I had high hopes for The Other Bennet Sister, the acclaimed BBC One televised adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, viewable in America on the BritBox streaming service. Many people are Austen snobs, but I am not. Most adaptations of her works are enjoyable, even parodies including Bridget Jones Diary and Clueless.
But The Other Bennet Sister promised to be something else, a continuation of the most beloved book of the greatest female author of the Western canon. That’s a tall order, and it is not surprising that, despite charming acting, beautiful costumes and sets, BritBox was unable to meet that standard. Disappointingly, the production fails to enter the world of Austen where it mattered the most, and they made no attempt to do so.
People who love Austen miss her most important feature: not the romance, not even the satire. Rather, the heart of Austen’s work lies in her depiction of virtue and vice in the life of the average person of her time. Virtue is not, to Austen, a lofty philosophical principle but something that the Christian faith calls all people toward. And vice is not merely the behavior of the most wicked in society or the villains of novels but something we are all prone toward and often unaware of in ourselves.
It is the insistence on virtue and vice in the everyday and the need for sanctification that makes her satire and depictions of life so sharp. As Mr. Bennett attests in Pride and Prejudice, “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”
Austen’s insistence on virtue is missing from The Other Bennet sister. As a result, it would be fine as an average romcom, but it’s not Jane Austen.
The Other Bennet Sister is the story of Mary Bennet, the third Bennet sister from Pride and Prejudice, and how she comes into her own after the events of that novel. The problem is that Mary doesn’t experience the same type of growth as Austen’s heroines. In Austen novels, protagonists have some virtues, and they also have vices that require growth. Austen’s narratives focus on the overcoming of these vices, but the BritBox Mary Bennet is different. She is a victim.
It’s not that Mary is wicked or immoral, although she does consider actions like running off to live with a man as no Austen heroine would do. It’s that she is passive. She is depicted in some ways like Fanny Price of Austen’s Mansfield Park, who is quiet, shy, and often unwilling to defend herself. Like Fanny, Mary is often overlooked and sometimes treated as a burden by those around her. But Fanny displays self-possession and character throughout Mansfield Park, cultivated by choice, as her family was too neglectful to aid her moral development. Fanny, at the end, is vindicated and praised both by her uncle, with whom she lives, and by the man she is in love with because of her strong moral character, in contrast to the more beautiful or wealthy women of the novel. Fanny, too, is aware of her dignity as a person even when she consciously chooses not to stand up for herself.
By contrast, according to The Other Bennet Sister adaptation, Mary needs a new setting where all the characters around her are aware of her awesomeness and make her aware of it as well. She doesn’t need to grow but to recognize how wonderful she really is.
This makes her less interesting as a character.
In Pride and Prejudice, Austen is clear that Mary’s solemnity and over-seriousness are character flaws. Her description of Mary is harsh: “Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached.” It would have been interesting to see her overcome these flaws.
In The Other Bennet Sister, Mary’s faults are the result of near-abusive treatment from her mother and the cruel neglect of her father and sisters. Mary isn’t portrayed as in need of growth, but rather escape from home life, to go into the world celebrated for who she is. No actual change is needed.
Mary also tells Elizabeth that while they grew up in the same home, Elizabeth and her sisters were “privileged.” The Other Bennet Sister is clear that it is by random gifting that Elizabeth and Jane attract spouses, in contrast to Austen’s depiction that they are women of virtue despite the disadvantages of their upbringing.
Austen, in her devout faith, recognizes one of the joys of the Christian life. We are not perfect as we are; something better and far more glorious awaits us if we turn ourselves over to the sanctifying work of God. Sanctification is one of God’s great gifts, and it is dynamic and beautiful when this character development plays out on screen or in books. It is a loss when true growth is deprioritized by an emphasis on self-esteem.
Austen recognized this in her own life. She would often write her family’s nighttime devotions, many of which asked God for help to overcome vice.
Let us pray with Austen that God would, “Give us grace to endeavor after a truly Christian spirit to seek to attain that temper of forbearance and patience of which our Blessed Savior has set us the highest example.”
More from IRD:
Femininity and National Velvet
Wuthering Heights and the Distortions of Lust
Curiositas and the Feminine Genius
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