Monica Reid

Kitty Monica Reid

Kitty, or Beaux Idéal continues the story told in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, focusing on the life of Catherine 'Kitty' Bennet, the fourth of the five Bennet sisters. As Austen's novel made clear, one of Kitty's chief characteristics was a tendency to be easily led. Her development had gone in a bad direction because of the strong influence of her flighty and thoughtless youngest sister, Lydia, whose example Kitty followed in all things. The story begins several months after the conclusion of Pride and Prejudice, with the two eldest Bennet sisters happily married, and the youngest, Lydia, hastily married under unfortunate circumstances. Separated from Lydia, Kitty's time is spent with better role models in the form of her two eldest sisters and their friends and in-laws. The novel follows Kitty's gradual development from a shallow and thoughtless girl, to an intelligent and well rounded woman. In the process, she learns about life, begins to know what kind of woman she wants to be, and observes the complexities of love and romance - others' romances, and just possibly her own.