This post has moved here: https://bethanydellemanwriter.com/everyone-failed-lydia-bennet/
19 responses to “Everyone Failed Lydia Bennet”
-
V. insightful. It amazes me how grown-ups relish blaming fictional characters, especially the very young ones. It’s as if they’ve forgotten every idiotic thing they ever did as a teen themselves. (My own youthful stupidities, by contrast, are SEARED in my memory, but maybe I’m just odd!!)
-
Teenagers are famously bad at considering consequences! I may not have been the most foolish youth, but I remember being foolish enough. I don’t know why people forget, or maybe they just don’t want to remember.
-
-
Ah how times change. Now we are all so much more mobile, but yet so much more able to keep intouch with relatives and friends no matter where they might roam.And young ladies are for the most part free to follow their own wishes. We often forget just how recent this is. In Miss Agatha Christie’s novel “A Murder is Announced” which takes place just after the 2nd world war. Miss Jane Marple decries the ability of people moving to a new location where nothing is known of them. Before the war she comments new residents of a village would have letters of introduction to present. In these situations every move could be dissected and discussed. Mistakes in manners and behaviour could easily bring disgrace to a family. Now we have Facebook YouTube and many more. Is this good or bad I at the age of 77 really don’t know! Reputations can be ruined in the click of a computer, and the mud sticks, or there is no smoke without fire, and many more old sayings. At least Lydia’s mistake was confined to a small unimportant few families Now a mistake goes viral I think is the saying. Who is to blame for Lydia. Mrs Bennet would be my choice a less Narcissistic personality would be hard to find, followed by a lazy father, but ultimately we are not given the chance to see how her story ends. Perhaps she is abandoned. Perhaps she is happy with a camp full of soldiers to flirt with. Perhaps a child or two changes her outlook, and she becomes settled to doing right by her own children.
-
In one way, I hope Lydia never changes, because then she would be in hell. She can’t get out of the marriage, so let her be a party girl with a party husband. We know that Elizabeth and Jane will ultimately keep her safe.
-
-
I totally agree with this! It was Mrs Bennet’s indulgence and Mr Bennet’s laziness that allowed Lydia to be out too soon. Then she was encouraged by her mother to flirt with any man available, especially the soldiers! Mrs Bennet was definitely feeble minded to assume that if Lydia granted a man her favours he would immediately marry her! Mr Bennet knew this yet still did nothing! I feel sorry for Lydia being married to a reprobate like Wickham and can only hope that as she’s her mother’s daughter she also will only see and hear what she wants to.
-
Yes, I think the best we can hope for is that Lydia finds a way to be happy. It’s comforting to know that Jane and Elizabeth will support her too.
-
Even as silly as Lydia is, she was probably in hell after several years.
‘ They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for her soon sunk into indifference; her’s lasted a little longer; and in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given her.’. Ch. 61
Since she never seemed to take anything seriously, she might have just continued with her flirtations and been moderately happy, while Wickham ignored her and lived his own life. Perhaps later in life, she would come to see how silly and ignorant she was to marry such a man after years of married life and her looks faded.
-
Yeah, it’s not a bright future for her unfortunately. Maybe she’ll get lucky and Wickham dies at Waterloo!
-
-
-
This is a thoughtful piece that has made me reconsider my feelings about Lydia, which previously could summed up as “incandescent rage”. For me her main character flaw standing in the way of my completely absolving her from ill feelings is her utter lack of empathy. She is selfish and cruel to Kitty from the very beginning, she’s utterly mercenary and rude to Mary, and she doesn’t hesitate to put her elder sisters behind her when returning home after her marriage.
Youth and poor upbringing can forgive a lot, but she does not have the fundamental kindness and empathy so many others around her do, and those characteristics to me are the foundational virtues of most of Austen’s heroines.
A very good and thoughtful article, thank you for writing it!
-
Good parenting is work! And, that has not changed through the years! Lydia was young and foolish. That certainly was evident in everything she did. Her parents allowed her too much freedom with no consequences for her bad behavior. She was a ticking time bomb. In her continued story, we can only hope for her to mature and make the best of her marriage.
-
Absolutely!
-
-
I agree. I think Lydia was very spoiled and left to do too much on her own. She should have waited til she was old enough to really appreciate marriage instead of one upping her sisters! As you said she was a teenager!lol
-
It’s very teenager everything she does. She wasn’t ready to be out in the adult world yet!
-
-
I think Lydia was too free! She should have waited til she was older and more ready instead of one upping her sisters! As you said she was a teenager!lol
-
You raise some excellent points here, especially the last one. Not only are teenagers not known for their sensible decision-making abilities, this one has had no real guidance in life about what should guide those decisions. She was (as Elizabeth said) stupid and foolish, but she had been left to run wild her whole life; why should she think anything different now?
-
Yeah, when you see how Lydia was raised, it’s hard to expect her to be more rational! The poor girl didn’t have a chance.
-
-
Let’s not forget, it could have been Georgianna, but no one condemns her. And she only escaped because her guardian (Darcy) was someone she could talk to. And STILL she was almost in Lydia’s position!
OT – While JA couldn’t know this when she wrote the book, Wickham would very likely have ended up at Waterloo. (We can hope)
-
You are right, it easily could have been Georgiana! I do hope Wickham went to Waterloo and met an acceptable fate…
-
Leave a Reply