The voices of Pride and Prejudice
13 voices in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Every one is a separate voice, cast to the character as written.
- Narrator — Austen's witty, ironic third-person narrator — intimate, sly, and deeply sympathetic to Elizabeth while gently mocking almost everyone else.
- Elizabeth Bennet — The second Bennet daughter — witty, spirited, quick-minded, and dangerously certain of her own judgement. Her initial dislike of Darcy is deliciously wrong.
- Mr. Darcy — The wealthy, proud, taciturn master of Pemberley. His manner reads as contempt but conceals intense feeling. Gradually revealed to be honourable and deeply loyal.
- Mrs. Bennet — The Bennet matriarch, entirely consumed by the project of marrying off her five daughters. Neurotic, silly, easily delighted, easily wounded.
- Mr. Bennet — The Bennet patriarch — sardonic, witty, detached. He retreats to his library and delivers cutting observations from behind irony. His failure to manage his family is a serious flaw beneath the comedy.
- Jane Bennet — The eldest and most beautiful Bennet daughter. Gentle, sweet, and constitutionally incapable of thinking ill of anyone — which makes her both lovable and frustrating.
- Mr. Bingley — The cheerful, wealthy newcomer to Netherfield who falls immediately for Jane. Genuinely amiable, easily influenced, altogether pleasant.
- Mr. Collins — The Bennet heir and clergyman — absurdly pompous, sycophantic toward Lady Catherine, and oblivious to his own ridiculousness. Proposes to Elizabeth with hilarious self-importance.
- Miss Bingley — Charles Bingley's snobbish sister Caroline — elegantly dressed, perpetually condescending, jealous of Elizabeth's hold on Darcy.
- Lydia Bennet — The youngest and loudest Bennet daughter — flirtatious, silly, completely self-absorbed. Her elopement with Wickham threatens the whole family.
- Wickham — A charming, handsome militia officer whose false account of Darcy's conduct deceives everyone, including Elizabeth. A plausible liar with a gambling debt and no principles.
- Lady Catherine — Darcy's imperious, aristocratic aunt who considers herself the arbiter of all propriety. Her intervention nearly destroys the novel's happy ending.
- Charlotte Lucas — Elizabeth's sensible, pragmatic friend who accepts Mr. Collins's proposal with clear-eyed calculation — a rational choice Elizabeth finds impossible to forgive or understand.