Miss Bates and Mrs. Palmer: In Their Own World, The Importance of Minor Characters

I’m going to do a short series about the importance of minor characters, which given their own relative roles in a story I suppose you could say they are not so minor! As they provide key support to the main characters, especially the protagonist.

I’d like to start with Miss Bates from Jane Austen’s Emma, and likewise Mrs. Palmer from Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. I’m putting them together as they have similar characteristics and roles in their stories, but also present some contrasts to one another.

For example, Miss Bates is unmarried and so she is also poor, but she is completely happy with everything around her even her cozy bedsit. And Mrs. Palmer is married with a rude husband, but he doesn’t bother her at all, she is truly happy with everyone about her.

But, perhaps they both serve as an example of how to be happy in life no matter what. It is like they are in their own world, maybe the way to living joyfully, which could serve as a lesson to the main characters. For example, Miss Bates can be seen as “a standing lesson of how to be happy” (Emma). And Mrs. Palmer could show Marianne how to be happier for she is emotional about everything even the dead leaves at Norland! Yet part of Austen’s genius is to show the full scope of human nature and how we are all different. But still it is food for thought to not let anyone take away your bliss.

And in regards to Miss Bates it is through her cheerful chatterings that Emma almost unintentionally puts down at the Box Hill picnic, no doubt driven to it by the annoyance it causes her. But it’s through this that she finally goes through her personal growth and gets together with Mr. Knightley.

And as I write my Jane Austen inspired romantic comedy A Modern Mr. Darcy, keeping in mind the minor characters is important.

So feel free to share you own favourite minor characters. Another of mine is Margaret Dashwood , also from Sense and Sensibility, and who I will write about in my next installment of important minor characters.

Happy reading! L.P. Kirkbride––September, 2023