Lady Catherine de Bourgh Character Analysis

Lady Catherine de Bourgh

Lady Catherine de Bourgh is one of Austen’s great comic creations. She is an insufferable snob, full of her own self-importance, boastful, speaks with authority, and ensures that her visitors don’t forget their inferior rank.

The author uses the autocratic aristocrat as a satirical character to ridicule the extreme snobbishness and class-consciousness of the English grande dame.

Lady Catherine is a foil to the novel’s protagonist Elizabeth Bennet. The two formidable ladies square up to each other in Chapter 56 in what turns out to be one of the most fascinating and captivating battle of wits in all of English literature.

The imperious Lady Catherine tries to intimidate Elizabeth because she doesn’t want a marriage between Elizabeth and her nephew Darcy. But Elizabeth shows her strength of will by standing up to the domineering aristocrat.

Five Lady Catherine quotes with analysis that depict the haughty lady:

“Her manners were dictatorial and insolent. She has the reputation of being remarkably sensible and clever; but I rather believe she derives part of her abilities from her rank and fortune, part from her authoritative manner, and the rest from the pride of her nephew, who chooses that every one connected with him should have an understanding of the first class.”

Chapter 16. Charles Bingley is speaking to Elizabeth here about Lady Catherine. He sums up her character extremely accurately. There are many examples in the novel of her being authoritative and dictatorial with the other characters and using her rank and wealth to tell others what to do.

Her self-importance

“Her air was not conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by silence; but whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone, as marked her self-importance.”

Chapter 29. This is Elizabeth’s description of Lady Catherine when she visits the great lady at her home. The extreme snobbishness and class-consciousness of the English grande dame is being satirized here by Austen.

“I am not to be trifled with.”

Chapter 56. When Elizabeth says that she doesn’t know why Lady Catherine de Bourgh is visiting her, her ladyship angrily retorts that she ought to know and warns she is not to be trifled with. Austen is presenting a satirical image of the English aristocracy in the character of Lady Catherine.

“I will not be interrupted. Hear me in silence. My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal side, from the same noble line; and, on the father’s, from respectable, honourable, and ancient – though untitled – families. Their fortune on both sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of every member of their respective houses; and what is to divide them? The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune. Is this to be endured! But it must not, shall not be.”

Chapter 56. As class war breaks out between Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Elizabeth, the domineering and haughty de Bourgh spells out why an “upstart” like Elizabeth is an unsuitable match for her nephew Darcy. Pointing to her lack of money, connections and family position, she dismisses Elizabeth as simply a young women with pretensions above her station. In de Bourgh’s world, marriage doesn’t cross social and money boundaries. Austen is using ridiculing the extreme class consciousness in English society at the time.

“Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?”

Chapter 56. Lady Catherine de Bourgh admonishes Elizabeth over the idea of her marrying Mr. Darcy. Displaying her extreme snobbery and vanity, Lady Catherine travels all the way from her estate to the Bennets’ home to ensure that her pure family blood is not “polluted” by what she sees as an unthinkable alliance between her nephew and Bennets with their inferior blood.