The five Bennet sisters are each very different: they have their own personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. Following is a brief description of each sister. Lydia is the youngest and most shallow Bennet sister. Her favorite pastime is flirting with the officers posted in the town of Meryton. She loves attending balls with the gentlemen and is attracted to a new one almost every week. Lydia gets herself into trouble when she elopes with an officer named Wickham, who, though charming, is heavily in debt and not to be trusted. Elizabeth describes her youngest sister as a person "whose passions were stronger than [her] virtue" (259). Kitty is closest in personality to Lydia, though she does not take her behaivor to such extremes as the latter. When Lydia elopes with Wickham and she loses the influence of her younger sister, she becomes "less irritable, less ignorant, less insipid" (321). Mary is quite the opposite of Lydia or Kitty. She is very studious and spends most of her time reading or thinking. She does not believe herself to be as pretty as any of her other sisters, and so she refuses to socialize or go out. When the rest of her sisters leave, however, Mary is forced to accompany her mother on outings and so she becomes more outgoing, no longer "mortified by comparisons between her sisters' beauty and her own" (322). Elizabeth is the second oldest sister and the narrator of the book. Though not as beautiful as Jane, she is pretty, and also wise and kind. Jane is the oldest sister and the sweetest one. She is always thinking of her sister's and mother's feelings.
