can affect their daughters' futures. Upon hearing this, Mrs. Bennet indignantly suggests that he's deliberately being obtuse. Certainly, she's thinking of Mr. Bingley marrying one of their daughters. Here's the rest of the conversation:

"I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley may like you the best of the party."

"My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty."

"In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of."

From the above passage, we can see that Mr. Bennet skilfully wields sarcastic humor to divert Mrs. Bennet's attention. He may be resigned to living with her, but that doesn't mean he won't indulge in a bit of fun at her expense sometimes.

In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, their are two decisionsElizabeth makes that Mrs. Bennet responds dramatically to. The first decision is Elizabeth's rejection of Mr. Collins's proposal; the second is her acceptance of Mr. Darcy's second proposal.

When Elizabeth rejects Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet becomes practically hysterical and does all she can to try to get her daughter to accept and try to prevent Mr. Collins from rescinding his proposal. She begs Mr. Collins to allow her to talk to Elizabeth, since Elizabeth can be a very "headstrong foolish girl," but Mr. Collins responds that a "headstrong foolish girl" couldn't make a clergyman happy (Ch. 21). She also begs Mr. Bennet to speak with both Elizabeth and Mr. Collins to repair the damage, but when Mr. Bennet does so, his only response is to tell Elizabeth that if she should choose to accept Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennet would never speak to her again. Mrs. Bennet then tries to appeal to Jane to speak to her sister, but Jane refuses to interfere. She tries once again to persuade Mr. Collins not to rescind his proposal, but his only response is to say that he made an error in thinking Elizabeth would make him happy, apologizes, and spends the rest of the day conversing with Charlotte Lucas.

Later, Mrs. Bennet's response to Elizabeth's news that she had accepted Mr. Darcy is the exact opposite of Mrs. Bennet's response to Elizabeth's rejection of Mr. Collins. Mrs. Bennet's response also expressed feelings that were the exact opposite of what she had expressed towards Mr. Darcy up until that point. Since Mrs. Bennet frequently says how detestable Mr. Darcy is, Elizabeth knows she should tell her mother about the engagement privately because she predicts her mother would either be "violently set against the match, or violently delighted with it," but which her mother would do, Elizabeth is unsure of. Elizabeth proves to be correct in her later prediction. Mrs. Bennet is at first too shocked to give much of a response. But, as she recovers from her shock, she carries on profusely about "how rich and how great" Elizabeth will be, how handsome Mr. Darcy is, and how much Elizabeth will own being married to him (Ch. 59).  

Both of Mrs. Bennet's responses show us that Mrs. Bennet is not a very sensible person but rather the sort of person who allows herself to get carried away by her own emotions.

One means Elizabeth has of maintaining self-respect is by accepting and treating all situations with her sense of humor. We first observe her abilities to take insults lightly using her sense of humor when Darcy first insults her at the Meryton assembly in the beginning of the book. When Darcy insults Elizabeth by refusing to dance with her at Bingley's recommendation, saying, "She is not handsome enough to tempt me," Elizabeth's response is to laugh at him among her friends, relaying the story with, as Austen describes, a "playful disposition" because she enjoys "any thing ridiculous" (Ch. 3). What's more, her ability to laugh at others and at even her own insults shows us that she is very capable of maintaining her own dignity, pride, and self-respect.

We see a second example of Elizabeth maintaining her dignity and self-respect in the face of what she believes to be another insult while she stays at Netherfield during her sister's illness. At one point Miss Bingley starts playing Scottish music on the piano and Darcy turns to Elizabeth and asks if she would like to dance to the music. Elizabeth, having already judged his character to be excessively prideful and arrogant, believes he is only asking her that to gain the opportunity of insulting her again. Elizabeth responds by openly stating she recognizes his attempt to insult her taste in music and dancing and saying that she will tell him she does not want to dance in order to thwart his attempt, as we see in her lines:

You wanted me, I know, to say "Yes," that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. I have therefore made up my mind to tell you that I do not want to dance a reel at all--and now despise me if you dare. (Ch. 10)

Hence, we see that Elizabeth continually maintains her dignity and self-respect through her wit and humor.