Elizabeth Bennet

Elizabeth Bennet is the protagonist in the 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. She is often referred to as Eliza or Lizzy by her friends and family. Elizabeth is the second child in a family of five daughters. Though the circumstances of the time and environment push her to seek a marriage of convenience for economic security, Elizabeth wishes to marry for love. Elizabeth is regarded as the most admirable and endearing of Austen's heroines. She is considered one of the most beloved characters in British literature because of her complexity. Austen herself described Elizabeth as "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." Background Elizabeth is the second eldest of the five Bennet sisters of the Longbourn estate, situated near the fictional market village of Meryton in Hertfordshire, England. She is 20 years old by the middle of the novel. Elizabeth is described as an intelligent young woman, with "a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous". She often presents a playful good-natured impertinence without being offensive. Early in the novel, she is depicted as being personally proud of her wit and her accuracy in judging the social behaviour and intentions of others. Her father is a landowner, but his daughters cannot inherit because the estate is entailed upon the male line (it can only be inherited by male relatives). Upon Mr Bennet's death, Longbourn will therefore be inherited by his cousin and nearest male relation, Mr. William Collins, a clergyman for the Rosings Estate in Kent owned by Lady Catherine de Bourgh. This future provides the cause of Mrs Bennet's eagerness to marry her daughters off to wealthy men.