Making Mary Bennet Cute

Mary Bennet has neither taste nor talent, and also has the unhappy distinction of being the only plain one of the Bennet family. She is well-read and works harder than her siblings for her accomplishments. Nevertheless, she lacks Lizzy’s charm at the piano and cannot match Elizabeth’s wit in conversation. Her performance at the piano is described as contrived and artificial, although in this scene in the 1980 adaptation it is wholly off-key and (I hope!) deliberately awful. Her father, also preferring the seclusion of reading and reflection, nevertheless finds his third eldest daughter absurd. It’s not easy being Mary.

Lucy Brier's Mary Bennet infinitely prefers a book to a ball!

To me, there is a certain meanness in the writing of Mary’s character. Jane Austen writes very unsympathetically about her in the novel, but we have little control over our physical appearance, none over our natural musical ability, and only a limited amount over our way with words. Mary struggles to better herself in a commendable way; she doesn’t give up because of her lack of natural advantages, but rather doubles her efforts. Her comments are longwinded, and largely lacking in substance, but this hardly a capital offence. Her pomposity, for example when she is at the ball having to sit by herself as nobody has asked her to dance, can surely be forgiven. It is probably better to pretend that you do not wish to dance than suffer the humiliation of sitting longingly alone all evening.

Mary probably disappointed her parents from birth. A third daughter would have represented the dwindling chance of producing a male heir to inherit Longbourn. Again, since Mary had no choice over her gender, one would expect this to be a cause of sympathy rather than mocking. Nevertheless, along with the more deserving Lady Catherine and Mr Collins, Mary is generally used as a target of Jane Austen’s humor.

A cute and likeable Mary Bennet

While we all probably join Amanda Price in pining for the more civilized society and manners that her novels represent, in most ways I think we’re becoming gentler and more forgiving since Pride and Prejudice was written. Lucy Briers’ 1995 Mary is pretty close to Jane Austen’s vision, but in other cases she has been softened greatly for modern audiences. In the 1980 adaptation she is completely adorable. Tessa Peake-Jones’s Mary seems younger than Kitty and Lydia, is not at all ‘plain,’ and performs with such sweetness that all her pomposity can be put down to childish insecurity. The 1940 Pride and Prejudice, that seeks to make everyone likeable (even Lady Catherine de Bourgh), as nerdy and bespectacled, but sprightly and cute.

Likewise, in Lost in Austen, Ruby Bentall’s Mary is just about the cutest thing to appear on screen since Tiny Tim in the Muppet’s version of A Christmas Carol. She even gets excited about balls and joins in with her sisters’ silliness at every opportunity. In the 2005 movie, it’s hard to say much because Talulah Riley doesn’t get a lot to do, but in all the adaptations (save possibly for the 1995 version) Mary is a quirky, but likable young lady.

It seems that we’re not so comfortable with treating a character that hasn’t really done anything wrong so dismissively. We want to make her likeable, lovable even, while Jane Austen showed no particular need to do this herself. In our society we’re still incredibly judgmental and unpleasant of course, but I’d like to think that we’re less willing to aim our laughter so unambiguously at the misfortunes of others.

Your nerd in solidarity,

Lizzy