Excellent question!
The role
of Lydia in the moral pattern of the novel Pride and Prejudice, by
Jane Austen, is to disrupt the natural order of things proposed by the society of Austen
times, in which women were supposed to be sensible, balanced and, to a point, almost
ornamental in terms of courtship and marriage.
Lydia
disrupts the normality in the Bennet household by being a teenager with wild, romantic
illusions, and every single intention of fulfilling them. She openly befriends male
soldiers, flirts with them, and laughs out loud with them caring nothing for any form of
public lady-like decorum.
To add to the scandal, she elopes
with Mr. Wickham at barely 15 years of age, unmarried, and losing her honor. Her
elopement stained the Bennet name as a whole, for they now would have to recognize that
their daughter is "lose", "immoral", and "indecent."
Yet,
the most unfortunate aspect of Lydia's behavior is that she does not regret it, and she
learns nothing from her mistakes. Oblivious to all the heartache she has caused, she
takes the role of precedence that women obtain after marrying only to brag about it. She
puts her sisters down, asks Elizabeth whether she is jealous that it was she (Lydia) who
ended up with Wickham, and she is blind to every indication by Wickham that their
relationship was a brief caprice of which he is already
tired.
Moreover, Lydia's marriage is an extension of her
behavior: Both she and Wickham are spendthrifts who live above their means and ask their
familyfor money. None of the sisters, Jane or Elizabeth, bothered to invite the Wickhams
to their respective households. Eventually, it is said in the story that they were
altogether ignored.
Therefore, Lydia's role is to take away
the balance of the Bennet household, bring on chaos, and offer absolutely nothing to the
present or future of the family.
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