Jennifer Duke's Blog
September 29, 2020
BACK TO THE BONNET & Mary Bennet's Type - Myers Briggs as a writing tool
In writing Back to the Bonnet, I had the pleasure of becoming well acquainted with Miss Mary Bennet – well, with my imagined version of her at any rate – and in this blog I want to talk a bit about the way I see her personality.
In my view, she is a character that is very open to interpretation. Jane Austen, with economic eloquence, gives the reader the sense of a three-dimensional character in Mary by use of a few snippets of dialogue and descriptions of action. This is excellently done of course and any more focus on her character might have caused the novel’s characterisations to be out of balance. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth must be in the foreground. However, just like the Elizabethan manor I imagine for the setting of Longbourn, a house built in the shape of a capital E - which you only have to look at from another perspective to see an M shape - I have reversed the positions. Mary is the irrefutable heroine of Back to the Bonnet.
In Pride and Prejudice, Mary is often seen as a character to ridicule. She is less sociable than her sisters, less charismatic and – shock horror – reads books. Therefore, she must be a total nerd (even though Lizzy is commended for her reading and not seen as nerdy in the least). It is no surprise then that various film and television adaptations of the novel have had Mary as one of the few or the only character who wears glasses, a tell-tale sign of being a geek (even if she doesn’t require specs in the book). Of course, I have nothing against geeks or people who wear glasses. I put myself in both of those categories, I just don’t consider them to be necessarily related.
In volume 1, chapter 2 of P&P we get the first sense of her character from what Mr Bennet says:
‘“What say you, Mary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection I know, and read great books, and make extracts.”
Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.’
In other moments in the novel, Mary philosophises and expresses her thoughts which are likely based on what she has read and, in these instances, her tone is formal - less easy and natural than the speech of the other characters. Still, I say: ‘good for you, Mary, for trying to educate yourself, having had no access to school (that we are aware of) and certainly no governess’. I think that we can look with admiration at her desire to learn and to develop her mind, despite the disadvantages of lack of formal education.
In a rather cutting description from volume 1, chapter 6 of P&P, the narrator says:
‘...she [Lizzy] was eagerly succeeded at the instrument by her sister Mary, who having, in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments, was always impatient for display.
Mary had neither genius nor taste: and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached.’
Oooooh burrrn!
The narrator in P&P is quick to ridicule Mary in the dry, harsh style Austen often uses to great comic effect. However, personally I feel sorry for her. No wonder she holds onto a sense of self-worth from her accomplishments if it’s been made more than clear to her that she is the most plain-looking of the five Bennet sisters. We have to remember that women in the Regency era were mainly valued according to their score in the following areas: wealth, beauty, family connections and accomplishments – probably the most important of these being wealth and beauty, unless you were one of the small percentage who had a title or were closely related to someone who had one. So, in my version of the story, I’m a little more sympathetic and whilst I have not hesitated to depict Mary’s pride in her skills and accomplishments, I hope that the reader may be amused by and even admiring of her self-confidence rather than put off by an impression of arrogance. I like that an unnamed character (Charlotte Lucas in my version of the story) offers a kinder opinion of Mary. In volume 1, chapter 3: ‘Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most accomplished girl in the neighbourhood’, so perhaps her skills are seen by some to be greater than the narrator – and presumably Lizzy – perceive them to be.
Before I began writing Back to the Bonnet, I thought carefully about how I saw Mary’s personality. As I said before, there’s scope for interpretation when looking at the source material. I see Austen as having produced a few brushstrokes, like an Impressionist artist, to create a compelling impression of her. However, I needed to create a picture with more definition.
The best tool that helped me get into an understanding of her personality was the Myers Briggs personality type system. For those who are unfamiliar with this, it is a system which groups people into one of 16 personality types, each described by a group of 4 letters (for each of the 4 there is a choice of 2) – but I will expand on this system in a bit. Now, if you Google ‘Mary Bennet Myers Briggs’ you are bound to find various suggestions – INFP, INFJ and ISTJ being the main ones people seem to have suggested for her. However, from reading about the different types, I decided which I felt to be the personality type of my Mary Bennet, and this was ISTJ. Interestingly, P&P’s heroine, Elizabeth Bennet is thought by many (including myself) to be an ENFP – different from Mary in every aspect!
A concept from the Myers Briggs system is that each of us use various different types of mental processes but our minds develop preferences (or natural inclinations) towards certain processes and so become better at these than others. We develop an order of mental processes, the primary one being our preferred, strongest one, the auxiliary being a supporter of this one. Generally, people are less skilled with others. So, I hear you ask in desperation, what is Mary Bennet’s order of preferred mental processes?
As an ISJT her mind is best skilled at ‘introverted sensing’. She senses and reflects upon how things in the outer world apply to her, her thoughts and ideas being subjective, rather than based on objective reality. The world of ideas and concepts is her natural element and her attention is selective depending upon her interests.
This mental process is supported by ‘extraverted thinking’. This means Mary’s thoughts are most often about things from the external world, eg. facts and borrowed ideas. Her thought life is often based around finding solutions to practical problems and is very detailed.
For those who are interested, whatever ‘type’ you are, your primary process is either an introverted or extraverted one and your auxiliary is the other – so for people with well developed auxiliary processes, I think it can possibly be hard to tell if they are introverted or extraverted (though some definite introverts or extraverts might have a well developed auxiliary but a super-duper developed primary process… I’m just speculating though - it may be more complicated and almost certainly requires further research).
Mary’s less developed process of ‘introverted feeling’ suggests that she is less driven by her inner world of emotion, in fact she often doesn’t understand her own feelings. ‘Extraverted intuition’ is another weak area for her, though I have her strain to use this mental process at times as with this she can attempt to express herself (which she can be clumsy at) and draw objective insights about the scenes and situations around her (something that is a bit ‘hit and miss’ in my depiction of her).
I once went to a talk by the fantastic author, Sebastian Faulks, and a piece of advice he gave to writers which stuck in my mind was that characters are particularly interesting when they are forced to act out of character. My Mary Bennet is so logical – as INTJs tend to be – so in emphasising this quality I hope to show how her natural inclinations clash with the events of her story. She inherits a bonnet that gives her the power to travel in time, something that is noticeably lacking in logic. I imagine that a character like Northanger Abbey’s Catherine Morland, or even Sense and Sensibility’s Marianne Dashwood, would not have been quite so shocked as Mary to discover something that defied reason in such a way! Some of Jane Austen’s characters seem to seek or attract adventure in their lives, whereas Mary would by nature prefer a simple, quiet life. However, in Back to the Bonnet adventure is thrust upon her. And then some.
I have a lot more notes about Mary’s personality, but I think I will leave it there for now. Do feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or feedback about Mary in Back to the Bonnet.
Cheerio!
Back to the BonnetBibliography:
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Gifts Differing, Isabel Briggs Myers with Peter B. Myers
In my view, she is a character that is very open to interpretation. Jane Austen, with economic eloquence, gives the reader the sense of a three-dimensional character in Mary by use of a few snippets of dialogue and descriptions of action. This is excellently done of course and any more focus on her character might have caused the novel’s characterisations to be out of balance. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth must be in the foreground. However, just like the Elizabethan manor I imagine for the setting of Longbourn, a house built in the shape of a capital E - which you only have to look at from another perspective to see an M shape - I have reversed the positions. Mary is the irrefutable heroine of Back to the Bonnet.
In Pride and Prejudice, Mary is often seen as a character to ridicule. She is less sociable than her sisters, less charismatic and – shock horror – reads books. Therefore, she must be a total nerd (even though Lizzy is commended for her reading and not seen as nerdy in the least). It is no surprise then that various film and television adaptations of the novel have had Mary as one of the few or the only character who wears glasses, a tell-tale sign of being a geek (even if she doesn’t require specs in the book). Of course, I have nothing against geeks or people who wear glasses. I put myself in both of those categories, I just don’t consider them to be necessarily related.
In volume 1, chapter 2 of P&P we get the first sense of her character from what Mr Bennet says:
‘“What say you, Mary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection I know, and read great books, and make extracts.”
Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.’
In other moments in the novel, Mary philosophises and expresses her thoughts which are likely based on what she has read and, in these instances, her tone is formal - less easy and natural than the speech of the other characters. Still, I say: ‘good for you, Mary, for trying to educate yourself, having had no access to school (that we are aware of) and certainly no governess’. I think that we can look with admiration at her desire to learn and to develop her mind, despite the disadvantages of lack of formal education.
In a rather cutting description from volume 1, chapter 6 of P&P, the narrator says:
‘...she [Lizzy] was eagerly succeeded at the instrument by her sister Mary, who having, in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments, was always impatient for display.
Mary had neither genius nor taste: and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached.’
Oooooh burrrn!
The narrator in P&P is quick to ridicule Mary in the dry, harsh style Austen often uses to great comic effect. However, personally I feel sorry for her. No wonder she holds onto a sense of self-worth from her accomplishments if it’s been made more than clear to her that she is the most plain-looking of the five Bennet sisters. We have to remember that women in the Regency era were mainly valued according to their score in the following areas: wealth, beauty, family connections and accomplishments – probably the most important of these being wealth and beauty, unless you were one of the small percentage who had a title or were closely related to someone who had one. So, in my version of the story, I’m a little more sympathetic and whilst I have not hesitated to depict Mary’s pride in her skills and accomplishments, I hope that the reader may be amused by and even admiring of her self-confidence rather than put off by an impression of arrogance. I like that an unnamed character (Charlotte Lucas in my version of the story) offers a kinder opinion of Mary. In volume 1, chapter 3: ‘Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most accomplished girl in the neighbourhood’, so perhaps her skills are seen by some to be greater than the narrator – and presumably Lizzy – perceive them to be.
Before I began writing Back to the Bonnet, I thought carefully about how I saw Mary’s personality. As I said before, there’s scope for interpretation when looking at the source material. I see Austen as having produced a few brushstrokes, like an Impressionist artist, to create a compelling impression of her. However, I needed to create a picture with more definition.
The best tool that helped me get into an understanding of her personality was the Myers Briggs personality type system. For those who are unfamiliar with this, it is a system which groups people into one of 16 personality types, each described by a group of 4 letters (for each of the 4 there is a choice of 2) – but I will expand on this system in a bit. Now, if you Google ‘Mary Bennet Myers Briggs’ you are bound to find various suggestions – INFP, INFJ and ISTJ being the main ones people seem to have suggested for her. However, from reading about the different types, I decided which I felt to be the personality type of my Mary Bennet, and this was ISTJ. Interestingly, P&P’s heroine, Elizabeth Bennet is thought by many (including myself) to be an ENFP – different from Mary in every aspect!
A concept from the Myers Briggs system is that each of us use various different types of mental processes but our minds develop preferences (or natural inclinations) towards certain processes and so become better at these than others. We develop an order of mental processes, the primary one being our preferred, strongest one, the auxiliary being a supporter of this one. Generally, people are less skilled with others. So, I hear you ask in desperation, what is Mary Bennet’s order of preferred mental processes?
As an ISJT her mind is best skilled at ‘introverted sensing’. She senses and reflects upon how things in the outer world apply to her, her thoughts and ideas being subjective, rather than based on objective reality. The world of ideas and concepts is her natural element and her attention is selective depending upon her interests.
This mental process is supported by ‘extraverted thinking’. This means Mary’s thoughts are most often about things from the external world, eg. facts and borrowed ideas. Her thought life is often based around finding solutions to practical problems and is very detailed.
For those who are interested, whatever ‘type’ you are, your primary process is either an introverted or extraverted one and your auxiliary is the other – so for people with well developed auxiliary processes, I think it can possibly be hard to tell if they are introverted or extraverted (though some definite introverts or extraverts might have a well developed auxiliary but a super-duper developed primary process… I’m just speculating though - it may be more complicated and almost certainly requires further research).
Mary’s less developed process of ‘introverted feeling’ suggests that she is less driven by her inner world of emotion, in fact she often doesn’t understand her own feelings. ‘Extraverted intuition’ is another weak area for her, though I have her strain to use this mental process at times as with this she can attempt to express herself (which she can be clumsy at) and draw objective insights about the scenes and situations around her (something that is a bit ‘hit and miss’ in my depiction of her).
I once went to a talk by the fantastic author, Sebastian Faulks, and a piece of advice he gave to writers which stuck in my mind was that characters are particularly interesting when they are forced to act out of character. My Mary Bennet is so logical – as INTJs tend to be – so in emphasising this quality I hope to show how her natural inclinations clash with the events of her story. She inherits a bonnet that gives her the power to travel in time, something that is noticeably lacking in logic. I imagine that a character like Northanger Abbey’s Catherine Morland, or even Sense and Sensibility’s Marianne Dashwood, would not have been quite so shocked as Mary to discover something that defied reason in such a way! Some of Jane Austen’s characters seem to seek or attract adventure in their lives, whereas Mary would by nature prefer a simple, quiet life. However, in Back to the Bonnet adventure is thrust upon her. And then some.
I have a lot more notes about Mary’s personality, but I think I will leave it there for now. Do feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or feedback about Mary in Back to the Bonnet.
Cheerio!
Back to the BonnetBibliography:
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Gifts Differing, Isabel Briggs Myers with Peter B. Myers
