Pride & Prejudice & Klan Kardashian

A special blend for your afternoon indulgence

There's never a bad time of year for reading or watching a Jane Austen story, yet the approach of winter is so very right for it. Nothing helps along a gloomy day like Vitamin Austen. Raise your teacups, pinkie poised upright, if you agree. 

Kris Jenner, Matriarch of Kardashian clan, by New You magazine

There is also something extra satisfying in re-reading Pride & Prejudice at this particular time, following recent shenanigans of the Kardashian clan. Never has Mrs. Bennet come to life for me more clearly, in light of the "Momager" mindset of Kris Jenner. I now get an even keener sense of how mortified Elizabeth Bennet is of her family's progressively improper proclivities, when I re-read the description of Mrs. Bennet: "She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her [five] daughters married; its solace was visiting and news."

Mrs. Bennet as played by Alison Steadman, BBC 1995

Lydia Bennet, played by Julia Sawalha, purposefully shocking the visiting vicar

A similar plot point between the fictional family and the reality show family is that one of the daughters is audacious and creates a sexual scandal without thinking of the effect it will have on anyone else. The story is a familiar one for each era, and the two families keep audiences on both sides of the Atlantic diverted, either by written installments in 1813 or by televised episodes in 2013.

From parlor chat to televised talk show, Kris Jenner explains her decision to put all of her girls on birth control, starting at age fourteen. According to her, she did this "to protect them", when her oldest, Kim, announced that she was "starting to feel sexual." Perhaps she also hoped for them to catch something while visiting a young man's home. "After all, people do not die from trifling... colds."-- Mrs. B

In neither case, must we imagine what goes on in the conversations between family members, and how much they grate against each other in the midst of the scheming. We have immediate and detailed access to letters, confidential tête-à-têtes and confrontations, as well as public social gaffes, misunderstandings and manipulations.

"Mrs. Bennet… unable to contain herself, began scolding one of her daughters. 'Don't keep coughing so [Khloe, er], Kitty, for heaven's sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.'
'I do not cough for my own amusement,' replied [Khloe] Kitty fretfully."

The portrayals of prettified and demur voluptuousness are clearly designed to create a visible catalogue for prospective suitors. In this way, the females can disprove their father, Mr. Bennet, in his assertion that "they have none of them much to recommend them. They are as silly and ignorant as other girls."

But to keep the peace, Mr. Bennet mollifies Mrs. Bennet by discussing the idea of his introducing their daughters to the new single neighbor, Mr. Bingley: "You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party."

Mrs. Bennet in turn, tolerates Mr. Bennet's peculiarities as long as he does her bidding, and she both reassures and remonstrates with her daughters by saying, "I do not know how you will ever make him amends for his kindness; or me either for that matter. At our time of life, it is not so pleasant I can tell you, to be making new acquaintance every day, but for your sakes, we would do anything." And the girls themselves would do anything for their sakes as well, it would seem. 

And what effect on the patriarch have all of these estrogen-fueled hi-jinks caused? 

 "Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture…

of quick parts...

sarcastic humor...

reserve... 

and caprice...

Bruce Jenner outfitted for his upcoming role in the third installment of The Hunger Games

...that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character."

Elizabeth feels strongly that her sister Lydia's flightiness among the popular and eligible English officers stationed nearby, and her subsequent elopement with one of them, is to be blamed by parental indulgence. She contends, "Perhaps I am not doing her justice. But she is very young; she has never been taught to think on serious subjects; and for the last half year, nay, for a twelvemonth, she has given up to nothing but amusement and vanity. She has been allowed to dispose of her time in the most idle and frivolous manner, and to adopt any opinions that came in her way."

Although Elizabeth rejects Lydia's offer to help her find a husband among the uniformed celebrities by saying, "I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands", Mrs. Bennet is as happy as a Klam. She has accomplished no fewer than three marriages by the end of that year. All's well that weds well.

Mr & Mrs West ride off into the sunset with North