I thought it would be fun to put together a kind of portrait of Lizzy just to get the feel of her before diving into incidents and situations. Darcy provides slight descriptions of Lizzy’s appearance in Ch. 6. Her figure is light and pleasing and she is pretty—her face is “rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes” and in Ch. 10 Darcy muses about her fine eyes, “It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression, but their colour and shape, and the eye-lashes, so remarkably fine, might be copied”. Lizzy’s manners are not fashionable but Darcy “was caught by their easy playfulness” (6) and when she tried to offend him it had the opposite effect as there was “a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody” (10). You may ask where Elizabeth got her fine eyes. She may have inherited them from her mother:

“Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled with pleasure, and she was eagerly calling out, while her daughter read -” (Chapter 7)

In Ch. 1 Mr. Bennet claims “I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy” and “Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters” which leads me to think Lizzy is no simpleton and I am inclined to believe she is his favorite. Lizzy is a young woman interested in such events and persons likely to gladden any feminine heart. In Ch. 2 I found Lizzy gainfully “employed in trimming a hat” and it seems Lizzy is fond of a ball. In Ch. 2 she is ready with the date of the next ball and sometime after said ball she is overheard “teazing Colonel Forster to give us a ball at Meryton”. In an even more girly endeavor Lizzy joined her mother and sisters in an failed attack on their father to draw out a satisfactory description of the yet unknown Mr. Bingley however they do eventually ascertain “from an upper window that he wore a blue coat, and rode a black horse” in Ch. 3.

Lizzy loves to laugh, so she tells Darcy in Ch. 10 saying “nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can” but this was evident even without the confession. At the assembly she overheard Darcy’s snobby and unflattering comments about her but told the story “with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in any thing ridiculous” (3). Definitely anything ridiculous, in Ch. 10 she “took up some needlework, and was sufficiently amused in attending to what passed between Darcy” and Miss Bingley while he wrote his letter. Lizzy enjoys teasing people, Darcy and Col Forster suffers it at Lucas Lodge in Ch. 6. In Ch. 10 Lizzy tells Caroline, Louisa & Darcy, much like cows in a field:

“You are charmingly grouped, and appear to uncommon advantage. The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth”.

LOL! Still, it seems Lizzy has inherited a gentler version of her father’s humor. In Ch. 10 Darcy smiled at Bingley’s teasing but Lizzy thought he looked offended and “checked her laugh” unlike Mr. Bennet who pointed out Mary did not know what to say in Ch. 2.

It seems Lizzy’s likes to walk and enjoy the outdoors. When she walked to Netherfield, it was no hardship, “Elizabeth continued her walk alone, crossing field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and springing over puddles with impatient activity” (7). During their exile at Netherfield, aside from Jane’s improvement her happiest moment appears to be outside, “She then ran gaily off, rejoicing, as she rambled about” (10). Lizzy also plays the pianoforte and sings. In Ch. 6 “Her performance was pleasing, though by no means capital” but “easy and unaffected, had been listened to with much more pleasure” than poor Mary. She reads but claims not to be a great reader (8) and lets Bingley know she is a studier of character in Ch. 9. I think she has a good take on Bingley’s sisters. In Ch. 9 Lizzy was embarrassed by her mother’s outbursts against Darcy and tried to smooth it over.

Lizzy is a sister worth having. At the assembly she is snubbed and disrespected but shrugging it off with playful good humor she is able to be happy for Jane who seems to have made a conquest of Bingley. Lizzy defends Jane’s good sense when Charlotte suggests she “had better show more affection than she feels” (6) in order to secure him and she also extorted “from her father an acknowledgment that the horses were engaged” (7) when he persisted in not answering Jane’s request for the coach. After Jane becomes ill and stranded at Netherfield, Lizzy walks three miles in the dirt to visit her (7) and remains until Jane is well enough to leave despite feeling at times to be an intruder and worse yet a target for Miss Bingley’s jealously. Lizzy also appears to be a friend worth having because she defends Bingley from Darcy’s strictures in Ch. 10.