In her novel Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen channels many of her perceptions of 18th-century English society through her dominant and smaller characters. Austen unfailingly sarcastically uses Mr. Bennet as a vehicle for the deceit and wickedness that is rampant in such a community. While Mr. Bennet's mockery remains amusing and harmless in Volume I, his facetious jokes become mean-spirited and heartless in Volume II. Instead of continuing to target stupid and unsuspecting individuals as he had done for his own amusement, Mr. Bennet begins to victimize members of his own family who do not deserve it; comments he considers only light-hearted and cheerful quickly become irrevocably hurtful to his own emotionally unstable daughters. The book's heroine, Elizabeth, who once appreciated her father's humor, is now surprised and offended by his callous and unsupportive comments, and she begins to wonder if he now approaches his duties as a father with the seriousness that his role demands. Austen shows Mr. Bennet's subtle but unmistakable transition from comical tease to callous bully through speech (and lack thereof), structurally simple sentences, and details describing the repercussions of his actions. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Austen uses words, or a lack of words, to shape Mr. Bennet's interactions with his most intimate relationships. Whether the effects of Mr. Bennet's speech provoke bewilderment or unconscious gratitude, the language he uses strongly conveys his interpretation, and subsequent exploitation, of the confessions of his associates. Using words that perfectly contradict his feelings, he has the ability to use sarcasm to ridicule, if only for his own amusement, the expressions of those he speaks with. Following his wife's insistence that he call upon Mr. Bingley, a young bachelor recently settled in the neighborhood, Mr. Bennet attacks his wife's gullibility and vanity by responding in a tone of mockingly: “You and the girls can go, or you can send them yourselves.” , which will perhaps be even better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party. "(ch.1, p. 6) Mrs. Bennet, reacting exactly as Mr. Bennet had anticipated, agrees with her husband and feigns modesty. Although such an exchange is strictly humorous, the continuation of the sarcastic speech of Mr. Bennet in serious moments shows his inability to control the way he uses his words At the request of his daughter Lydia to "follow" the soldiers to the town of Brighton, Mr. Bennet's eldest daughter, Elizabeth. , runs to her father in protest. Such action, she claims, would reinforce her sister's untamed and immature behavior, thereby endangering the reputation of the entire family. In response, Mr. Bennet calmly expresses his concern. inveterate mockery: "We won't have peace in Longbourn if Lydia doesn't go to Brighton. So let her go... Luckily she's too poor to be prey to anyone. In Brighton she'll have less." importance, even as an ordinary flirt, than it was here The officers will find the women more deserving of their attention... In any case, she cannot get several degrees worse without allowing us to lock her up for. the rest of his life. (ch. 41, p. 196) The dry wit implicit in Mr. Bennet's speech shows his inability to approach the situation in a serious and reasonable manner, thus exposing.