Pride and Prejudice
Caroline Bingley
Bingley's snobbish sister
Mr. Bingley's polished and sharp-tongued sister, who wants Darcy for herself. She is polite on the surface and cold underneath.
Caroline Bingley is Charles Bingley's sister, fashionable and condescending to anyone she thinks beneath her. She is always very polite, and always very cutting. Her chief interest at Netherfield is winning Mr. Darcy's attention, and she works at it by praising everything Darcy says and finding fault with every other woman in the room.
She looks down on the Bennets for their country manners and their lack of fortune. Elizabeth, whom Darcy keeps watching, is a constant annoyance to her. Caroline's charm is a performance, and it slips when she is jealous.
“Pray, Mr. Darcy, is not Miss Elizabeth Bennet much altered? For my part, I could see no beauty in her face whatever.”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
At Netherfield, Caroline mocks Elizabeth's muddy petticoat, parades around the room to draw Darcy's eye, and talks about accomplished women. Later she writes to Jane to say the party has gone to London for the winter. When Jane visits her in town, Caroline says her brother is too busy to see her, and she keeps the visit short.
At Pemberley she tries one last insult, asking Darcy if Miss Elizabeth is not much altered. Darcy replies that for many months Elizabeth has seemed to him one of the handsomest women he knows. Caroline gets no further with him.
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