In order to realize a display with a multilevel halftone that is excellent in uniformity by using a liquid crystal display element employing an inexpensive and general purpose driver having a low voltage endurance, a pulse application employing a cumulative response (overwriting) of liquid crystals is performed a plurality of times, the driving voltage and the pulse width are set to be variable for each step, and the liquid crystals are controlled to be in a prescribed halftone state by using a region having a large margin from a reflection state as the initial state. Since an increase in drive voltage is prevented, an inexpensive binary output general purpose driver having a low voltage endurance can be used. Furthermore, a display with a multilevel halftone that is excellent in uniformity is realized because of a gray level conversion that uses a region having a large margin.