A dryly witty country gentleman whose private amusement is often his wife's distress.
Mr. Bennet lives with his wife and five grown daughters, whose prospects of marriage govern much of the household's concern. When news arrives that a rich unmarried man has leased Netherfield Park, he allows Mrs. Bennet to urge him toward a formal visit while answering her anxiety with deliberate irony.
His preference for his younger daughter Elizabeth Bennet is already plain to his wife: he judges Lizzy quicker than her sisters, though he mocks all of the girls in the same breath. He is described as a man of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, qualities his wife has never learned to read after twenty-three years of marriage.
He is a country gentleman old enough to have five grown daughters. The text has not yet supplied features, build, hair, or dress.
He is the Bennet family's father and the person whose visit can formally open relations with the new tenant of Netherfield.