Key Quote
“"If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield, and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for"”
Mrs Bennet · Chapter 3
Focus: “settled”
Mrs Bennet's definition of maternal success — 'settled' means financially secured through marriage, revealing how the patriarchal system reduces women's life goals to a single transaction.
Technique 1 — EUPHEMISM & SEMANTIC EVASION
The word 'settled' is a euphemism (mild word for a harsh reality) — it avoids saying 'married off for money' while meaning exactly that. To be 'settled' implies finality: once a daughter is married, her story is over; she has reached her destination. The passive connotation (she is settled, not she settles) removes the daughter's agency from the equation entirely.
The escalating scope — from 'one of my daughters' to 'all the others equally well married' — reveals Mrs Bennet's insatiable (never satisfied) ambition. One successful match immediately generates the desire for five. The word 'equally' suggests she measures marriages comparatively, as though they are competing investments.
Key Words
RAD — STAGNATE
Mrs Bennet's ambition remains entirely external — she measures happiness through social arrangements rather than emotional fulfilment. The phrase 'nothing to wish for' reveals a woman whose entire sense of purpose depends on her children's marriages. She is not incapable of love, but her love is expressed exclusively through the economic grammar of the marriage market.
Key Words
Technique 2 — CONDITIONAL MOOD / MATERNAL WISH
The conditional structure — 'If I can but see..., I shall have nothing to wish for' — frames maternal happiness as contingent on her daughters' marriages. This is simultaneously touching and limiting: her love is genuine (she wants their happiness) but her definition of happiness is entirely prescribed (determined by social convention). The 'if/then' logic makes motherhood into a contractual arrangement with fate.
Austen uses Mrs Bennet's conditional wish to expose a painful irony: a mother whose entire identity depends on events she cannot control — her daughters' desirability to wealthy men. Her anxiety and vulgarity are symptoms of this structural powerlessness, not merely personal failings.
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Context (AO3)
MATERNAL DUTY IN REGENCY
A Regency mother's primary duty was the successful marriage of her daughters. Mrs Bennet's obsession reflects a society that measured maternal success through matchmaking — a mother who failed to marry off her daughters was considered negligent. Austen simultaneously satirises Mrs Bennet's methods and acknowledges the system that made them necessary.
NETHERFIELD AS SYMBOL
Netherfield Park represents genteel wealth and social elevation. Mrs Bennet doesn't care which daughter ends up there — the estate matters more than the match. This reveals how property and place functioned as markers of social value in Regency England.
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WOW — PERFORMATIVITY (Butler)
Judith Butler argues that gender is performative — not an innate quality but a set of repeated behaviours that create the appearance of a natural identity. Mrs Bennet's relentless matchmaking is a performance of Regency motherhood: she performs the role of 'anxious mother' so completely that it becomes her entire identity. Butler would argue there is no 'real' Mrs Bennet behind the performance — the performance IS the identity. Austen reveals this by showing that Mrs Bennet's behaviour is a compulsive repetition of social scripts rather than a free choice.
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