could serve as a symbol for an anti-role model, displaying some of the same qualities found in the mother of the daughters (forgot her name, Miss {something} Bennet). By being two-faced and petulant individual, she demonstrates everything undersirable in a lady.

[sciencefan]

I always see Caroline as the "accomplished woman" they describe somewhere in the book. Yet what is so very obvious is that even though she is "accomplished" it seems to me she should have spent more time working on her "inner beauty" because I only see her as someone who is prideful and malicious. Not such a great "accomplishment". Maybe Darcy feels that way, too.

[kiki1982]

Yes, she is accomplished, but she hasn't added to her mind by extensive reading... (in the words of Darcy)

I think it would be very sad for a man to have such a wife: ignorant of anything.

Her conversation is as meaningfull as Mr Hurst's... Although he sleeps he is possibly more interesting...

Caroline Bingley as the quintessential upper-class lady who is supposed to marry a Mr Darcy (intelligent and down-to-earth)?

[sciencefan]

Yes, she is accomplished, but she hasn't added to her mind by extensive reading... (in the words of Darcy)

I think it would be very sad for a man to have such a wife: ignorant of anything.

Her conversation is as meaningfull as Mr Hurst's... Although he sleeps he is possibly more interesting...

Caroline Bingley as the quintessential upper-class lady who is supposed to marry a Mr Darcy (intelligent and down-to-earth)?

Ah. Thanks for that. perhaps I am wrong about her being an "accomplished woman", then.

[kiki1982]

Ah. Thanks for that. perhaps I am wrong about her being an "accomplished woman", then.

Nono, you are definitely right on the fact that she is accomplished, at least for men like Bingley. Darcy obviously wanted something with more abilities than play music, sing, cover screens, make (superficial) conversation, write nice letters, embroider, know a few languages (at least to understand songs) and draw...

As Darcy was astonished about Lizzie dividing 12 by 2 and arriving at 6, I don't think it ws common that women knew arythmetic. Or would that be in order for the reader to not take Darcy's judgment so seriously? Although, Rochester mentions the same to Jane in about 30 years later...

The ironic thing is that Caroline is more accomplshed than Lizzie, but that Darcy is already satisfied despite the fact that Lizzie will not impress the crowd... :lol: