Character Analysis
Charles is the book’s Average Joe (or at least Average-Minor-Landed-Gentry Joe). He’s not much into books or art, preferring to go out and shoot things, but he’s good-hearted and tries to do right by his wife, no matter how annoying she is. While Charles would have been a terrible match for Anne, he could have done much better than Mary; Anne agrees with Lady Russell that "a more equal match might have greatly improved him" (6.5). While Charles married up in rank, he married down in character, showing once more the interplay between rank and character in the novel.