Characters: Peter
Featherstone, his nephew Fred Vincy, Mary Garth
Issues: Whether Fred
will inherit Peter’s property; the vocations of Fred and Mary; the relationship
of Fred and Mary.
A letter from
Bulstrode that affirms Fred’s honesty is given to Peter. Fred is humiliated by
Peter, making him grovel over a little money that Peter gives him.
Later Mary
criticizes Fred’s lack of ambition for a good job. Fred confesses his love for
Mary but she denies any feelings for him.
Fred Vincy is
presented as a person with no self-knowledge. Lazy. Non-assertive, or maybe
submissive. The narrator says, “When Fred go into debt, it always seemed to him
highly probable that something or other…would come to pass enabling him to pay
in due time.”
Fred says to Mary,
I thought you looked so sad when you came upstairs. It is a shame you
should stay here to be bullied in that way.
Perhaps Fred is
projecting onto Mary his own hurt of being bullied by his uncle.
Fred, “….if I had
been rich.” Mary responds by alluding to God’s call and our duty.
Mary abhors
pretension:
I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid
for, and never really doing it.
Fred asks for
encouragement from Mary, and she says, “My father would think it a disgrace to
me if I accepted a man who got into debt, and would not work!”
Fred is battered in
this chapter by both his uncle and the woman he loves. But he isn’t taking
responsibility for his life.
Themes:
responsibility, duty, initiative, ambition
No comments:
Post a Comment