Jane Bennet

Jane is the eldest Bennet sister, being 22, and has the closest relationship with Elizabeth. In her unwavering goodness, celebrated beauty and meekness, Jane, and her relationship with Bingley, has long worn accusations by critics of being rather insipid and dull, especially when contrasted with the wit and self, assuredness displayed by Elizabeth. Jane acts as a foil to Elizabeth in many ways, and often checks Elizabeth’s temptations to draw rash conclusions and think the worst of people. Jane is often described as “blushing”. She is also often blinded by a sort of prejudice in the inability to see people for who they are. While Elizabeth is “apt” to see people in a bad light, Jane often is dazzled by her eternal optimism, as in the case of Wickham. Even Elizabeth remarks to her “you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see a fault in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in your life.” Her relationship with Bingley is held up as another example of ‘true love’ in the novel, although it is a different type of love, perhaps less interesting even to the narrator, than Darcy and Elizabeth. Although it is never explicitly stated, it is implied that in their unrelenting good-naturedness, both Jane and Bingley are not the cleverest.