Plot Overview: The distinguished country gentleman
Allworthy, who lives in Somersetshire with his unmarried sister Bridget
Allworthy, arrives home from a trip to London to discover a baby boy in is bed.
Allworthy undertakes to uncover the mother and father of this foundling, and
finds local woman Jenny Jones and her tutor, Mr. Partridge, guilty. Allworthy
sends Jenny away from the county, and the poverty-stricken Partridge leaves of
his own accord. In spite of the criticism of the parish, Allworthy decides to
bring up the boy. Soon after, Bridget marries Captain Blifil, a visitor at
Allworthy's estate, and gives birth to a son of her own, named Blifil. Captain
Blifil regards Tom Jones with jealousy, since he wishes his son to inherit all
of Allworthy possessions. While meditating on money matters, Captain Blifil
falls dead of an apoplexy.
The
narrator skips forward twelve years. Blifil and Tom Jones have been brought up
together, but receive vastly different treatment from the other members of the
household. Allworthy is the only person who shows consistent affection for Tom.
The philosopher Square and the reverend Thwackum, the boys' tutors, despise Tom
and adore Blifil, since Tom is wild and Blifil is pious. Tom frequently steals
apples and ducks to support the family of Black George, one of Allworthy's
servants. Tom tells all of his secrets to Blifil, who then relates these to
Thwackum or Allworthy, thereby getting Tom into trouble. The people of the
parish, hearing of Tom's generosity to Black George, begin to speak kindly of
Tom while condemning Blifil for his sneakiness.
Tom
spends much time with Squire Western—Allworthy's neighbor—since the Squire is
impressed by Tom's sportsmanship. Sophia Western, Squire Western's daughter,
falls deeply in love with Tom. Tom has already bestowed his affection on Molly
Seagrim, the poor but feisty daughter of Black George. When Molly becomes
pregnant, Tom prevents Allworthy from sending Molly to prison by admitting that
he has fathered her child. Tom, at first oblivious to Sophia's charms and
beauty, falls deeply in love with her, and begins to resent his ties to Molly.
Yet he remains with Molly out of honor. Tom's commitment to Molly ends when he
discovers that she has been having affairs, which means Tom is not the father
of her child and frees him to confess his feelings to Sophia.
Allworthy
falls gravely ill and summons his family and friends to be near him. He reads
out his will, which states that Blifil will inherit most of his estate,
although Tom is also provided for. Thwackum and Square are upset that they are
each promised only a thousand pounds. Tom experiences great emotion at
Allworthy's illness and barely leaves his bedside. A lawyer named Dowling
arrives and announces the sudden and unexpected death of Bridget Allworthy.
When the doctor announces that Allworthy will not die, Tom rejoices and gets
drunk on both joy and alcohol. Blifil calls Tom a "bastard" and Tom
retaliates by hitting him. Tom, after swearing eternal constancy to Sophia,
encounters Molly by chance and makes love to her.
Mrs.
Western, the aunt with whom Sophia spent much of her youth, comes to stay at
her brother's house. She and the Squire fight constantly, but they unite over
Mrs. Western's plan to marry Sophia to Blifil. Mrs. Western promises not to
reveal Sophia's love for Tom as long as Sophia submits to receiving Blifil as a
suitor. Blifil thus begins his courtship of Sophia, and brags so much about his
progress that Allworthy believes that Sophia must love Blifil. Sophia, however,
strongly opposes the proposal, and Squire Western grows violent with her.
Blifil tells Allworthy that Tom is a rascal who cavorted drunkenly about the
house, and Allworthy banishes Tom from the county. Tom does not want to leave
Sophia, but decides that he must follow the honorable path.
Tom
begins to wander about the countryside. In Bristol, he happens to meet up with
Partridge, who becomes his loyal servant. Tom also rescues a Mrs. Waters from
being robbed, and they begin an affair at a local inn. Sophia, who has run away
from Squire Western's estate to avoid marrying Blifil, stops at this inn and
discovers that Tom is having an affair with Mrs. Waters. She leaves her muff in
Tom's bed so that he knows she has been there. When Tom finds the muff, he
frantically sets out in pursuit of Sophia. The Irishman Fitzpatrick arrives at
the inn searching for his wife, and Western arrives searching for Sophia.
On
the way to London, Sophia rides with her cousin Harriet, who is also
Fitzpatrick's wife. In London, Sophia stays with her lady relative Lady
Bellaston. Tom and Partridge arrive in London soon after, and they stay in the
house of Mrs. Miller and her daughters, one of whom is named Nancy. A young
gentleman called Nightingale also inhabits the house, and Tom soon realizes
that he and Nancy are in love. Nancy falls pregnant and Tom convinces
Nightingale to marry her. Lady Bellaston and Tom begin an affair, although Tom
privately, continues to pursue Sophia. When he and Sophia are reconciled, Tom
breaks off the relationship with Lady Bellaston by sending her a marriage
proposal that scares her away. Yet Lady Bellaston is still determined not to
allow Sophia and Tom's love to flourish. She encourages anoter young man, Lord
Fellamar, to rape Sophia.
Soon
after, Squire Western, Mrs. Western, Blifil, and Allworthy arrive in London,
and Squire Western locks Sophia in her bedroom. Mr. Fitzpatrick thinks Tom is
his wife's lover and begins a duel with Tom. In defending himself, Tom stabs
Fitzpatrick with the sword and is thrown into jail. Partridge visits Tom in
jail with the ghastly news that Mrs. Waters is Jenny Jones, Tom's mother. Mrs.
Waters meets with Allworthy and explains that Fitzpatrick is still alive, and
has admitted to initiating the duel. She also tells Allworthy that a lawyer
acting on behalf of an unnamed gentleman tried to persuade her to conspire
against Tom. Allworthy realizes that Blifil is this very gentleman, and he
decides never to speak to him again. Tom, however, takes pity on Blifil and
provides him with an annuity.
Mrs.
Waters also reveals that Tom's mother was Bridget Allworthy. Square sends
Allworthy a letter explaining that Tom's conduct during Allworthy's illness was
honorable and compassionate. Tom is released from jail and he and Allworthy are
reunited as nephew and uncle. Mrs. Miller explains to Sophia the reasons for
Tom's marriage proposal to Lady Bellaston, and Sophia is satisfied. Now that Tom
is Allworthy's heir, Squire Western eagerly encourages the marriage between Tom
and Sophia. Sophia chastises Tom for his lack of chastity, but agrees to marry
him. They live happily on Western's estate with two children, and shower
everyone around them with kindness and generosity.
Pride and Prejudice is set primarily
in the county of Hertfordshire, about 50 miles outside of London. The novel
opens at with a conversation at Longbourn, the Bennet's estate, about the
arrival of Mr. Bingley, "a single man of large fortune," to
Netherfield Park, a nearby estate. Mrs. Bennet, whose obsession is to find
husbands for her daughters, sees Mr. Bingley as a potential suitor. Mr. and
Mrs. Bennet have five children: Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia.
The Bennets' first acquaintance with
Mr. Bingley and his companions is at the Meryton Ball. Mr. Bingley takes a
liking to Jane and is judged by the townspeople to be perfectly amiable and
agreeable. Mr. Bingley's friend Mr. Darcy, however, snubs Elizabeth and is considered
to be proud and disagreeable because of his reserve and his refusal to dance.
Bingley's sisters are judged to be amiable by Jane but Elizabeth finds them to
be arrogant.
After further interactions, it becomes
evident that Jane and Bingley have a preference for one another, although
Bingley's partiality is more obvious than Jane's because she is universally
cheerful and amiable. Charlotte Lucas, a close friend of Elizabeth with more
pragmatic views on marriage, recommends that Jane make her regard for Bingley
more obvious. At the same time, Mr. Darcy begins to admire Elizabeth,
captivated by her fine eyes and lively wit.
When Jane is invited for dinner at
Netherfield, Mrs. Bennet refuses to provide her with a carriage, hoping that
because it is supposed to rain Jane will be forced to spend the night. However,
because Jane gets caught in the rain, she falls ill and is forced to stay at
Netherfield until she recovers. Upon hearing that Jane is ill, Elizabeth walks
to Netherfield in order to go nurse her sister. Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst
(Bingley's sisters) are scandalized that Elizabeth walked so far alone in the
mud. Seeing that Jane would like Elizabeth to stay with her, Bingley's sisters
invite Elizabeth to remain at Netherfield until Jane recovers.
During her stay at Netherfield,
Elizabeth increasingly gains the admiration of Mr. Darcy. She is blind to his
partiality, however, and continues to think him a most proud and haughty man
because of the judgment she made of him when he snubbed her at the ball. Miss
Bingley, who is obviously trying to gain the admiration of Mr. Darcy, is
extremely jealous of Elizabeth and tries to prevent Mr. Darcy from admiring her
by making rude references to the poor manners of Elizabeth's mother and younger
sisters and to her lower class relatives. When Mrs. Bennet and her younger
daughters come to visit Jane, Elizabeth is mortified by their foolishness and
complete lack of manners. Bingley's admiration for Jane continues unabated and
is evident in his genuine solicitude for her recovery. After Jane recovers, she
returns home with Elizabeth.
A militia regiment is stationed at the
nearby town of Meryton, where Mrs. Bennet's sister Mrs. Phillips lives. Mrs.
Phillips is just as foolish as Mrs. Bennet. Lydia and Kitty love to go to
Meryton to visit with their aunt and socialize with the militia's officers.
Mr. Collins, a cousin of Mr. Bennet
who is in line to inherit Longbourn because the estate has been entailed away
from the female line, writes a letter stating his intention to visit. When he
arrives, he makes it clear that he hopes to find a suitable wife among the Miss
Bennets. Mr. Collins is a clergyman, and his patroness, Lady Catherine de
Bourgh (who is also Darcy's aunt), has suggested that he find a wife, and he
hopes to lessen the hardship of the entailment by marrying one of Mr. Bennet's
daughters. Mr. Collins is a silly man who speaks in long, pompous speeches and
always has an air of solemn formality.
When the Miss Bennets and Mr. Collins
go for a walk to Meryton, they are introduced to an officer in the regiment
named Mr. Wickham. They also run into Mr. Darcy, and when Darcy and Wickham
meet both seem to be extremely uncomfortable. Mr. Wickham immediately shows a
partiality for Elizabeth and they speak at length. Wickham tells Elizabeth that
the reason for the mutual embarrassment when he and Darcy met is that Darcy's
father had promised that Wickham, his godson, should be given a good living
after his death, but that Darcy had failed to fulfill his father's dying wishes
and had left Wickham to support himself. Elizabeth, already predisposed to
think badly of Darcy, does not question Wickham's account. When Elizabeth tells
Jane Wickham's story Jane refuses think badly of either Wickham or Darcy and
assumes there must be some misunderstanding.
As promised, Bingley hosts a ball at
Netherfield. He and Jane stay together the whole evening, and their mutual
attachment becomes increasingly obvious. Mrs. Bennet speaks of their marriage
as imminent over dinner, within earshot of Mr. Bingley's friend Mr. Darcy.
Darcy asks Elizabeth to dance with her and she inadvertently accepts. She does
not enjoy it and cannot understand why he asked her. Mr. Collins pays
particularly close attention to Elizabeth at the ball, and even reserves the
first two dances with her.
The next day Mr. Collins proposes to
Elizabeth. She refuses him, and after a while Mr. Collins comes to understand
that her refusal is sincere, not just a trick of female coquetry. Mrs. Bennet
is extremely angry at Elizabeth for not accepting, but Mr. Bennet is glad. Mr.
Collins shifts his attentions to Elizabeth's friend Charlotte Lucas. He
proposes to Charlotte and she accepts. Elizabeth is disappointed in her friend
for agreeing to marry such a silly man simply to obtain financial security.
Bingley goes to London for business
and shortly after he leaves his sisters and Darcy go to London as well. He had
planned to return quickly to Netherfield, but Caroline Bingley writes to Jane
and tells her that Bingley will almost definitely not return for about six
months. Caroline also tells Jane that the family hopes Bingley will marry
Darcy's younger sister Georgiana and unite the fortunes of the two families.
Jane is heartbroken, thinking that Bingley must not really be attached to her.
Elizabeth thinks that Darcy and Bingley's sisters somehow managed to convince
Bingley to stay in London rather than returning to Netherfield to propose to
Jane.
Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, Elizabeth's
aunt and uncle, come to Longbourn to visit. They invite Jane to come and spend
some time with them in London, hoping that the time away will help to cheer her
up. Elizabeth also hopes that Jane will run into Bingley while in London. Mrs.
Gardiner, after observing Elizabeth and Wickham together, warns Elizabeth against
the imprudence of a marriage to Wickham because of his poor financial
situation, and advises Elizabeth not to encourage his attentions so much.
While in London Jane is treated very
rudely by Caroline Bingley and comes to realize that she is not a sincere
friend. She assumes that Mr. Bingley knows she is in London, and decides that
he must no longer be partial to her since she does not hear from him at all.
Wickham suddenly transfers his
attentions from Elizabeth to Miss King, who has recently acquired 10,000 pounds
from an inheritance.
Along with Sir William Lucas and Maria
Lucas (Charlotte's father and younger sister) Elizabeth goes to visit Charlotte
(now Mrs. Collins) at her new home in Kent. On their way they stop to see the
Gardiners. Upon hearing of Wickham's change of affections, Mrs. Gardiner is
critical, but Elizabeth defends him.
While staying with the Collinses,
Elizabeth and the others are often invited to dine at Rosings, the large estate
of Mr. Collins' patroness Lady Catherine. Lady Catherine is completely arrogant
and domineering. After Elizabeth has been at the Parsonage for a fortnight, Mr.
Darcy and his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam visit Rosings. Elizabeth and Colonel
Fitzwilliam get along very well. Darcy also seems to be paying a lot of
attention to Elizabeth, and often visits her and Charlotte at the Parsonage
along with Colonel Fitzwilliam. He also purposely meets her very frequently on
her usual walking route through the park.
While walking one day with Elizabeth,
Colonel Fitzwilliam tells Elizabeth how Darcy recently saved a close friend
from an imprudent marriage. Elizabeth concludes from this comment that it must
have been Darcy's advice which convinced Bingley not to propose to Jane. She
becomes so angry and upset that she gets a terrible headache and decides not to
go to Rosings for dinner. While she is alone at the Parsonage, Darcy pays a
visit. He tells her that in spite of all his efforts to avoid it because of her
low family connections, he has fallen in love with her and wants to marry her.
Elizabeth is shocked. She rudely refuses and rebukes him for the
ungentlemanlike manner in which he proposed, as well as for preventing the
marriage of Bingley and Jane and for ill-treating Wickham. Darcy is shocked
because he had assumed she would accept.
The next day Darcy finds Elizabeth and
hands her a letter then quickly leaves. The letter contains an explanation of
his reasons for advising Bingley not to marry Jane and for his actions toward
Wickham. He had prevented Bingley from proposing to Jane because it did not
seem to him that Jane was truly attached to Bingley. Wickham was Darcy's
father's god-son. Before his death, Darcy's father had asked Darcy to provide
Wickham with a living if Wickham were to decide to enter the clergy. Wickham,
however, did not want to enter the clergy. He asked Darcy for 3,000 pounds,
purportedly for law school, and agreed not to ask for any more. Darcy gave
Wickham the money and he squandered it all on dissolute living, then came back
and told Darcy he would like to enter the clergy if he could have the living
promised to him. Darcy refused. Later, with the help of her governess Miss
Younge, Wickham got Darcy's younger sister Georgiana to fall in love with him
and agree to an elopement, in order to revenge himself on Mr. Darcy and get
Miss Darcy's fortune. Fortunately, Darcy found out and intervened at the last
minute.
After reading these explanations in
the letter Elizabeth's first reaction is disbelief, but after reflecting upon
and slowly rereading the letter, she begins to see that Darcy is telling the
truth and that she was only inclined to believe Wickham's story because he had
flattered her with his attentions, while she was inclined to think ill of Darcy
because he had wounded her pride on their first meeting.
Soon afterwards, Elizabeth returns
home from her stay with the Collinses and Jane returns home from her stay with
the Gardiners. When they return their mother and sisters are upset because the
regiment stationed in Meryton will soon be leaving, depriving them of most of
their amusement. Lydia receives an offer from Mrs. Forster, Colonel Forster's
wife, to accompany her to Brighton, where the regiment will be going. Elizabeth
advises her father not to allow Lydia to go, thinking that such a trip could
lead to serious misconduct on Lydia's part because of the flirtatiousness and
frivolity of her character and her complete lack of a sense of propriety.
However, Mr. Bennet does not heed Elizabeth's advice.
Elizabeth goes on vacation with the Gardiners.
Their first stop is in the area of Pemberley, Mr. Darcy's estate. The Gardiners
want to take a tour, and having found out that Mr. Darcy is away, Elizabeth
agrees. During their tour of the estate the housekeeper tells them about how
kind and good-natured Darcy is. Elizabeth is impressed by this praise, and also
thinks of how amazing it would be to be the mistress of such an estate. During
their tour of the gardens Elizabeth and the Gardiners run into Mr. Darcy, who
has returned early from his trip. Darcy is extremely cordial to both Elizabeth
and the Gardiners and tells Elizabeth that he wants her to meet his sister
Georgiana as soon as she arrives.
Darcy and Georgiana pay a visit to
Elizabeth and the Gardiners at their inn on the very morning of Georgiana's
arrival. Bingley comes to visit as well. It is clear that he still has a regard
for Jane. Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth return their civilities by calling at
Pemberley to visit Georgiana. Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst are there as well,
and they thinly conceal their displeasure at seeing Elizabeth.
One morning Elizabeth receives a
letter from Jane announcing that Lydia has eloped with Wickham, and that they
fear Wickham does not actually intend to marry her. Jane asks Elizabeth to
return home immediately. Darcy comes to the door just after Elizabeth has
received the news. She explains to him what has happened. He feels partially to
blame for not having exposed Wickham's character publicly.
Elizabeth and the Gardiners depart for
Longbourn immediately. Mrs. Bennet is in hysterics and the entire burden of
keeping the household together in this moment of crisis has fallen on Jane's
shoulders. They find out from Colonel Forster that Wickham has over 1,000
pounds of gambling debts and nearly that much owed to merchants. The next day
Mr. Gardiner goes to join Mr. Bennet in London to help him search for Lydia.
After many days of fruitless searches Mr. Bennet returns home and leaves the
search in Mr. Gardiner's hands.
Soon a letter arrives from Mr.
Gardiner explaining that Lydia and Wickham have been found and that Wickham
will marry Lydia if Mr. Bennet provides her with her equal share of his wealth.
Knowing that, with his debts, Wickham would never have agreed to marry Lydia
for so little money, Mr. Bennet thinks that Mr. Gardiner must have paid off
Wickham's debts for him.
After their marriage Lydia and Wickham
come to visit Longbourn. Lydia is completely shameless and not the least bit
remorseful for her conduct. Mrs. Bennet is very happy to have one of her daughters
married.
Elizabeth hears from Lydia that Darcy
was present at the wedding. She writes to her aunt to ask her why he was there.
She responds explaining that it was Darcy who had found Lydia and Wickham and
who had negotiated with Wickham to get him to marry her. Mrs. Gardiner thinks
that Darcy did this out of love for Elizabeth.
Bingley and Mr. Darcy return to
Netherfield Park. They call at Longbourn frequently. After several days Bingley
proposes to Jane. She accepts and all are very happy.
In the meantime Darcy has gone on a
short business trip to London. While he is gone Lady Catherine comes to
Longbourn and asks to speak with Elizabeth. Lady Catherine tells Elizabeth that
she has heard Darcy is going to propose to her and attempts to forbid Elizabeth
to accept the proposal. Elizabeth refuses to make any promises. Lady Catherine
leaves in a huff.
Darcy returns from his business trip.
While he and Elizabeth are walking he tells her that his affection for her is
the same as when he last proposed, and asks her if her disposition toward him
has changed. She says that it has, and that she would be happy to accept his
proposal. They speak about how they have been changed since the last proposal.
Darcy realized he had been wrong to act so proudly and place so much emphasis
on class differences. Elizabeth realized that she had been wrong to judge Darcy
prematurely and to allow her judgment to be affected by her vanity.
Both couples marry. Elizabeth and
Darcy go to live in Pemberley. Jane and Bingley, after living in Netherfield
for a year, decide to move to an estate near Pemberley. Kitty begins to spend
most of her time with her two sisters, and her education and character begin to
improve. Mary remains at home keeping her mother company. Mr. Bennet is very happy
that his two oldest daughters have married so happily. Mrs. Bennet is glad that
her daughters have married so prosperously.
Plot Overview : In
the late winter months of 1801, a man named Lockwood rents a manor house called
Thrushcross Grange in the isolated moor country of England. Here, he meets his
dour landlord, Heathcliff, a wealthy man who lives in the ancient manor of
Wuthering Heights, four miles away from the Grange. In this wild, stormy
countryside, Lockwood asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell him the story
of Heathcliff and the strange denizens of Wuthering Heights. Nelly consents,
and Lockwood writes down his recollections of her tale in his diary; these
written recollections form the main part of Wuthering Heights.
Nelly remembers her childhood. As a
young girl, she works as a servant at Wuthering Heights for the owner of the
manor, Mr. Earnshaw, and his family. One day, Mr. Earnshaw goes to Liverpool
and returns home with an orphan boy whom he will raise with his own children.
At first, the Earnshaw children—a boy named Hindley and his younger sister
Catherine—detest the dark-skinned Heathcliff. But Catherine quickly comes to
love him, and the two soon grow inseparable, spending their days playing on the
moors. After his wife’s death, Mr. Earnshaw grows to prefer Heathcliff to his
own son, and when Hindley continues his cruelty to Heathcliff, Mr. Earnshaw
sends Hindley away to college, keeping Heathcliff nearby. Three
years later, Mr. Earnshaw dies, and Hindley inherits Wuthering Heights. He
returns with a wife, Frances, and immediately seeks revenge on Heathcliff. Once
an orphan, later a pampered and favored son, Heathcliff now finds himself
treated as a common laborer, forced to work in the fields. Heathcliff continues
his close relationship with Catherine, however. One night they wander to
Thrushcross Grange, hoping to tease Edgar and Isabella Linton, the cowardly,
snobbish children who live there. Catherine is bitten by a dog and is forced to
stay at the Grange to recuperate for five weeks, during which time Mrs. Linton
works to make her a proper young lady. By the time Catherine returns, she has
become infatuated with Edgar, and her relationship with Heathcliff grows more
complicated. When Frances dies after giving birth to a baby boy named Hareton,
Hindley descends into the depths of alcoholism, and behaves even more cruelly
and abusively toward Heathcliff. Eventually, Catherine’s desire for social
advancement prompts her to become engaged to Edgar Linton, despite her
overpowering love for Heathcliff. Heathcliff runs away from Wuthering Heights,
staying away for three years, and returning shortly after Catherine and Edgar’s
marriage.
When Heathcliff returns, he
immediately sets about seeking revenge on all who have wronged him. Having come
into a vast and mysterious wealth, he deviously lends money to the drunken
Hindley, knowing that Hindley will increase his debts and fall into deeper
despondency. When Hindley dies, Heathcliff inherits the manor. He also places
himself in line to inherit Thrushcross Grange by marrying Isabella Linton, whom
he treats very cruelly. Catherine becomes ill, gives birth to a daughter, and
dies. Heathcliff begs her spirit to remain on Earth—she may take whatever form
she will, she may haunt him, drive him mad—just as long as she does not leave
him alone. Shortly thereafter, Isabella flees to London and gives birth to
Heathcliff’s son, named Linton after her family. She keeps the boy with her
there.
Thirteen years pass, during which
Nelly Dean serves as Catherine’s daughter’s nursemaid at Thrushcross Grange.
Young Catherine is beautiful and headstrong like her mother, but her
temperament is modified by her father’s gentler influence. Young Catherine
grows up at the Grange with no knowledge of Wuthering Heights; one day,
however, wandering through the moors, she discovers the manor, meets Hareton,
and plays together with him. Soon afterwards, Isabella dies, and Linton comes
to live with Heathcliff. Heathcliff treats his sickly, whining son even more
cruelly than he treated the boy’s mother.
Three years later, Catherine
meets Heathcliff on the moors, and makes a visit to Wuthering Heights to meet
Linton. She and Linton begin a secret romance conducted entirely through
letters. When Nelly destroys Catherine’s collection of letters, the girl begins
sneaking out at night to spend time with her frail young lover, who asks her to
come back and nurse him back to health. However, it quickly becomes apparent
that Linton is pursuing Catherine only because Heathcliff is forcing him to;
Heathcliff hopes that if Catherine marries Linton, his legal claim upon
Thrushcross Grange—and his revenge upon Edgar Linton—will be complete. One day,
as Edgar Linton grows ill and nears death, Heathcliff lures Nelly and Catherine
back to Wuthering Heights, and holds them prisoner until Catherine marries
Linton. Soon after the marriage, Edgar dies, and his death is quickly followed
by the death of the sickly Linton. Heathcliff now controls both Wuthering
Heights and Thrushcross Grange. He forces Catherine to live at Wuthering
Heights and act as a common servant, while he rents Thrushcross Grange to
Lockwood.
Nelly’s story ends as she reaches the
present. Lockwood, appalled, ends his tenancy at Thrushcross Grange and returns
to London. However, six months later, he pays a visit to Nelly, and learns of
further developments in the story. Although Catherine originally mocked
Hareton’s ignorance and illiteracy (in an act of retribution, Heathcliff ended
Hareton’s education after Hindley died), Catherine grows to love Hareton as
they live together at Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff becomes more and more
obsessed with the memory of the elder Catherine, to the extent that he begins
speaking to her ghost. Everything he sees reminds him of her. Shortly after a
night spent walking on the moors, Heathcliff dies. Hareton and young Catherine
inherit Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, and they plan to be married
on the next New Year’s Day. After hearing the end of the story, Lockwood goes
to visit the graves of Catherine and Heathcliff.
The story of Wuthering Heights is told
through flashbacks recorded in diary entries, and events are often presented
out of chronological order—Lockwood’s narrative takes place after Nelly’s
narrative, for instance, but is interspersed with Nelly’s story in his journal.
Nevertheless, the novel contains enough clues to enable an approximate
reconstruction of its chronology, which was elaborately designed by Emily
Brontë. For instance, Lockwood’s diary entries are recorded in the late months
of 1801 and in September 1802; in 1801, Nelly tells Lockwood that she has lived
at Thrushcross Grange for eighteen years, since Catherine’s marriage to Edgar,
which must then have occurred in 1783. We know that Catherine was engaged to
Edgar for three years, and that Nelly was twenty-two when they were engaged, so
the engagement must have taken place in 1780, and Nelly must have been born in
1758. Since Nelly is a few years older than Catherine, and since Lockwood
comments that Heathcliff is about forty years old in 1801, it stands to reason
that Heathcliff and Catherine were born around 1761, three years after Nelly.
There are several other clues like this in the novel (such as Hareton’s birth,
which occurs in June, 1778). The following chronology is based on those clues,
and should closely approximate the timing of the novel’s important events. A
“~” before a date indicates that it cannot be precisely determined from the
evidence in the novel, but only closely estimated.
1500 -
The stone above the front door of Wuthering Heights, bearing the name of
Hareton Earnshaw, is inscribed, possibly to mark the completion of the house.
~1761 - Heathcliff and Catherine are born.
~1767 - Mr. Earnshaw brings Heathcliff to live at
Wuthering Heights.
1774 -
Mr. Earnshaw sends Hindley away to college.
1777 -
Mr. Earnshaw dies; Hindley and Frances take possession of Wuthering
Heights; Catherine first visits Thrushcross Grange around Christmastime.
1778 -
Hareton is born in June; Frances dies; Hindley begins his slide into
alcoholism.
1780 -
Catherine becomes engaged to Edgar Linton; Heathcliff leaves Wuthering
Heights.
1783 -
Catherine and Edgar are married; Heathcliff arrives at Thrushcross
Grange in September.
1784 -
Heathcliff and Isabella elope in the early part of the year; Catherine
becomes ill with brain fever; young Catherine is born late in the year;
Catherine dies.
1785 -
Early in the year, Isabella flees Wuthering Heights and settles in
London; Linton is born.
~1785 - Hindley dies; Heathcliff inherits Wuthering
Heights.
~1797 - Young Catherine meets Hareton and visits Wuthering
Heights for the first time; Linton comes from London after Isabella dies (in
late 1797 or early 1798).
1800 -
Young Catherine stages her romance with Linton in the winter.
1801 -
Early in the year, young Catherine is imprisoned by Heathcliff and
forced to marry Linton; Edgar Linton dies; Linton dies; Heathcliff assumes
control of Thrushcross Grange. Late in the year, Lockwood rents the Grange from
Heathcliff and begins his tenancy. In a winter storm, Lockwood takes ill and
begins conversing with Nelly Dean.
1801–1802 - During the winter, Nelly narrates her story
for Lockwood.
1802 -
In spring, Lockwood returns to London; Catherine and Hareton fall in
love; Heathcliff dies; Lockwood returns in September and hears the end of the
story from Nelly.
1803 -
On New Year’s Day, young Catherine and Hareton plan to be married.
Important Quotations Explained
1. But Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of
living. He is a dark-skinned gypsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman,
that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire: rather slovenly,
perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has an erect and
handsome figure—and rather morose. Possibly, some people might suspect him of a
degree of under-bred pride; I have a sympathetic chord within that tells me it
is nothing of the sort: I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an
aversion to showy displays of feeling—to manifestations of mutual kindliness.
He’ll love and hate, equally under cover, and esteem it a species of
impertinence to be loved or hated again—No, I’m running on too fast—I bestow my
own attributes over-liberally on him.
This passage, from the first chapter
and spoken in the voice of Lockwood, constitutes the first of many attempts in
the book to explain the mysterious figure of Heathcliff, his character and
motivations. Outside of the novel, when critics and readers discuss Wuthering
Heights, the same question arises repeatedly. How is Heathcliff best understood?
We see here that the question of his social position—is he a gentleman or a
gypsy?—causes particular confusion.
The situation of the reader, just
beginning to enter into Wuthering Heights as a novel, parallels the situation
of Lockwood, just beginning to enter into Wuthering Heights as a house. Like
Lockwood, readers of the novel confront all sorts of strange scenes and
characters—Heathcliff the strangest of all—and must venture interpretations of
them. Later illuminations of Heathcliff’s personality show this first
interpretation to be a laughable failure, indicating little beyond Lockwood’s
vanity. Lockwood, in claiming to recognize in Heathcliff a kindred soul, whom
he can understand “by instinct,” makes assumptions that appear absurd once Heathcliff’s
history is revealed. Lockwood, while he rather proudly styles himself a great
misanthrope and hermit, in fact resembles Heathcliff very little. In the many
misjudgments and blunders Lockwood makes in his early visits to Wuthering
Heights, we see how easy it is to misinterpret Heathcliff’s complex character,
and the similarity between our own position and Lockwood’s becomes a warning to
us as readers. We, too, should question our instincts.
2. The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up
in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This
writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters,
large and small—Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine
Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton. In vapid listlessness I leant
my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine
Earnshaw—Heathcliff—Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five
minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as
spectres—the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the
obtrusive name, I discovered my candle wick reclining on one of the antique
volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.
In this passage from Chapter III,
Lockwood relates the first of the troubling dreams he has in Catherine’s old
bed. The quotation testifies to Lockwood’s role as a reader within the novel,
representing the external reader—the perplexed outsider determined to discover
the secrets of Wuthering Heights. Upon Lockwood’s first arrival at the house,
no one answers his knocks on the door, and he cries, “I don’t care—I will get
in!” The same blend of frustration and determination has marked the responses
of many readers and critics when facing the enigmas of Wuthering Heights.
The connection between Lockwood and
readers is particularly clear in this passage. Catherine first appears to
Lockwood, as she does to readers, as a written word—her name, scratched into
the paint. When Lockwood reads over the scraped letters, they seem to take on a
ghostly power—the simile Brontë uses is that they are “as vivid as spectres.”
Ghosts, of course, constitute a key image throughout the novel. In this
instance, it is crucial to note that what comes back, in this first dream, is
not a dead person but a name, and that what brings the name back is the act of
reading it. We see that Brontë, by using Lockwood as a stand-in for her
readers, indicates how she wants her readers to react to her book; she wants
her words to come vividly before them, to haunt them. In
this passage, one also can see an active example of Wuthering Heights’s
ambiguous genre. The work is often compared to the Gothic novels popular in the
late eighteenth century, which dealt in ghosts and gloom, demonic heroes with
dark glints in their eyes, and so on. But Brontë wrote her book in the 1840s,
when the fashion for the Gothic novel was past and that genre was quickly being
replaced as the dominant form by the socially conscious realistic novel, as
represented by the work of Dickens and Thackeray. Wuthering Heights often seems
to straddle the two genres, containing many Gothic elements but also obeying
most of the conventions of Victorian realism. The question of genre comes to a head
in the appearances of ghosts in the novel. Readers cannot be sure whether they
are meant to understand the ghosts as nightmares, to explain them in terms of
the psychology of the characters who claim to see them, or to take them, as in
a Gothic novel, as no less substantial than the other characters. Brontë
establishes this ambiguity carefully. The “spectres” here are introduced within
a simile, and in a context that would support their interpretation as a
nightmare. Similarly subtle ambiguities lace Lockwood’s account, a few pages
later, of his encounter with the ghost of Catherine.
3. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how
I love him; and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more
myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same,
and [Edgar’s] is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.
Catherine’s speech to Nelly about her
acceptance of Edgar’s proposal, in Chapter IX, forms the turning-point of the
plot. It is at this point that Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights, after he
has overheard Catherine say that it would “degrade” her to marry him. Although
the action of Wuthering Heights takes place so far from the bustle of society,
where most of Brontë’s contemporaries set their scenes, social ambition
motivates many of the actions of these characters, however isolated among the
moors. Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar Linton out of a desire to be “the
greatest woman of the neighbourhood” exemplifies the effect of social
considerations on the characters’ actions.
In Catherine’s paradoxical statement
that Heathcliff is “more myself than I am,” readers can see how the relation
between Catherine and Heathcliff often transcends a dynamic of desire and
becomes one of unity. Heterosexual love is often, in literature, described in
terms of complementary opposites—like moonbeam and lightning, or frost and
fire—but the love between Catherine and Heathcliff opposes this convention.
Catherine says not, “I love Heathcliff,” but, “I am Heathcliff.” In following
the relationship through to its painful end, the novel ultimately may attest to
the destructiveness of a love that denies difference.
4.
“I got the sexton, who was digging Linton’s grave, to remove the earth off her
coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there, when I
saw her face again—it is hers yet—he had hard work to stir me; but he said it
would change, if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin
loose, and covered it up—not Linton’s side, damn him! I wish he’d been soldered
in lead—and I bribed the sexton to pull it away, when I’m laid there, and slide
mine out too. I’ll have it made so, and then, by the time Linton gets to us,
he’ll not know which is which!” “You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff!” I
exclaimed; “were you not ashamed to disturb the dead?”
When Heathcliff narrates this ghoulish
scene to Nelly in Chapter XXIX, the book enters into one of its most Gothic
moments. Heathcliff, trying to recapture Catherine herself, constantly comes
upon mere reminders of her. However, far from satisfying him, these reminders
only lead him to further attempts. Heathcliff’s desire to rejoin Catherine
might indeed explain the majority of Heathcliff’s actions, from his acquisition
of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, to his seizure of power over
everyone associated with Catherine. He tries to break through what reminds
him of his beloved to his beloved herself by destroying the reminder, the
intermediary. Readers can see, in the language he uses here, this difference
between the objects that refer to Catherine and Catherine herself. When he
opens her coffin, he does not say that he sees her again. Instead, he says, “I
saw her face again,” showing that her corpse, like her daughter or her
portrait, is a thing she possessed, a thing that refers to her, but not the
woman herself. It seems that, in this extreme scene, he realizes at last that
he will never get through to her real presence by acquiring and ruining the people
and possessions associated with her. This understanding brings Heathcliff a new
tranquility, and from this point on he begins to lose interest in destruction.
5. That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my
imagination, is actually the least, for what is not connected with her to me?
and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but her
features are shaped on the flags! In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air
at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day, I am surrounded with
her image! The most ordinary faces of men and women—my own features—mock me
with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that
she did exist, and that I have lost her!
In this passage from Chapter XXXIII,
Heathcliff confesses to Nelly his inner state. What Nelly calls Heathcliff’s
“monomania on the subject of his departed idol” has now reached its final stage
of development. In the passage in which Heathcliff describes his excavation of
Catherine’s grave, the reader gains insight into Heathcliff’s frustration
regarding the double nature of all of Catherine’s “memoranda.” While
Catherine’s corpse recalls her presence, it fails to substitute fully for it,
and thus recalls her absence. Heathcliff’s perception of this doubling comes
through in his language. The many signs of Catherine show that “she did exist”
but that “I have lost her.” In the end, because his whole being is bound up
with Catherine, Heathcliff’s total set of perceptions of the world is permeated
by her presence. Consequently, he finds signs of Catherine in the “entire
world,” and not just in localized figures such as her daughter or a portrait of
Catherine.
Pip steals food and a pork pie from
the pantry shelf and a file from Joe's forge and brings them back to the
escaped convict the next morning. Soon thereafter, Pip watches the man get
caught by soldiers and the whole event soon disappears from his young mind. Mrs.
Joe comes home one evening, quite excited, and proclaims that Pip is going to
"play" for Miss Havisham, "a rich and grim lady who lived in a
large and dismal house."
Pip is brought to Miss Havisham's
place, a mansion called the "Satis House," where sunshine never
enters. He meets a girl about his age, Estella, "who was very pretty and
seemed very proud." Pip instantly falls in love with her and will love her
the rest of the story. He then meets Miss Havisham, a willowy, yellowed old
woman dressed in an old wedding gown.
Miss Havisham seems most happy when
Estella insults Pip's coarse hands and his thick boots as they play.
Pip is insulted, but thinks there is
something wrong with him. He vows to change, to become uncommon, and to become
a gentleman.
Pip continues to visit Estella and
Miss Havisham for eight months and learns more about their strange life. Miss
Havisham brings him into a great banquet hall where a table is set with food
and large wedding cake. But the food and the cake are years old, untouched
except by a vast array of rats, beetles and spiders which crawl freely through
the room. Her relatives all come to see her on the same day of the year: her
birthday and wedding day, the day when the cake was set out and the clocks were
stopped many years before; i.e. the day Miss Havisham stopped living.
Pip begins to dream what life would be
like if he were a gentleman and wealthy. This dream ends when Miss Havisham
asks Pip to bring Joe to visit her, in order that he may start his indenture as
a blacksmith. Miss Havisham gives Joe twenty five pounds for Pip's service to
her and says good-bye.
Pip explains his misery to his
readers: he is ashamed of his home, ashamed of his trade. He wants to be
uncommon, he wants to be a gentleman. He wants to be a part of the environment
that he had a small taste of at the Manor House.
Early in his indenture, Mrs. Joe is
found lying unconscious, knocked senseless by some unknown assailant. She has
suffered some serious brain damage, having lost much of voice, her hearing, and
her memory. Furthermore, her "temper was greatly improved, and she was
patient." To help with the housework and to take care of Mrs. Joe, Biddy,
a young orphan friend of Pip's, moves into the house.
The years pass quickly. It is the
fourth year of Pip's apprenticeship and he is sitting with Joe at the pub when
they are approached by a stranger. Pip recognizes him, and his "smell of
soap," as a man he had once run into at Miss Havisham's house years
before.
Back at the house, the man, Jaggers,
explains that Pip now has "great expectations." He is to be given a
large monthly stipend, administered by Jaggers who is a lawyer. The benefactor,
however, does not want to be known and is to remain a mystery.
Pip spends an uncomfortable evening
with Biddy and Joe, then retires to bed. There, despite having all his dreams
come true, he finds himself feeling very lonely. Pip visits Miss Havisham who
hints subtly that she is his unknown sponsor.
Pip goes to live in London and meets
Wemmick, Jagger's square-mouth clerk. Wemmick brings Pip to Bernard's Inn,
where Pip will live for the next five years with Matthew Pocket's son Herbert,
a cheerful young gentleman that becomes one of Pip's best friends. From
Herbert, Pips finds out that Miss Havisham adopted Estella and raised her to
wreak revenge on the male gender by making them fall in love with her, and then
breaking their hearts.
Pip is invited to dinner at Wemmick's
whose slogan seems to be "Office is one thing, private life is
another." Indeed, Wemmick has a fantastical private life. Although he
lives in a small cottage, the cottage has been modified to look a bit like a
castle, complete with moat, drawbridge, and a firing cannon.
The next day, Jaggers himself invites
Pip and friends to dinner. Pip, on Wemmick's suggestion, looks carefully at
Jagger's servant woman -- a "tigress" according to Wemmick. She is
about forty, and seems to regard Jaggers with a mix of fear and duty.
Pip journeys back to the Satis House
to see Miss Havisham and Estella, who is now older and so much more beautiful
that he doesn't recognize her at first. Facing her now, he slips back
"into the coarse and common voice" of his youth and she, in return,
treats him like the boy he used to be. Pip sees something strikingly familiar
in Estella's face. He can't quite place the look, but an expression on her face
reminds him of someone.
Pip stays away from Joe and Biddy's
house and the forge, but walks around town, enjoying the admiring looks he gets
from his past neighbors.
Soon thereafter, a letter for Pip
announces the death of Mrs. Joe Gragery. Pip returns home again to attend the
funeral. Later, Joe and Pip sit comfortably by the fire like times of old.
Biddy insinuates that Pip will not be returning soon as he promises and he
leaves insulted. Back in London, Pip asks Wemmick for advice on how to give
Herbert some of his yearly stipend anonymously.
Narrator Pip describes his
relationship to Estella while she lived in the city: "I suffered every
kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me," he says. Pip
finds out that Drummle, the most repulsive of his acquaintances, has begun
courting Estella.
Years go by and Pip is still living
the same wasteful life of a wealthy young man in the city. A rough sea-worn man
of sixty comes to Pip's home on a stormy night soon after Pip's twenty-fourth
birthday. Pip invites him in, treats him with courteous disdain, but then
begins to recognize him as the convict that he fed in the marshes when he was a
child. The man, Magwitch, reveals that he is Pip's benefactor. Since the day
that Pip helped him, he swore to himself that every cent he earned would go to
Pip.
"I've made a gentleman out of
you," the man exclaims. Pip is horrified. All of his expectations are
demolished. There is no grand design by Miss Havisham to make Pip happy and
rich, living in harmonious marriage to Estella.
The convict tells Pip that he has come
back to see him under threat of his life, since the law will execute him if
they find him in England. Pip is disgusted with him, but wants to protect him
and make sure he isn't found and put to death. Herbert and Pip decide that Pip
will try and convince Magwitch to leave England with him.
Magwitch tells them the story of his
life. From a very young age, he was alone and got into trouble. In one of his
brief stints actually out of jail, Magwitch met a young well-to-do gentleman
named Compeyson who had his hand in everything illegal: swindling, forgery, and
other white collar crime. Compeyson recruited Magwitch to do his dirty work and
landed Magwitch into trouble with the law. Magwitch hates the man. Herbert
passes a note to Pip telling him that Compeyson was the name of the man who
left Miss Havisham on her wedding day.
Pip goes back to Satis House and finds
Miss Havisham and Estella in the same banquet room. Pip breaks down and
confesses his love for Estella. Estella tells him straight that she is
incapable of love -- she has warned him of as much before -- and she will soon
be married to Drummle.
Back in London, Wemmick tells Pip
things he has learned from the prisoners at Newgate. Pip is being watched, he
says, and may be in some danger. As well, Compeyson has made his presence known
in London. Wemmick has already warned Herbert as well. Heeding the warning,
Herbert has hidden Magwitch in his fiancé Clara's house.
Pip has dinner with Jaggers and
Wemmick at Jaggers' home. During the dinner, Pip finally realizes the
similarities between Estella and Jaggers' servant woman. Jaggers' servant woman
is Estella's mother!
On their way home together, Wemmick
tells the story of Jaggers' servant woman. It was Jaggers' first big
break-through case, the case that made him. He was defending this woman in a
case where she was accused of killing another woman by strangulation. The woman
was also said to have killed her own child, a girl, at about the same time as
the murder.
Miss Havisham asks Pip to come visit
her. He finds her again sitting by the fire, but this time she looks very
lonely. Pip tells her how he was giving some of his money to help Herbert with
his future, but now must stop since he himself is no longer taking money from
his benefactor. Miss Havisham wants to help, and she gives Pip nine hundred
pounds to help Herbert out. She then asks Pip for forgiveness. Pip tells her
she is already forgiven and that he needs too much forgiving himself not to be
able to forgive others.
Pip goes for a walk around the garden
then comes back to find Miss Havisham on fire! Pip puts the fire out, burning
himself badly in the process. The doctors come and announce that she will live.
Pip goes home and Herbert takes care
of his burns. Herbert has been spending some time with Magwitch at Clara's and
has been told the whole Magwitch story. Magwitch was the husband of Jaggers'
servant woman, the Tigress. The woman had come to Magwitch on the day she
murdered the other woman and told him she was going to kill their child and
that Magwitch would never see her. And Magwitch never did. Pip puts is all
together and tells Herbert that Magwitch is Estella's father.
It is time to escape with Magwitch.
Herbert and Pip get up the next morning and start rowing down the river,
picking up Magwitch at the preappointed time. They are within a few feet of a
steamer that they hope to board when another boat pulls alongside to stop them.
In the confusion, Pip sees Compeyson leading the other boat, but the steamer is
on top of them. The steamer crushes Pip's boat, Compeyson and Magwitch
disappear under water, and Pip and Herbert find themselves in a police boat of
sorts. Magwitch finally comes up from the water. He and Compeyson wrestled for
a while, but Magwitch had let him go and he is presumably drowned. Once again,
Magwitch is shackled and arrested.
Magwitch is in jail and quite ill. Pip
attends to the ailing Magwitch daily in prison. Pip whispers to him one day
that the daughter he thought was dead is quite alive. "She is a lady and
very beautiful," Pip says. "And I love her." Magwitch gives up
the ghost.
Pip falls into a fever for nearly a
month. Creditors and Joe fall in and out of his dreams and his reality.
Finally, he regains his senses and sees that, indeed, Joe has been there the
whole time, nursing him back to health. Joe tells him that Miss Havisham died
during his illness, that she left Estella nearly all, and Matthew Pocket a
great deal. Joe slips away one morning leaving only a note. Pip discovers that
Joe has paid off all his debtors.
Pip is committed to returning to Joe,
asking for forgiveness for everything he has done, and to ask Biddy to marry
him. Pip goes to Joe and indeed finds happiness -- but the happiness is Joe and
Biddy's. It is their wedding day. Pip wishes them well, truly, and asks them
for their forgiveness in all his actions. They happily give it.
Pip goes to work for Herbert's' firm
and lives with the now married Clara and Herbert. Within a year, he becomes a
partner. He pays off his debts and works hard.
Eleven years later, Pip returns from
his work overseas. He visits Joe and Biddy and meets their son, a little Pip,
sitting by the fire with Joe just like Pip himself did years ago. Pip tells
Biddy that he is quite the settled old bachelor, living with Clara and Herbert
and he thinks he will never marry. Nevertheless, he goes to the Satis House
that night to think once again of the girl who got away. And there he meets
Estella. Drummle treated her roughly and recently died. She tells Pip that she
has learned the feeling of heartbreak the hard way and now seeks his
forgiveness for what she did to him. The two walk out of the garden hand in
hand, and Pip "saw the shadow of no parting from her."
The title Great Expectations was chosen by Dickens as
an overview of Pip and the other characters' expectations. The most intriguing
expectations are those of Abel Magwitch, Pip, and Miss Havisham. These
characters had expectations for others and themselves, which affected others
deeply in their lives.
Abel Magwitch, or Pip's benefactor, expected Pip to
love him back as his own father. Magwitch gave his money to Pip expecting Pip
to become a gentleman. Magwitch is expected by other to live by the law.
However, he couldn't be blamed for being abandoned and being forced to steal in
order to live. Most criminals were expected to be cruel, coarse, creatures.
However, Magwitch defied this stereotype by being a considerate and selfless
benefactor to Pip, because he felt gratitude and affection for Pip. Magwitch
avenged himself on society by creating a gentleman from a poor, low-class boy.
He said, "Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you! It's me wot
has done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea
should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec'lated n got rich, you
should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live smooth...Look'ee here,
Pip. I'm your second father. You're my sonmore to me nor any sonbut wot, if I
gets liberty and money, I'll make that boy a gentleman! Ah! You shall show
money with lords for wagers, and beat em!" (298)
From the moment he laid his eyes on Estella, Pip had
envied her for her wealth and social status, as well as her beauty. His dream
was fulfilled when Magwitch expected him to achieve a higher standard of living
by becoming a gentleman, acquiring education, and increasing his social status.
As a result of transforming into a gentleman, he was prejudiced against
Magwitch for being so grimy and brutish. He was both appalled and embarrassed
by his benefactor, particularly because he judged by the external criteria of
status and wealth after becoming a gentleman. Estella remarked,
"Naturally, what was fit company for you once would be quite unfit company
for you now." (221) Pip also shunned Joe and Biddy, thinking them too
"coarse and common" for himself. Pip said, "I would not have
gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone back to Biddy now, for any conditionsimply,
I suppose, because my sense of my own worthless conduct to them was greater
than every consideration. No wisdom on earth could have given me the comfort
that I should have derived from their simplicity and fidelity; but I could
never, never, never undo what I had done" (324).He looked down on Trabb's
boy, who in return, mocked him when Pip visited. When Pip discovered that he
had a benefactor, it influenced him to believe that Miss Havisham was his
benefactor, confirming that Estella was meant for him. Pip said, "I am not
so unreasonable, sir, as to think you at all responsible for my mistakes and
wrong conclusions, but I always supposed it was Miss Havisham." (311) This
caused Pip to think this for many years, until his true benefactor revealed
himself.
Miss Havisham played a key role in Great Expectations.
She expected Estella to obey all her teachings and to develop an unbreakable
heart, not weak and vulnerable, so that she wouldn't have to go through the
misery Miss Havisham experienced. Miss Havisham raised Estella this way,
expecting others to fall in love with Estella's beauty while Estella scorned
them. Miss Havisham exclaimed, "Break their hearts, my pride and hope,
break their hearts and have no mercy!"(88) She also said, "Well? You
can break his heart?"(54) The effects of Miss Havisham's expectations were
long-lasting. Estella married Bentley Drummle, resulting in an unhappy life. In
teaching Estella to break others' hearts, Miss Havisham caused Estella to find
out how to love the hard way. Pip was also affected by Miss Havisham's
expectations. Pip, in longing for Estella, was in torture for a long period of
time. In fact, the main reason Pip wanted to become a gentleman in the first
place was because he admired Estella, and desperately wanted to change from the
"coarse, common laboring boy" into a refined, wealthy gentleman.
Miss Havisham's, Pip's, and Magwitch's expectations
caused a chain reaction of events that otherwise would not have happened. Other
characters in Great Expectations were impacted by each one's expectations, and
most of them were associated. As displayed by the character of Miss Havisham,
it is foolish to live in the past, because it is a selfish act. Not only did
she harm herself, but Estella and Pip as well. In London, where Pip lives out
society'sand his ownconcept of a gentleman, he leads a directionless, futile
life; he has no intellectual, cultural, or spiritual values and purpose. Pip's
being a gentleman seemed to consist of having good table manners, acquiring an
upper class accent, wearing the right clothes, and going into debt. Perhaps the
ultimate example of the meaninglessness of his life as a man of expectations is
his hiring The Avenging Phantom, shortened to the Avenger. What or who is being
avenged? In the end, Pip discovered that wealth and social position could be
corrupting to a person's morality. Pip realized that he had to sacrifice his
great expectations in order to preserve his morality and inner worth.
George Eliot || MIDDLEMARCH
Middlemarch is a highly unusual novel.
Although it is primarily a Victorian novel, it has many characteristics typical
to modern novels. Critical reaction to Eliot's masterpiece work was mixed. A
common accusation leveled against it was its morbid, depressing tone. Many
critics did not like Eliot's habit of scattering obscure literary and
scientific allusions throughout the book. In their opinion a woman writer
should not be so intellectual. Eliot hated the "silly, women novelists."
In the Victorian era, women writers were generally confined to writing the
stereotypical fantasies of the conventional romance fiction. Not only did Eliot
dislike the constraints imposed on women's writing, she disliked the stories
they were expected to produce. Her disdain for the tropes of conventional
romance is apparent in her treatment of marriage between Rosamond and Lydgate.
Both and Rosamond and Lydgate think of courtship and romance in terms of ideals
taken directly from conventional romance. Another problem with such fiction is
that marriage marks the end of the novel. Eliot goes through great effort to
depict the realities of marriage.
Moreover, Eliot's many critics found
Middlemarch to be too depressing for a woman writer. Eliot refused to bow to
the conventions of a happy ending. An ill-advised marriage between two people
who are inherently incompatible never becomes completely harmonious. In fact,
it becomes a yoke. Such is the case in the marriages of Lydgate and Dorothea.
Dorothea was saved from living with her mistake for her whole life because her
elderly husband dies of a heart attack. Lydgate and Rosamond, on the other
hand, married young.
Two major life choices govern the
narrative of Middlemarch. One is marriage and the other is vocation. Eliot
takes both choices very seriously. Short, romantic courtships lead to trouble,
because both parties entertain unrealistic ideals of each other. They marry
without getting to know one another. Marriages based on compatibility work
better. Moreover, marriages in which women have a greater say also work better,
such as the marriage between Fred and Mary. She tells him she will not marry if
he becomes a clergyman. Her condition saves Fred from an unhappy entrapment in
an occupation he doesn't like. Dorothea and Casaubon struggle continually
because Casaubon attempts to make her submit to his control. The same applies
in the marriage between Lydgate and Rosamond.
The choice of an occupation by which
one earns a living is also an important element in the book. Eliot illustrates
the consequences of making the wrong choice. She also details at great length
the consequences of confining women to the domestic sphere alone. Dorothea's
passionate ambition for social reform is never realized. She ends with a happy
marriage, but there is some sense that her end as merely a wife and mother is a
waste. Rosamond's shrewd capabilities degenerate into vanity and manipulation.
She is restless within the domestic sphere, and her stifled ambitions only
result in unhappiness for herself and her husband.
Eliot's refusal to conform to happy
endings demonstrates the fact that Middlemarch is not meant to be
entertainment. She wants to deal with real-life issues, not the fantasy world
to which women writers were often confined. Her ambition was to create a
portrait of the complexity of ordinary human life: quiet tragedies, petty
character failings, small triumphs, and quiet moments of dignity. The
complexity of her portrait of provincial society is reflected in the complexity
of individual characters. The contradictions in the character of the individual
person are evident in the shifting sympathies of the reader. One moment, we
pity Casaubon, the next we judge him critically.
Middlemarch stubbornly refuses to
behave like a typical novel. The novel is a collection of relationships between
several major players in the drama, but no single one person occupies the
center of the action. No one person can represent provincial life. It is
necessary to include multiple people. Eliot's book is fairly experimental for
its time in form and content, particularly because she was a woman writer.
Joseph
Conrad : HEART OF DARKNESS
A group of men are aboard an English ship that is sitting on
the Thames. The group includes a Lawyer, an Accountant, a Company
Director/Captain, and a man without a specific profession who is named Marlow.
The narrator appears to be another unnamed guest on the ship. While they are
loitering about, waiting for the wind to pick up so that they might resume
their voyage, Marlow begins to speak about London and Europe as some of the
darkest places on earth. The narrator and other guests do not seem to regard
him with much respect. Marlow is a stationary man, very unusual for a seaman.
The others do not understand him because he does not fit into a neat category in
the same manner that the others do. He mentions colonization and says that
carving the earth into prizes or pieces is not something to examine too closely
because it is an atrocity. He then begins to narrate a personal experience in
Africa, which led him to become a freshwater sailor and gave him a terrible
glimpse of colonization. With the exception of two or three small paragraphs,
the perspective shifts to Marlow, who becomes the main narrator for the rest of
the novel.
Marlow has always had a passion for travel and exploration.
Maps are an obsession of his. Marlow decides he wants nothing more than to be
the skipper of a steamship that travels up and down a river in Africa. His aunt
has a connection in the Administration Department of a seafaring and exploration
company that gathers ivory, and she manages to get Marlow an appointment. He
replaces a captain who was killed in a skirmish with the natives. When Marlow
arrives at the company office, the atmosphere is extremely dim and foreboding.
He feels as if everyone is looking at him pityingly. The doctor who performs
his physical asks if there is a history of insanity in Marlow's family. He
tells Marlow that nothing could persuade him to join the Company down in the
Congo. This puzzles Marlow, but he does not think much of it. The next day he
embarks on a one-month journey to the primary Company station. The African
shores that he observes look anything but welcoming. They are dark and rather
desolate, in spite of the flurry of human activity around them. When he
arrives, Marlow learns that a company member recently committed suicide. There
are multitudes of chain-gang types, who all look at him with vacant
expressions.
A young boy approaches Marlow, looking very empty. Marlow can
do nothing but offer him some ship biscuits. He is very relieved to leave the
boy behind as he comes across a very well-dressed man who is the picture of
respectability and elegance. They introduce themselves: he is the Chief
Accountant of the Company.
Marlow befriends this man and frequently spends time in his
hut while the Accountant goes over the accounts. After ten days of observing
the Chief Accountant's ill temper, Marlow departs for his 200-mile journey into
the interior of the Congo,where he will work for a station run by a man named
Kurtz.
The journey is arduous. Marlow crosses many paths, sees
deserted dwellings, and encounters black men working. Marlow never describes
them as humans. Throughout the novel, the white characters refer to them in
animalistic terms. Marlow finally arrives at a secondary station, where he
meets the Manager, who for now will oversee his work. It is a strange meeting.
The Manager smiles in a manner that is very discomfiting. The ship on which
Marlow is supposed to set sail is broken. While they await the delivery of the
rivets needed to fix it, Marlow spends his time on more mundane tasks. He
frequently hears the name "Kurtz" around the station. Clearly
everyone knows his future boss. It is rumored that he is ill. Soon the entire
crew will depart for a trip to Kurtz's station.
The Manager's uncle arrives with his own expedition. Marlow
overhears them saying that they would like to see Kurtz and his assistant
hanged so that their station could be eliminated as ivory competition. After a
day of exploring, the expedition has lost all of their animals. Marlow sets out
for Kurtz's station with the Pilgrims, the cannibal crew, and the Manager.
About eight miles from their destination, they stop for the night. There is
talk of an approaching attack. Rumor has it that Kurtz may have been killed in
a previous one. Some of the pilgrims go ashore to investigate. The whirring
sound of arrows is heard; an attack is underway. The Pilgrims shoot back from
the ship with rifles. The helmsman of the ship is killed, as is a native
ashore. Marlow supposes that Kurtz has perished in the inexplicable attack.
This upsets him greatly. Over the course of his travels, he has greatly looked
forward to meeting this man. Marlow shares Kurtz's background: an English
education, a woman at home waiting for him. In spite of Marlow's
disappointment, the ship presses onward. A little way down the river, the crew
spot Kurtz's station, which they had supposed was lost. They meet a Russian man
who resembles a harlequin. He says that Kurtz is alive but somewhat ill. The
natives do not want Kurtz to leave because he has expanded their minds. Kurtz
does not want to leave because he has essentially become part of the tribe.
After talking for a while with the Russian, Marlow has a very
clear picture of the man who has become his obsession. Finally, he has the
chance to talk to Kurtz, who is ill and on his deathbed. The natives surround
his hut until he tells them to leave. While on watch, Marlow dozes off and
realizes that Kurtz is gone. He chases him and finds Kurtz in the forest. He
does not want to leave the station because his plans have not been fully
realized. Marlow manages to take him back to his bed. Kurtz entrusts Marlow
with all of his old files and papers. Among these is a photograph of his
sweetheart. The Russian escapes before the Manager and others can imprison him.
The steamboat departs the next day. Kurtz dies onboard a few days later, Marlow
having attended him until the end. Marlow returns to England, but the memory of
his friend haunts him. He manages to find the woman from the picture, and he
pays her a visit. She talks at length about his wonderful personal qualities
and about how guilty she feels that she was not with him at the last. Marlow
lies and says that her name was the last word spoken by Kurtz—the truth would
be too dark to tell her.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man takes place in Ireland
at the turn of the century. Young Stephen Dedalus comes from an Irish Catholic
family; he is the oldest of ten children, and his father is financially inept.
Throughout the novel, the Dedalus family makes a series of moves into
increasingly dilapidated homes as their fortunes dwindle. His mother is a
devout Catholic. When Stephen is young, he and the other Dedalus children are
tutored by the governess Dante, a fanatically Catholic woman. Their Uncle
Charles also lives with the family. The book opens with stream of consciousness
narrative filtered through a child's perspective; there is sensual imagery, and
words approximating baby talk. We leap forward in time to see young Stephen
beginning boarding school at Clongowes. He is very young, terribly homesick,
un-athletic and socially awkward. He is an easy target for bullies, and one day
he is pushed into a cesspool. He becomes ill from the filthy water, but he
remembers what his father told him and doesn't tell on the boy. That Christmas,
he eats at the adult table for the first time. A terrible argument erupts over
politics, with John Casey and Stephen's father on one side and Dante on the
other. Later that year, Stephen is unjustly hit by a prefect. He complains to
the rector, winning the praises of his peers.
Stephen is forced to withdraw from Clongowes because of his
family's poverty. The family moves to Blackrock, where Stephen takes long walks
with Uncle Charles and goes on imaginary adventures with boys from around the
neighbourhood. When Stephen is a bit older, the family moves to Dublin, once
again because of financial difficulties. He meets a girl named Emma Clere, who
is to be the object of his adoration right up until the end of the book. His
father, with a bit of charm, manages to get Stephen back into private school.
He is to go to Belvedere College, another institution run by the Jesuits.
Stephen comes into his own at Belvedere, a reluctant leader
and a success at acting and essay writing. Despite his position of leadership,
he often feels quite isolated. He continues to be a sensitive and imaginative
young man, acting in school plays and winning essay contests. He is also
increasingly obsessed with sex; his fantasies grow more and more lurid.
Finally, one night he goes with a prostitute. It is his first sexual
experience.
Going with prostitutes becomes a habit. Stephen enters a
period of spiritual confession. He considers his behavior sinful, but he feels
oddly indifferent towards it. He cannot seem to stop going to prostitutes, nor
does he want to stop. But during the annual spiritual retreat at Belvedere, he
hears three fire sermons on the torments of hell. Stephen is terrified, and he
repents of his old behavior. He becomes almost fanatically religious.
After a time, this feeling passes. He becomes increasingly
frustrated by Catholic doctrine. When a rector suggests that he consider
becoming a priest, Stephen realizes that it is not the life for him. One day,
while walking on the beach, he sees a beautiful girl. Her beauty hits him with
the force of spiritual revelation, and he no longer feels ashamed of admiring
the body. He will live life to the fullest.
The next time we see Stephen, he is a student at university.
University has provided valuable structure and new ideas to Stephen: in
particular, he has had time to think about the works of Aquinas and Aristotle
on the subject of beauty. Stephen has developed his own theory of aesthetics.
He is increasingly preoccupied with beauty and art. Although he has no shortage
of friends, he feels isolated. He has come to regard Ireland as a trap, and he
realizes that he must escape the constraints of nation, family, and religion.
He can only do that abroad. Stephen imagines his escape as something parallel
to the flight of Dedalus, he escaped from his prison with wings crafted by his
own genius. The book ends with Stephen leaving Ireland to pursue the life of a
writer.
E.M. Forster's A Passage to India concerns the relations
between the English and the native population of India during the colonial
period in which Britain ruled India. The novel takes place primarily in
Chandrapore, a city along the Ganges River notable only for the nearby Marabar
caves. The main character of the novel is Dr. Aziz, a Moslem doctor in
Chandrapore and widower. After he is summoned to the Civil Surgeon's home only
to be promptly ignored, Aziz visits a local Islamic temple where he meets Mrs.
Moore, an elderly British woman visiting her son, Mr. Heaslop, who is the City
Magistrate. Although Aziz reprimands her for not taking her shoes off in the
temple before realizing she has in fact observed this rule, the two soon find
that they have much in common and he escorts her back to the club.
Back at the club, Mrs. Moore meets her companion, Adela
Quested, who will likely marry her son. Adela complains that they have seen
nothing of India, but rather English customs replicated abroad. Although a few
persons make racist statements about Indians, Mr. Turton, the Collector,
proposes having a Bridge Party (to bridge the gulf between east and west). When
Mrs. Moore tells her son, Ronny, about Aziz, he reprimands her for associating
with an Indian. When Mr. Turton issues the invitations to the Bridge Party, the
invitees suspect that this is a political move, for the Collector would not
behave so cordially without a motive, but accept the invitations despite the
suspicion.
For Adela and Mrs. Moore, the Bridge Party is a failure, for
only a select few of the English guests behave well toward the Indians. Among
these is Mr. Fielding, the schoolmaster at the Government College, who suggests
that Adela meet Aziz. Mrs. Moore scolds her son for being impolite to the
Indians, but Ronny Heaslop feels that he is not in India to be kind, for there
are more important things to do; this offends her sense of Christian charity.
Aziz accepts Fielding's invitation to tea with Adela, Mrs.
Moore, and Professor Narayan Godbole. During tea they discuss the Marabar
Caves, while Fielding takes Mrs. Moore to see the college. Ronny arrives to
find Adela alone with Aziz and Godbole, and later chastises Fielding for
leaving an Englishwoman alone with two Indians. However, he reminds Ronny that
Adela is capable of making her own decisions. Aziz plans a picnic at the
Marabar Caves for Miss Quested and Mrs. Moore. Adela tells Ronny that she will
not marry him, but he nevertheless suggests that they take a car trip to see
Chandrapore. The Nawab Bahadur, an important local figure, agrees to take them.
During the trip, the car swerves into a tree and Miss Derek, an Englishwoman
passing by at the time, agrees to take them back to town. However, she snubs
the Nawab Bahadur and his chauffeur. Adela speaks to Ronny, and tells him that
she was foolish to say that they should not be married.
Both Aziz and Godbole fall sick after the party at Mr.
Fielding's home, so Fielding visits Aziz and they discuss the state of politics
in India. Aziz shows Fielding a picture of his wife, a significant event
considering his Islamic background and an important demonstration of their
friendship.
Aziz plans the expedition to the Marabar Caves, considering
every minute detail because he does not wish to offend the English ladies.
During the day when they are to embark. Mohammed Latif, a friend of Aziz,
bribes Adela's servant, Antony, not to go on the expedition, for he serves as a
spy for Ronny Heaslop. Although Aziz, Adela and Mrs. Moore arrive to the train
station on time, Fielding and Godbole miss the train because of Godbole's
morning prayers. Adela and Aziz discuss her marriage, and she fears she will
become a narrow-minded Anglo-Indian such as the other wives of British
officials. When they reach the caves, a distinct echo in one of them frightens
Mrs. Moore, who decides she must leave immediately. The echo terrifies her, for
it gives her the sense that the universe is chaotic and has no order. Aziz and Adela continue to explore the caves,
and Adela realizes that she does not love Ronny. However, she does not think
that this is reason enough to break off her engagement. Adela leaves Aziz, who
goes into a cave to smoke, but when he exits he finds their guide alone and
asleep. Aziz searches for Adela, but only finds her broken field glasses.
Finally he finds Fielding, who arrived at the cave in Miss Derek's care, but he
does not know where Adela is. When the group returns to Chandrapore, Aziz is
arrested for assaulting Adela.
Fielding speaks to the Collector about the charge, and claims
that Adela is mad and Aziz must be innocent. The Collector feels that this is
inevitable, for disaster always occurs when the English and Indians interact
socially. Fielding requests that he see Adela, but McBryde, the police
superintendent, denies this request. Fielding acts as Aziz's advocate,
explaining such things as why Aziz would have the field glasses. Aziz hires as
his lawyer Armitrao, a Hindu who is notoriously anti-British. Godbole leaves
Chandrapore to start a high school in Central India.
The Anglo-Indians rally to Miss Quested's defense and call a
meeting to discuss the trial. Fielding attends, and makes the mistake of
actually referring to her by name. The Collector advises all to behave cautiously.
When Ronny enters, Fielding does not stand as a sign of respect. Mr. Turton
demands an apology, but Fielding merely resigns from the club and claims he
will resign from his post if Aziz is found guilty.
Adela remains in the McBryde's bungalow, where the men are
too respectful and the women too sympathetic. She wishes to see Mrs. Moore, who
kept away. Ronny tells her that Fielding wrote her a letter to her pleading
Aziz's case. Adela admits to Ronny that she has made a mistake and that Aziz is
innocent. When Adela sees Mrs. Moore, she is morose and detached. She knows
that Aziz is innocent and tells Adela that directly. Mrs. Moore wishes to leave
India, and Ronny agrees, for she is doing no one any good by remaining. Lady
Mellanby, the wife of the Lieutenant-Governor, secures Mrs. Moore quick passage
out of India.
During the trial, the Indians in the crowd jeer Adela for her
appearance, and Mahmoud Ali, one of Aziz's lawyers, claims that Mrs. Moore was
sent away because she would clear Aziz's name. When McBryde asks Adela whether
Aziz followed her, she admits that she made a mistake. Major Callendar attempts
to stop the proceedings on medical grounds, but Mr. Das, the judge, releases
Aziz. After the trial, Adela leaves the courtroom alone as a riot foments.
Fielding finds her and escorts her to the college where she will be safe.
Disaster is averted only when Dr. Panna Lal, who was to testify for the
prosecution, publicly apologizes to Aziz and secures the release of Nureddin, a
prisoner rumored to have been tortured by the English.
At the college, Fielding asks Adela why she would make her
charge, but she cannot give a definite answer. He suggests that she was either
assaulted by the guide or had a hallucination. Adela seems to believe that she
had a hallucination, for she thinks she had a hallucination of a marriage
proposal when there was none. Fielding warns her that Aziz is very bitter.
Ronny arrives and tells them that his mother died at sea.
After a victory banquet for Aziz, he and Fielding discuss his
future plans. Fielding implores Aziz not to sue Adela, for it will show him to
be a gentleman, but Aziz claims that he is fully anti-British now. Fielding
reminds Aziz what a momentous sacrifice Adela made, for now she does not have
the support nor friendship of the other English officials. Fielding tells Aziz
that Mrs. Moore is dead, but he does not believe him. The death of Mrs. Moore
leads to suspicion that Ronny had her killed for trying to defend Aziz.
Although there was no wrongdoing in the situation, Ronny nevertheless feels
guilty for treating his mother so poorly. Adela decides to leave India and not
marry Ronny. Fielding gains new respect for Adela for her humility and loyalty
as he attempts to persuade Aziz not to take action against Adela. Adela leaves
India and vows to visit Mrs. Moore's other children (and Ronny's step-siblings)
Stella and Ralph. Aziz hears rumors and begins to suspect that Fielding had an
affair with Adela. He believes these rumors out of his cynicism concerning human
nature. Because of this suspicion, the friendship between Aziz and Fielding
begins to cool, even after Fielding denies the affair to Aziz. Fielding himself
leaves Chandrapore to travel, while Aziz remains convinced that Fielding will
marry Adela Quested.
Forster resumes the novel some time later in the town of Mau,
where Godbole now works. Godbole currently takes part in a Hindu birthing
ceremony with Aziz, who now works in this region. Fielding visits Mau; he has
married, and Aziz assumes that his bride is Miss Quested. Aziz stopped
corresponding with Fielding when he received a letter which stated that
Fielding married someone Aziz knows. However, he did not marry Adela, as Aziz
assumes, but rather Mrs. Moore's daughter, Stella. When Fielding meets with
Aziz and clears up this misunderstanding, Aziz remains angry, for he has
assumed for such a long time that Fielding married his enemy.
Nevertheless, Aziz goes to the guest house where Fielding
stays and finds Ralph Moore there. His anger at Fielding cools when Ralph
invokes the memory of Mrs. Moore, and Aziz even takes Ralph boating on the
river so that they can observe the local Hindu ceremonies. Their boat, however,
crashes into one carrying Fielding and Stella. After this comical event, the
ill will between Aziz and Fielding fully dissipates. However, they realize that
because of their different cultures they cannot remain friends and part from
one another cordially.
Brief
Plot Summary : In Edinburgh, six
ten-year-old girls are assigned Miss Jean Brodie as their teacher. The girls
were Sandy, Rose, Mary, Jenny, Monica, and Eunice. Miss Brodie's teaching style
was heavily based on the actual latin translation of the word
"education", with the word "educere" which means to lead
out. Brodie sticks to teaching the girls in the disciplines of art and history,
as well as enlightening them with her travel stories, rather than the normal
subjects of mathematics and science. As the reader follows the group of girls,
called "the Brodie set", it becomes obvious that the girls have begun
to stand out to other students and administrators alike. The reader learns that
one of the girls in this infamous set will "betray" Miss Brodie's
trust to a higher administrator, and while Miss Brodie never learns which girl
it is before her death, the reader becomes aware that it was her teachers pet,
Sandy Stranger.
Throughout the novel, not only is
there flash forwards into the lives of the Brodie set, but there is also detail
into the life of Jean Brodie herself. The main focus on Miss Brodie's life is
her love life. In the school while the girls are in Miss Brodie's class, Jean
Brodie becomes entangled in a love triangle with the schools music teacher, Mr.
Lowther, and the schools art teacher, Mr. Lloyd. While truly loving the married
Mr. Lloyd, Brodie begins a relationship with Mr. Lowther.
While being loyal to Miss Brodie, the
girls were growing older and had to be promoted to the upper school. The
headmistress of the upper school, Miss Mackay, has it out for Jean Brodie,
trying to drain the girls of information that could possibly be used to get
Jean Brodie fired from the junior school. Miss Brodie ultimately decides to
test the brodie set before their sixteenth birthdays to make sure that Brodie
can trust them. Ironically, Brodie ends up choosing Sandy as the girl she can
trust the most of the set.
In the girls last year of school, at
the age of seventeen, the brodie set splits apart. Mary quits school to become
a typist, and Jenny quits school to be an actress. Rose gets married, Eunice
becomes a nurse and Monica becomes a scientist. Ultimately, Sandy ends up
joining a catholic convent as a nun.
In 1930s Edinburgh, six ten-year-old
girls, Sandy, Rose, Mary, Jenny, Monica, and Eunice are assigned Miss Jean
Brodie, who describes herself as being "in my prime", as teacher.
Miss Brodie, determined that they shall receive an education in the original
sense of the Latin verb educere, "to lead out", gives her students
lessons about her personal love life and travels, promoting art history,
classical studies, and fascism. Under her mentorship, these six girls whom
Brodie singles out as the elite group among her students—known as the
"Brodie set"—begin to stand out from the rest of the school. However
in one of the novel's typical flash-forwards we learn that one of them will
later betray Brodie, ending her teaching career, but that she will never learn
which.
In the Junior School, they meet the
singing teacher, the short Mr Gordon Lowther, and the art master, the handsome,
one-armed war veteran Mr Teddy Lloyd, a married Roman Catholic with six
children. These two teachers form a love triangle with Miss Brodie, each loving
her, while she loves only Mr Lloyd. However Miss Brodie never overtly acts on
her love for Mr Lloyd, except once to exchange a kiss with him, witnessed by
Monica. During a two week absence from school, Miss Brodie embarks on an affair
with Mr Lowther on the grounds that a bachelor makes a more respectable
paramour: she has renounced Mr Lloyd as he is married. At one point during
these two years in the Junior School, Jenny is "accosted by a man joyfully
exposing himself beside the Water of Leith".The police investigation of
the exposure leads Sandy to imagine herself as part of a fictional police force
seeking incriminating evidence in respect of Brodie and Mr Lowther.
Once the girls are promoted to the
Senior School (around age twelve) though now dispersed, they hold on to their
identity as the Brodie set. Miss Brodie keeps in touch with them after school
hours by inviting them to her home as she did when they were her pupils. All
the while, the headmistress Miss Mackay tries to break them up and compile
information gleaned from them into sufficient cause to sack Brodie. Miss Mackay
has more than once suggested to Miss Brodie that she should seek employment at
a 'progressive' school; Miss Brodie declines to move to what she describes as a
'crank' school. When two other teachers at the school, the Kerr sisters, take
part-time employment as Mr Lowther's housekeepers, Miss Brodie tries to take
over their duties. She sets about fattening him up with extravagant cooking.
The girls, now thirteen, visit Miss Brodie in pairs at Mr Lowther's house,
where all Brodie does is ask about Mr Lloyd in Mr Lowther's presence. At this
point Mr Lloyd asks Rose and occasionally the other girls to pose for him as
portrait subjects. Each face he paints ultimately resembles Miss Brodie, as her
girls report to her in detail, and she thrills at the telling. One day when
Sandy is visiting Mr Lloyd, he kisses her.
Before the Brodie set turns sixteen,
Miss Brodie tests her girls to discover which of them she can really trust,
ultimately settling on Sandy as her confidante. Miss Brodie is obsessed with
the notion that Rose, as the most beautiful of the Brodie set, should have an
affair with Mr Lloyd in her place. She begins to neglect Mr Lowther, who ends
up marrying Miss Lockhart, the science teacher. Another student, Joyce Emily, steps
briefly into the picture, trying unsuccessfully to join the Brodie set. Miss
Brodie takes her under her wing separately, encouraging her to run away to
fight in the Spanish Civil War on the Nationalist side, which she does, only to
be killed in an accident when the train she is travelling in is attacked.
The original Brodie set, now seventeen
and in their final year of school, begin to go their separate ways. Mary and
Jenny leave before taking their exams, Mary to become a typist and Jenny to
pursue a career in acting. Eunice becomes a nurse and Monica a scientist. Rose
lands a handsome husband. Sandy, with a keen interest in psychology, is
fascinated by Mr Lloyd's stubborn love, his painter's mind, and his religion.
Sandy and Rose model for Mr Lloyd's paintings, Sandy knowing that Miss Brodie
expects Rose to become sexually involved with Lloyd. Rose, however, is
oblivious to the plan crafted for her and so Sandy, now eighteen and alone with
Mr Lloyd in his house while his wife and children are on holiday, has an affair
with him herself for five weeks during the summer. Over time, Sandy's interest
in the man wanes while her interest in the mind that loves Jean Brodie grows.
In the end, Sandy leaves him, adopts his Roman Catholic religion, and becomes a
nun. Beforehand, however, she meets with Miss Mackay and blatantly confesses to
wanting to put a stop to Miss Brodie. She suggests that the headmistress could
accuse Brodie of encouraging fascism, and this tactic succeeds. Not until her
dying moment a year after the end of World War II is Miss Brodie able to
imagine that it was her confidante, Sandy, who betrayed her. After her death
however, Sandy, now called Sister Helena of the Transfiguration and author of
The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, maintains that "it's only possible
to betray where loyalty is due". One day when an enquiring young man
visits Sandy at the convent because of her strange book on psychology, to ask
about the main influences of her school years, "Were they literary or
political or personal? Was it Calvinism?" Sandy says: "There was a
Miss Jean Brodie in her prime."
