ROBINSON CRUSOE - important quotations & the content

1.“O drug!” said I aloud, “what art thou good for? Thou art not worth to me, no, not the taking off of the ground; one of those knives is worth all this heap; I have no manner of use for thee; e'en remain where thou art and go to the bottom as a creature whose life is not worth saving.” However, upon second thoughts, I took it away. . . .

Crusoe's contradictory relationship with money is seen in this affirmation in Chapter VI, when he declares that the gold he discovers is worthless, only moments before hauling it away for safekeeping. He does the same thing many years later, expressing scorn for the treasure on the Spanish wreck, but then taking it to shore. The conflict between spiritual aims (scorning worldly wealth) and material ambitions (hoarding gold) reflects the novel's tension between the practical and the religious. Moreover, Crusoe's combination of disdain and desire for money is also interesting because Crusoe is conscious of his conflicted feelings only in a limited way. He calls money a drug and admits that he is addicted—but he is not interested in the way he fails to practice what he preaches. We see how Defoe's focus in the novel is primarily on the practical rather than the psychological, despite the fascinating aspects of Crusoe's mind. Crusoe's mixed feelings about the gold also reflect his nostalgia for human society, since he tells us that money has no value in itself, unlike the useful knives to which he compares it. It has only a social worth, and thus reminds us that Crusoe may still be a social creature despite his isolation.

2. My island was now peopled, and I thought myself very rich in subjects; and it was a merry reflection, which I frequently made, how like a king I looked. First of all, the whole country was my own mere property, Baso that I had an undoubted right of dominion. Secondly, my people were perfectly subjected. I was absolute lord and lawgiver, they all owed their lives to me, and were ready to lay down their lives, if there had been occasion of it, for me.

This passage, from Chapter XXV, shows us Crusoe's astonishing ability throughout the novel to claim possession of things. He sells his fellow slave Xury to the Portuguese captain even though he has no claim of ownership over the boy. He seizes the contents of two wrecked ships and takes Friday as his servant immediately after meeting him. Most remarkably, he views the island itself as “my own mere property” over which he has “an undoubted right of dominion.” We may wonder why he has no reason to at least doubt his right of dominion, but his faith in his property rights seems absolute. Moreover, Crusoe's conception of property determines his understanding of politics. He jokes about his “merry reflection” of looking like a king, but it seems more than a merry thought when he refers to “my people” being “perfectly subjected.” Kingship is like ownership for Crusoe. He does not mention any duties or obligations toward his people. His subjects are for him like his possessions: he imagines them grateful for being owned, expecting nothing further from Crusoe. Of course, this view is only Crusoe's presumption. It is hard to believe that the Spaniard sincerely sees himself as “perfectly subjected” to Crusoe, even if Crusoe does save his life. Nevertheless, Crusoe's personal point of view dominates the novel and shows us how deeply colonialism depended on a self-righteous, proprietary way of thinking.

3. I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise and, leaving off his trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my mother whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual corruption of words in England we are called, nay, we call ourselves, and write our name “Crusoe,” and so my companions always called me.

Crusoe's opening words in Chapter I show us the fact-oriented, practical, and unsentimental mind that will carry him through his ordeal. Crusoe introduces his parents objectively through their nationalities, professions, and places of origin and residence. There is no hint of emotional attachment either here or later, when Crusoe leaves his parents forever. In fact, there is no expression of affection whatsoever. The passage also shows that leaving home may be a habit that runs in the family: Crusoe's father was an emigrant, just as Crusoe later becomes when he succumbs to his “rambling” thoughts and leaves England. Crusoe's originally foreign name is an interesting symbol of his emigrant status, especially since it had to be changed to adapt to English understanding. We see that Crusoe has long grasped the notion of adapting to one's environment, and that identities—or at least names—may change when people change places. This name change foreshadows the theme of Crusoe's changing identity on his island, when he teaches Friday that his name is Master.

4. I might well say now indeed, that the latter end of Job was better than the beginning. It is impossible to express here the flutterings of my very heart when I looked over these letters, and especially when I found all my wealth about me; for as the Brazil ships come all in fleets, the same ships which brought my letters brought my goods. . . .

Crusoe's comparison of himself to the biblical character Job in Chapter XXIX, after his return to England, reveals much about how he gives his ordeal religious meaning. In Crusoe's mind, his shipwreck and solitude are not random disastrous events but segments of an elaborate lesson in Christian patience. Like Job, whose faith was tested by God through the loss of family and wealth, Crusoe is deprived of his fortune while nevertheless retaining his faith in Providence. This passage also showcases Crusoe's characteristic neutral tone—the detached, deadpan style in which he narrates even thrilling events. Although he reports that the emotional effects make his heart flutter, he displays very little emotion in the passage, certainly not the joy expected of someone who suddenly becomes wealthy. The biblical grandeur of the original Job is lost in Crusoe's ordinary and conversational opening, “I might very well say now.” We see how Crusoe is far better suited to plodding and mundane everyday life than to dramatic sublimity. Even when the events call for drama, Crusoe seems to do all he can to make them humdrum. This emphasis on the ordinary was a new trend in English literature and is a major characteristic of the novel, which Defoe helped invent.

5. But no sooner were my eyes open, but I saw my Poll sitting on top of the hedge; and immediately knew that it was he that spoke to me; for just in such bemoaning language I had used to talk to him, and teach him; and he learned it so perfectly that he would sit upon my finger and lay his bill close to my face, and cry, “Poor Robin Crusoe! Where are you? Where have you been? How come you here?” and such things as I had taught him.

When Crusoe returns from his nearly fatal canoe trip in Chapter XVI to find his parrot calling his name, the scene expresses the pathos of having only a bird to welcome him home. Crusoe domesticates the bird in an attempt to provide himself with a substitute family member, as we learn later when he refers to his pets in Chapter XVII as his “family.” Poll's friendly address to his master foreshadows Friday's role as conversation partner in Crusoe's life. Crusoe's solitude may not be as satisfying as he lets on. Moreover, Poll's words show a self-pitying side of Crusoe that he never reveals in his narration. Teaching the bird to call him “poor” in a “bemoaning” tone shows that he may feel more like complaining than he admits in his story and that his Christian patience might be wearing thin. Poll's greeting also has a spiritual significance: it comes right after Crusoe's near-death experience in the canoe, and it seems to come from a disembodied speaker, since Crusoe imagines a person must be addressing him. It seems like a mystical moment until the words are revealed not to be God's, but Crusoe's own words repeated by a bird. Cut off from human communication, Crusoe seems cut off from divine communication too—he can only speak to himself.

Themes:

The Ambivalence of Mastery

Crusoe's success in mastering his situation, overcoming his obstacles, and controlling his environment shows the condition of mastery in a positive light, at least at the beginning of the novel. Crusoe lands in an inhospitable environment and makes it his home. His taming and domestication of wild goats and parrots with Crusoe as their master illustrates his newfound control. Moreover, Crusoe's mastery over nature makes him a master of his fate and of himself. Early in the novel, he frequently blames himself for disobeying his father's advice or blames the destiny that drove him to sea. But in the later part of the novel, Crusoe stops viewing himself as a passive victim and strikes a new note of self-determination. In building a home for himself on the island, he finds that he is master of his life—he suffers a hard fate and still finds prosperity. But this theme of mastery becomes more complex and less positive after Friday's arrival, when the idea of mastery comes to apply more to unfair relationships between humans. In Chapter XXIII, Crusoe teaches Friday the word “[m]aster” even before teaching him “yes” and “no,” and indeed he lets him “know that was to be [Crusoe's] name.” Crusoe never entertains the idea of considering Friday a friend or equal—for some reason, superiority comes instinctively to him. We further question Crusoe's right to be called “[m]aster” when he later refers to himself as “king” over the natives and Europeans, who are his “subjects.” In short, while Crusoe seems praiseworthy in mastering his fate, the praiseworthiness of his mastery over his fellow humans is more doubtful. Defoe explores the link between the two in his depiction of the colonial mind.

The Necessity of Repentance

Crusoe's experiences constitute not simply an adventure story in which thrilling things happen, but also a moral tale illustrating the right and wrong ways to live one's life. This moral and religious dimension of the tale is indicated in the Preface, which states that Crusoe's story is being published to instruct others in God's wisdom, and one vital part of this wisdom is the importance of repenting one's sins. While it is important to be grateful for God's miracles, as Crusoe is when his grain sprouts, it is not enough simply to express gratitude or even to pray to God, as Crusoe does several times with few results. Crusoe needs repentance most, as he learns from the fiery angelic figure that comes to him during a feverish hallucination and says, “Seeing all these things have not brought thee to repentance, now thou shalt die.” Crusoe believes that his major sin is his rebellious behavior toward his father, which he refers to as his “original sin,” akin to Adam and Eve's first disobedience of God. This biblical reference also suggests that Crusoe's exile from civilization represents Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden. For Crusoe, repentance consists of acknowledging his wretchedness and his absolute dependence on the Lord. This admission marks a turning point in Crusoe's spiritual consciousness, and is almost a born-again experience for him. After repentance, he complains much less about his sad fate and views the island more positively. Later, when Crusoe is rescued and his fortune restored, he compares himself to Job, who also regained divine favor. Ironically, this view of the necessity of repentance ends up justifying sin: Crusoe may never have learned to repent if he had never sinfully disobeyed his father in the first place. Thus, as powerful as the theme of repentance is in the novel, it is nevertheless complex and ambiguous.

The Importance of Self-Awareness

Crusoe's arrival on the island does not make him revert to a brute existence controlled by animal instincts, and, unlike animals, he remains conscious of himself at all times. Indeed, his island existence actually deepens his self-awareness as he withdraws from the external social world and turns inward. The idea that the individual must keep a careful reckoning of the state of his own soul is a key point in the Presbyterian doctrine that Defoe took seriously all his life. We see that in his normal day-to-day activities, Crusoe keeps accounts of himself enthusiastically and in various ways. For example, it is significant that Crusoe's makeshift calendar does not simply mark the passing of days, but instead more egocentrically marks the days he has spent on the island: it is about him, a sort of self-conscious or autobiographical calendar with him at its center. Similarly, Crusoe obsessively keeps a journal to record his daily activities, even when they amount to nothing more than finding a few pieces of wood on the beach or waiting inside while it rains. Crusoe feels the importance of staying aware of his situation at all times. We can also sense Crusoe's impulse toward self-awareness in the fact that he teaches his parrot to say the words, “Poor Robin Crusoe. . . . Where have you been?” This sort of self-examining thought is natural for anyone alone on a desert island, but it is given a strange intensity when we recall that Crusoe has spent months teaching the bird to say it back to him. Crusoe teaches nature itself to voice his own self-awareness.

Motifs:

Counting and Measuring

Crusoe is a careful note-taker whenever numbers and quantities are involved. He does not simply tell us that his hedge encloses a large space, but informs us with a surveyor's precision that the space is “150 yards in length, and 100 yards in breadth.” He tells us not simply that he spends a long time making his canoe in Chapter XVI, but that it takes precisely twenty days to fell the tree and fourteen to remove the branches. It is not just an immense tree, but is “five foot ten inches in diameter at the lower part . . . and four foot eleven inches diameter at the end of twenty-two foot.” Furthermore, time is measured with similar exactitude, as Crusoe's journal shows. We may often wonder why Crusoe feels it useful to record that it did not rain on December 26, but for him the necessity of counting out each day is never questioned. All these examples of counting and measuring underscore Crusoe's practical, businesslike character and his hands-on approach to life. But Defoe sometimes hints at the futility of Crusoe's measuring—as when the carefully measured canoe cannot reach water or when his obsessively kept calendar is thrown off by a day of oversleeping. Defoe may be subtly poking fun at the urge to quantify, showing us that, in the end, everything Crusoe counts never really adds up to much and does not save him from isolation.

Eating

One of Crusoe's first concerns after his shipwreck is his food supply. Even while he is still wet from the sea in Chapter V, he frets about not having “anything to eat or drink to comfort me.” He soon provides himself with food, and indeed each new edible item marks a new stage in his mastery of the island, so that his food supply becomes a symbol of his survival. His securing of goat meat staves off immediate starvation, and his discovery of grain is viewed as a miracle, like manna from heaven. His cultivation of raisins, almost a luxury food for Crusoe, marks a new comfortable period in his island existence. In a way, these images of eating convey Crusoe's ability to integrate the island into his life, just as food is integrated into the body to let the organism grow and prosper. But no sooner does Crusoe master the art of eating than he begins to fear being eaten himself. The cannibals transform Crusoe from the consumer into a potential object to be consumed. Life for Crusoe always illustrates this eat or be eaten philosophy, since even back in Europe he is threatened by man-eating wolves. Eating is an image of existence itself, just as being eaten signifies death for Crusoe.

Ordeals at Sea

Crusoe's encounters with water in the novel are often associated not simply with hardship, but with a kind of symbolic ordeal, or test of character. First, the storm off the coast of Yarmouth frightens Crusoe's friend away from a life at sea, but does not deter Crusoe. Then, in his first trading voyage, he proves himself a capable merchant, and in his second one, he shows he is able to survive enslavement. His escape from his Moorish master and his successful encounter with the Africans both occur at sea. Most significantly, Crusoe survives his shipwreck after a lengthy immersion in water. But the sea remains a source of danger and fear even later, when the cannibals arrive in canoes. The Spanish shipwreck reminds Crusoe of the destructive power of water and of his own good fortune in surviving it. All the life-testing water imagery in the novel has subtle associations with the rite of baptism, by which Christians prove their faith and enter a new life saved by Christ.

Symbols:

The Footprint

Crusoe's shocking discovery of a single footprint on the sand in Chapter XVIII is one of the most famous moments in the novel, and it symbolizes our hero's conflicted feelings about human companionship. Crusoe has earlier confessed how much he misses companionship, yet the evidence of a man on his island sends him into a panic. Immediately he interprets the footprint negatively, as the print of the devil or of an aggressor. He never for a moment entertains hope that it could belong to an angel or another European who could rescue or befriend him. This instinctively negative and fearful attitude toward others makes us consider the possibility that Crusoe may not want to return to human society after all, and that the isolation he is experiencing may actually be his ideal state.

The Cross

Concerned that he will “lose [his] reckoning of time” in Chapter VII, Crusoe marks the passing of days “with [his] knife upon a large post, in capital letters, and making it into a great cross . . . set[s] it up on the shore where [he] first landed. . . .” The large size and capital letters show us how important this cross is to Crusoe as a timekeeping device and thus also as a way of relating himself to the larger social world where dates and calendars still matter. But the cross is also a symbol of his own new existence on the island, just as the Christian cross is a symbol of the Christian's new life in Christ after baptism, an immersion in water like Crusoe's shipwreck experience. Yet Crusoe's large cross seems somewhat blasphemous in making no reference to Christ. Instead, it is a memorial to Crusoe himself, underscoring how completely he has become the center of his own life.

Crusoe's Bower

On a scouting tour around the island, Crusoe discovers a delightful valley in which he decides to build a country retreat or “bower” in Chapter XII. This bower contrasts sharply with Crusoe's first residence, since it is built not for the practical purpose of shelter or storage, but simply for pleasure: “because I was so enamoured of the place.” Crusoe is no longer focused solely on survival, which by this point in the novel is more or less secure. Now, for the first time since his arrival, he thinks in terms of “pleasantness.” Thus, the bower symbolizes a radical improvement in Crusoe's attitude toward his time on the island. Island life is no longer necessarily a disaster to suffer through, but may be an opportunity for enjoyment—just as, for the Presbyterian, life may be enjoyed only after hard work has been finished and repentance achieved.

The Content

Preface & Chapters I-III

Summary: Preface

An unnamed editor explains his reasons for offering us the narrative we are about to read. He does not mention the name or story of Robinson Crusoe explicitly but, rather, describes the narrative as a “private man's adventures in the world” and focuses on its realism when he calls it a “just history of fact.” He claims it is modest and serious, and that it has an instructive value, teaching us to honor “the wisdom of Providence.” Thus, the editor asserts he is doing a great service to the world in publishing Crusoe's tale.

Summary: Chapter I — I Go to Sea

A man named Robinson Crusoe records his own life story, beginning with his birth in 1632 in the English city of York. Crusoe's father was a German, originally named Kreutznaer. Crusoe is the youngest of three brothers, the eldest being a soldier and the second one having vanished mysteriously. As the youngest son in the family, Crusoe is expected to inherit little, and, as a result, his father encourages him to take up the law. But Crusoe's inclination is to go to sea. His family strongly opposes this idea, and his father gives him a stern lecture on the value of accepting a middle station in life. Crusoe resolves to follow his father's advice. But when one of his friends embarks for London, Crusoe succumbs to temptation and boards the ship on September 1, 1651. A storm develops. Near Yarmouth the weather is so bad that Crusoe fears for his life and prays to God for deliverance. The ship nearly founders, but all are saved. Crusoe sees this ordeal as a sign of fate that he should give up sea travel, and his friend's father warns him against setting foot on a ship again, echoing his own father's warning.

Summary: Chapter II — I Am Captured by Pirates

Crusoe parts with his friend and proceeds to London by land, where he meets a sea captain who proposes that Crusoe accompany him on an upcoming merchant voyage. Writing to his family for investment money, Crusoe sets off with forty pounds worth of trinkets and toys to sell abroad. Crusoe makes a net income of 300 pounds from this trip, and considers it a great success. Taking one hundred pounds with him, and leaving the remaining 200 pounds with a widow whom he trusts, Crusoe sets off on another merchant expedition. This time he is pursued by Moorish pirates off the coast of Sallee in North Africa. His ship is overtaken, and Crusoe is enslaved, the only Briton among his Moorish master's slaves. Crusoe is assigned the task of fishing because of his natural skill. One day the slaves' fishing vessel gets lost in fog, and the master installs a compass on board. The master also stores some gunpowder on board in preparation for a shooting party, but the guests do not come. Crusoe waits.

Summary: Chapter III — I Escape from the Sallee Rover

Robinson sets off on a fishing expedition with two other slaves, a man named Ismael and a boy named Xury. Sneaking up behind Ismael, Robinson pushes him into the water. Ismael swims alongside the boat and begs to be taken in. Crusoe pulls a gun on him and tells him to return to shore or else be killed. Crusoe then asks Xury whether he will accompany him and serve him faithfully, and Xury agrees. By evening, Crusoe calculates they have sailed 150 miles south of Sallee. They see wild creatures onshore that Crusoe recognizes as lions. Crusoe shoots one dead, and he and Xury skin it. They proceed southward toward what Crusoe believes are the Cape Verde or Canary Islands. They see naked black people onshore, and they fear them until the natives offer them food. When the Africans witness Crusoe shooting a leopard, they are impressed, and they offer the skin to Crusoe. Unsure where to head, Crusoe is surprised by a European ship in the distance. The ship picks up Xury and Crusoe, and its kind Portuguese captain offers to take them to Brazil. The captain buys Crusoe's boat as well as Xury.

Analysis: Preface & Chapters I-III

These chapters introduce us to Crusoe's particular style of narration, which revolutionized the English novel: he speaks openly and intimately, with none of the grandiose rhetorical effects notable in earlier ages of English literary history. In telling us frankly how much profit he makes from his first merchant venture, and in acknowledging his inner struggle about obeying his father or following his desire to go to sea, Crusoe addresses us as if we are his close and trusted friends. He is also an exceedingly practical and fact-oriented narrator, as the editor emphasizes in calling the narration a “just history of fact.” Crusoe is fixated on precise details, telling us the exact day he set off on his voyage and the number of miles south of Sallee he is. His feelings are less fully narrated, though he does relate his anguish at disobeying his father. Crusoe also shows his basic kindness and humanity in sparing the life of Ismael, though it is clear that this act is a minor detail for him. His focus on facts, actions, and details helps mark the beginning of the novelistic form in English literature. Crusoe's narrative is not just an adventure story about storms and pirates, but also what in religious literature is called an exemplary tale: a tale told for purposes of moral and religious instruction. In the Preface, the editor explicitly tells us that this novel will teach us to honor “the wisdom of Providence.” We are meant to learn something spiritually useful when reading this story. Crusoe underscores this spiritual aspect by focusing on his wickedness in disobeying his father's orders, and the punishments that come upon him for doing so. In Chapter II he refers to the “evil influence which carried me first away from my father's house,” and the word “evil” is important: this choice is not just a foolish decision, but one made with a morally wicked influence. Moreover, the evil curiously makes Crusoe its passive victim, introducing another central aspect of Robinson's story—his own passivity. Crusoe's place as the rebellious younger son in the family, resembling the Prodigal Son in the Bible, enhances the religious side of Crusoe's story. The idea of foreignness is introduced as an important foreshadowing of Crusoe's later long existence as a castaway in an alien land. Interestingly, despite the story's beginning in Hull and London, Crusoe does not focus much attention on any Englishmen in his narrative. The friend who tempts him on board the ship is not named, and Crusoe shows no real affection for him. Not even Crusoe's family members are named. The English simply do not appear to excite his interest. By contrast, Crusoe is quick to tell us the names of the other slaves, Ismael and Xury, on the Moorish fishing boat. The Portuguese captain is not named, but he is described with much more vividness than the first English captain. Crusoe reveals a basic predisposition toward foreigners that underscores his early inclination to go to sea and leave England. As the son of a foreigner—his father's name was Kreutznaer—this roaming may be his fate. Perhaps like Odysseus in The Odyssey, he is simply destined by nature to leave home.

Chapters IV-VII

Summary: Chapter IV — I Become a Brazilian Planter

After a voyage of twenty-two days, Crusoe lands in Brazil, accepting many farewell gifts from the Portuguese captain. After meeting his Anglo-Brazilian neighbor, he conceives a plan to become a tobacco planter. For two years Crusoe earns only enough on which to subsist, but in the third year he begins to do well and, in retrospect, misses the labor potential of the slave boy Xury whom he sold. Having told the Portuguese captain of his 200 pounds left in England, the captain arranges to have one hundred pounds sent to Crusoe in Brazil, along with many gifts besides. After receiving what the captain sent, Crusoe feels quite well off. Eager for slave labor to extend his business further, he agrees to an acquaintance's plan to sail to Guinea for black slaves, in exchange for his own share of the slaves.

Summary: Chapter V — I Go on Board in an Evil Hour

After writing a will leaving half his possessions to the Portuguese captain, Crusoe sets sail for Guinea on September 1, 1659 with a cargo of trinkets with which to buy slaves. Sailing up the South American coast, the ship encounters a storm, and two men are lost. Crusoe fears for his life. Reaching the Caribbean, the ship is shaken by yet another storm that drives the ship onto the sand, breaking the rudder. The ship is clearly doomed, and the crew climbs into boats to make for shore. Crusoe loses sight of his mates when all are swept away by an immense wave. Finally Crusoe makes it to shore, where he immediately prays to God in gratitude. He never sees a sign of another living crewmember. After drinking some fresh water and finding a tree in which to sleep, Crusoe spends his first night on the island.

Summary: Chapter VI — I Furnish Myself with Many Things

“O drug!” said I aloud, “what art thou good for?”

Awakening the next morning refreshed, Crusoe goes down to the shore to explore the remains of the ship. Swimming around it, he finds it impossible to climb aboard until he finds a chain hanging, by which he pulls himself up. Crusoe conceives the idea of building a raft out of broken lumber, on which he loads provisions of bread, rice, goat meat, cheese, and other foods. He also finds clothes, arms, and fresh water. He sails his cargo-laden raft into a small cove, where he unloads it. He notices that the land has wildfowl but no other humans. Crusoe returns to the ship twelve times over the following thirteen days. On one of the later trips he finds thirty-six pounds, and he sadly meditates on how worthless the money is to him. After a strong wind that night, he awakens to find the ship's remains gone the next morning.

Summary: Chapter VII - I Build My Fortress

Wary of savages, Crusoe decides he must build a dwelling or “fortress,” as he calls it. He chooses a spot with a view of the sea, protected from animals and the heat of the sun and near fresh water. He drives wooden stakes into the ground, using them as a frame for walls. Crusoe sleeps securely in the shelter that night. The next day he hauls all of his provisions and supplies inside, and hangs a hammock on which to sleep. He also builds a cellar. During a thunderstorm he suddenly worries about his gunpowder supply, which he separates from the other supplies and stores in the cellar. Crusoe discovers wild goats on the island. He kills one and then sees that it had a kid, which he then kills too. On about his twelfth day on the island, he erects a large cross that he inscribes with the date of his arrival, September 30, 1659. He resolves to cut a notch on the cross to mark every passing day. He also begins a journal in which he records the good and evil aspects of his experience, until he runs out of ink. He keeps watch for passing ships, always disappointed.

Analysis: Chapters IV-VII

The question of whether Crusoe's humanity will survive on the island, or whether he will revert to savagery, is subtly raised in these chapters. His changing relationship to Xury is one example of a test of morality. During his early acquaintance with the boy, Crusoe appears genuinely fond of him, moved by the boy's expression of loyalty and by their solidarity as slaves of the same master. But then, Crusoe, recently a slave himself, coldly sells Xury to the Portuguese captain with no compunction at all. When Crusoe thinks about Xury later, he does not recollect memories of a long-lost acquaintance, but instead laments missing out on the potential for slave labor: he and his planter neighbor “both wanted help, and now I found, more than before, I had done wrong in parting with my boy Xury.” We might feel what is “wrong” is not his business decision, but the sale of his supposed friend as a slave for profit. The question of whether morality is socially adaptable or naturally inborn was disputed in seventeenth-century England: the philosopher Thomas Hobbes maintained that men are naturally savages. Crusoe is a case study in the nature of human morals. Crusoe's sense of religion seems, on the one hand, to develop strongly, but on the other hand, some of his words do raise some doubt about his beliefs. Certainly he appears very devout when his first reaction on reaching dry land after his shipwreck is “to look up and thank God that my life was saved in a case wherein here was some minutes before scarce any room to hope.” But, as many have noticed, his comments right after this remark are theologically unsound: “I believe it is impossible to express to the life what the ecstasies and transports of the soul are when it is so saved, as I may say, out of the very grave. . . .” As any devout Christian of Defoe's day would know, the soul is eternal, and what Crusoe should instead say is that his bodily life is saved. The remark is thus a bit ignorant even at the moment when he appears to be deeply God-fearing. Later, when he builds a cross on the island and devotes it to himself and his time on the island, rather than to Christ, our doubt over his true faith in God grows further. Crusoe's relation to material possessions is a prominent topic in these chapters. Crusoe repeatedly suggests that his shipwreck is a punishment for his greed for profits and that his pursuit of ever more material wealth has caused his current misery. His biblical prototype Job, another survivor of a disaster at sea, learns from his ordeal to disdain material possessions. Crusoe's survival on the island seems like a rebirth into true Christian spirituality, a chance to live less materially and more religiously. Yet when Crusoe makes not one or two, but twelve trips to the ship for salvaged supplies, we wonder how nonmaterialistic he has really become. It is doubtful that in his solitude he needs “a dozen of good knives and forks.” He proudly entitles one of his chapters I Furnish Myself with Many Things. When he discovers thirty-six pounds in coins on the ship, he first disdains it with Christian high-mindedness, saying, “Oh drug, what art thou good for,” but then he takes the money with him anyway. His attitude toward possessions seems a major contradiction in his character, and these sorts of contradictions exist throughout the novel.

Chapters VIII-XII

Summary: Chapter VIII — The Journal

Crusoe makes us privy to the journal that he keeps for a while, beginning with an entry dated “September 30, 1659,” that inaugurates his account of life on the “Island of Despair,” as he calls it. He proceeds to narrate events that have already been narrated: his discovery of the ship's remains, his salvaging of provisions, the storm that destroys the ship entirely, the construction of his house, and so on. He notes that he has lost track of which day is Sunday, and he is thus unable to keep the Sabbath religiously. He records the building of various pieces of furniture and tools. He tames his first goat.

Summary: Chapter IX — I Throw Away the Husks of Corn

Continuing his journal, Crusoe records his failed attempt to tame pigeons and his manufacture of candles from goat grease. He tells of his semimiraculous discovery of barley: having tossed out a few husks of corn in a shady area, he is astonished to find healthy barley plants growing there later. He carefully saves the harvest to plant again and thus is able eventually to supply himself with bread. On April 16, an earthquake nearly kills him as he is standing in the entrance to his cellar. After two aftershocks, he is relieved to feel it end with no damage to his life or property.

Summary: Chapter X — It Blows a Most Dreadful Hurricane

Immediately after the earthquake, a hurricane arrives. Crusoe takes shelter in his cave, cutting a drain for his house and waiting out the torrential rains. He is worried by the thought that another earthquake would send the overhanging precipice falling onto his dwelling and resolves to move. But he is distracted from this plan by the discovery of casks of gunpowder and other remains from the ship that have been driven back to shore by the hurricane. Crusoe spends many days salvaging these remains for more useful items.

Summary: Chapter XI — I Am Very Ill and Frighted

For more than a week of rainy weather, Crusoe is seriously ill with a fever and severe headache. He is almost too weak to get up for water, though he is dying of thirst. He prays to God for mercy. In one of his feverish fits, he hallucinates a vision of a man descending from a black cloud on a great flame. The man brandishes a weapon at Crusoe and tells him that all his suffering has not yet brought him to repentance. Crusoe emerges from the vision to take stock of the many times he has been delivered from death and cries over his ingratitude. He utters his first serious prayer to God, asking for an end to his distress. The next day, Crusoe finds he is beginning to recover, though he is still so weak he can hardly hold his gun. He struggles with thoughts of self-pity followed by self-reproach. Taking some tobacco and rum, his mind is altered and he opens the Bible to read a verse about calling on the Lord in times of trouble, which affects him deeply. He falls into a profound sleep of more than twenty-four hours, which throws off his calendar calculations forever. In the days that follow, Crusoe almost completely recovers and kneels to God in gratitude. He prefers not to eat the wildfowl while sick and instead eats some turtle eggs that he finds. He begins a serious reading of the New Testament and regrets his earlier life. He comes to conceive of his isolation on the island as a kind of deliverance from his former guilty existence.

Summary: Chapter XII — I Take a Survey of the Island

Now, in the month of July, in his tenth month on the island, Crusoe discovers that the rainy season is a very unhealthy time. Having acquiesced in the idea that only Providence controls his deliverance from the island, Crusoe resolves to explore the place thoroughly. He discovers sugarcane and grapes, and is delighted with the beauty of one valley especially. He secretly exults in imagining himself the king and lord of the whole domain. Crusoe lays out grapes to make raisins and carries home a large basket of limes and grapes. He contemplates choosing that site as his new home, then spends the rest of July building a bower in the valley. He notes that his domicile now houses some cats. He celebrates the passing of one year on the island by fasting all day. Shortly after this occasion, he runs out of ink and discontinues his journal.

Analysis: Chapters VIII-XII

Crusoe's journal provides little interesting new information for us, since most of it narrates previously recounted material. But it does offer insights into Crusoe's character, especially his conception of his own identity. First, he introduces himself as “poor, miserable Robinson Crusoe,” which strikes a startling note of self-pity that contradicts the sturdy, resourceful self-image of his narrative. There may be some grandiose posturing in this journal. Moreover, as many have noticed, Crusoe's journal is false in its dating, despite its author's loudly trumpeted concern for absolute accuracy. By Crusoe's own admission, he states that he arrived on the island on the thirtieth of September. His idea of a journal comes only later: “After I had been there about ten or twelve days, it came into my thoughts, that I should lose my reckoning of time for want of books, and pen and ink. . . .” Thus he keeps no journal for the first ten or twelve days. Yet his first journal entry is dated “September 30, 1659,” the day of his arrival. Clearly Crusoe likes the idea of using the journal to account for all his time on the island, giving himself an aura of completeness, even if it requires some sneaky bookkeeping to do so. This deception suggests to us that his interest in the hard facts may be less than objective, and may actually be more subjective and self-serving. The most important psychological development in these chapters is Crusoe's born-again conversion. Crusoe has had many religious moments, sometimes quickly forgotten. One example of this forgetting occurs when he first calls the sprouting corn a miracle, then later attributes it to mere good luck. But during his illness, his turn to religion seems profound and lasting. His hallucination of a wrathful angel figure that threatens him for not repenting his sins is a major event in his emotional life, which up to this point has seemed free from such wild imaginings. When he later takes tobacco-steeped rum and reads a verse of the Bible that tells him to call upon God in times of trouble, he seems deeply affected. Indeed, his loss of a day from his calendar may represent his relinquishment of total control of his life and his acknowledgment of a higher power in charge. When he falls on his knees to thank God for delivering him from his illness, his faith seems sincere. This faith forces him to reevaluate the island itself, which, he tells himself, may not be a place of captivity, but a place of deliverance from his earlier sins. He thus redefines his whole landscape—and his whole life—much more optimistically. Partly as a result of Crusoe's born-again experience, his attitude toward the island improves dramatically. No longer viewing it as a place of punishment and misery, he starts to see it as his home. Indeed, he now uses the word “home” explicitly in reference to his camp. Significantly, he now notices how beautiful parts of the island are when he explores the terrain after his recovery. He describes the “delicious vale” that he discovers, in which he decides to build a bower. He surveys the area “with a secret kind of pleasure . . . to think that this was all my own, that I was king and lord of all this country indefeasibly and had a right of possession.” This attitude shift is extraordinary. He no longer views himself, as he does in his first journal entry, as “poor, miserable Robinson,” but is now feeling the pleasure of calling himself king and lord of a delicious vale. Yet his happiness in his island life is short-lived, since only a few pages later he refers to the “unhappy anniversary of my landing,” as if forgetting that his landing, in a different perspective, seems cause for rejoicing. Defoe is underscoring the extent to which Crusoe's sense of fate and suffering is not objective, but rather created by his own mind.

Chapters XIII-XVII

Summary: Chapter XIII — I Sow My Grain

After planting his grain in the dry season when it cannot sprout, Crusoe learns from his mistake, and afterward makes a table of the dry and rainy months to facilitate his farming. He also discovers that the wooden stakes he drove into the ground when building his “bower,” or country house, have sprouted and grown. Over the course of several years they grow into a kind of sheltering hedge providing cool shade. Crusoe also teaches himself to make wicker baskets, imitating the basket makers he remembers from his childhood. By this time he lacks only tobacco pipes, glassware, and a kettle.

Summary: Chapter XIV — I Travel Quite Across the Island

Finally carrying out his earlier wish to survey the island thoroughly, Crusoe proceeds to the western end, where he finds he can make out land in the distance. He concludes it belongs to Spanish America. Crusoe is reluctant to explore it for fear of cannibals. He catches a parrot that he teaches to speak, and discovers a penguin colony. He takes a goat kid as a pet, keeping it in his bower where it nearly starves until Crusoe remembers it. By this point, Crusoe has been on the island two years, and his moments of satisfaction alternate with despairing moods. He continues to read the Bible and is consoled by the verse that tells him God will never forsake him.

Summary: Chapter XV — I Am Very Seldom Idle

Crusoe spends months making a shelf for his abode. During the rainy months he plants his crop of rice and grain but is angered to discover that birds damage it. He shoots several of the birds and hangs them as scarecrows over the plants, and the birds never return. Crusoe finally harvests the grain and slowly learns the complex process of flour grinding and bread making. Determined to make earthenware pots, Crusoe attempts to shape vessels out of clay, failing miserably at first. Eventually he learns to shape, fire, and even glaze his pots. Thinking again of sailing to the mainland, Crusoe returns to the place where the ship's boat has been left upturned by the storm. He tries for weeks to put it right side up but is not strong enough.

Summary: Chapter XVI — I Make Myself a Canoe

Resolving to make a canoe, Crusoe selects and cuts down an enormous cedar. He spends many months hacking off the branches, shaping the exterior, and hollowing out the insides. The result is a far larger canoe than he has ever seen before. He now realizes the mistake of not previously considering its transport, since for him alone it is immovable. He considers building a canal to bring the water to the canoe, but he calculates it would take too long and abandons the idea. By this point, four years have passed. He reflects that all his wants are satisfied, since he already has everything that he can possibly use on his island. He feels gratitude imagining how much worse off he could be now. He also reflects on several calendar coincidences that he finds remarkable: he left his family on the same day he was enslaved by the Moor; he escaped from the ship near Yarmouth on the same day that he escaped from Sallee; and he was born on the same day he was cast ashore on the island. Crusoe undertakes to make himself some new clothing out of animal skins, and he also constructs an umbrella. Building a smaller canoe, he sets out on a tour around the island. He is caught in a dangerous current that threatens to take him out to sea and away from the island forever, and when he is saved he falls to the ground in gratitude. Crusoe hears a voice say his name repeatedly on his return, asking where he has been, and Crusoe discovers that it is his parrot Poll.

Summary: Chapter XVII — I Improve Myself in the Mechanic Exercises

Wary of sea journeys, Crusoe spends a quiet year in his new home, missing nothing but human contact. He is pleased with his newly developed skills of basket making and pottery making. Alarmed by his low supply of gunpowder and wondering how he will feed himself if unable to shoot goats, Crusoe decides he must learn animal husbandry and tries to catch a small number of goats. He builds a pit in which he traps three young kids, and within a year and a half Crusoe has a flock of twelve goats. He learns to milk them, setting up a dairy that provides him with cheese and butter. He is pleased at his “absolute command” over all the subjects of his island kingdom and enjoys dining like a king surrounded by his parrot, his senile dog, and his two cats. He provides us with a brief inventory of his island holdings: he has two “plantations” on the island, the first his original home or “castle,” the second his “country seat.” He has a grape arbor, fields under cultivation, and enclosures for his “cattle,” or goats.

Analysis: Chapters XIII-XVII

With his survival no longer in question, Crusoe begins to redefine himself not as a poor castaway, but as a successful landowner. We see again how important his attitude is. He begins to refer to his island dwelling as his “home” and his “castle,” and when he constructs a shady retreat inland, he calls it his “bower” or “country seat,” both references having upper-class connotations. He refers to the totality of his land as his “plantations” and even refers to his goats as his “cattle.” All these terms suggest that his relationship to the island is becoming more proprietary, involving a much greater sense of proud ownership than before, though of course the ownership is a fiction, since there is no deed to this land. Naturally, he still has gloomy moods in which he bemoans his fate and views the island as a prison. But now the alternation between his different moods allows us to see how subjective his situation is and how nearly impossible it is to define Crusoe's island experience objectively. Totally dependent on his frame of mind, it is, as he says, “my reign, or my captivity, which you please.” Crusoe's sad lack of human contact in an otherwise satisfied life is first noted toward the beginning of Chapter XVII, when he remarks that “I thought I lived very happily in all things, except that of society.” We can feel how much he misses social relations when he takes the trouble to teach his parrot to talk, though Defoe allows us to imagine how boring their conversations must be, since the parrot can only say Robinson's name and ask where he has come from. Nevertheless, Crusoe calls the bird his “sociable creature,” and we are made aware of how starved for company our hero actually is. The same desire for affectionate relations explains his fondness for his new pet goat in Chapter XIV, though we wonder how devoted to it Crusoe can be when he forgets about it for a week and nearly starves it to death. Crusoe's idea of a social gathering presupposes himself at center stage and with the most power, as we see when he describes the dinners he has with his parrot, dog, and cats, where he presides over them all “like a king.” Crusoe's eagerness to display superior power in social relations foreshadows his later relationship with his servant Friday. With the passage of many years on the island by the end of these chapters, Crusoe is beginning to accept his island existence as his life. Accordingly, he is beginning to show a desire to integrate past and present into one totality. Thus, for the first time on the island, Crusoe refers to childhood memories in Chapter XIII, when the subject of basket making leads him to recall the basket weavers in his father's town. He says, “when I was a boy, I used to take great delight in standing at a basket maker's, in the town where my father lived, to see them make their wickerware.” The young Crusoe used to lend his hand, so that when as a grown man he again makes baskets, his childhood and adulthood fuse for an instant. The same union of past and present is notable in Crusoe's new interest in his life's calendar repetitions. When he fixates on the fact that he left his father's house the same day he entered slavery, or arrived on the island the same day he was born, he shows a desire to integrate earlier and later parts of his life. No longer just missing the past or living in the present moment, he is trying to bring the two together and see his life as a whole.

Chapters XVIII-XXIII

Summary: Chapter XVIII — I Find the Print of a Man's Naked Foot

Crusoe is astonished one day to discover the single print of a man's naked foot in the sand. Crusoe is terrified and retreats to his “castle,” where he entertains thoughts that the devil has visited the island. His conclusion that it is not the devil's but a real man's footprint is equally terrifying, and Crusoe meditates on the irony of being starved for human contact and then frightened of a man. Driven wild by fear, Crusoe fortifies his home and raises guns around it, keeping watch whenever possible. Concerned about his goats, he contrives to dig an underground cave in which to herd them every night and creates another smaller pasture far away to keep a second flock. Crusoe spends two years living in fear.

Summary: Chapter XIX — I See the Shore Spread with Bones

Coming down to a far part of the shore, Crusoe finds the beach spread with the carnage of humans. Eventually realizing that he is in no danger of being found by the cannibals, Crusoe's thoughts turn to killing them as perpetrators of wicked deeds and thereby saving their intended victims. Waiting every day on a hillside fully armed, Crusoe eventually changes his mind, thinking that he has no divine authority to judge humans or to kill. He also realizes that killing them might entail a full-scale invasion by the other savages.

Summary: Chapter XX — I Seldom Go from My Cell

Crusoe describes the measures he takes to avoid being spotted by the cannibals. He rarely burns fires, removes all traces of his activities when leaving a place, and even devises a way to cook underground. While descending into a large cave he has discovered, he is shocked to see eyes staring at him. Crusoe is frightened and returns with a firebrand, only to find it is an old he-goat. Crusoe is pleased with this new cave and considers moving into it. Mounting to his lookout spot later, Crusoe spots nine naked savages on the beach, lingering among the remains of their cannibal feast. He proceeds toward them with his gun, but when he arrives they are already out to sea again. Crusoe inspects the human carnage with disgust.

Summary: Chapter XXI — I See the Wreck of a Ship

On May 16, Crusoe is reading the Bible when he is surprised by a distant gunshot followed closely by another. He senses the shots are coming from a ship and builds a fire to notify the seamen of his presence. By daylight he perceives that the shots have come from the wreck of a ship whose men are now either gone or dead. Once again he thanks Providence for his own survival. Going down to the shore, where he discovers a drowned boy, he prepares to paddle out to the ship in his canoe. He finds the ship is Spanish and contains wine, clothing, and a great treasure in gold bars and doubloons, all of which he hauls back to his dwelling.

Summary: Chapter XXII — I Hear the First Sound of a Man's Voice

Crusoe reflects on the “original sin” of disobeying his father, recounting the foolish decisions he has made throughout his life. One night he dreams that eleven cannibals arrive on his island to kill a victim who escapes and runs to Crusoe for protection. About a year and a half afterward, Crusoe finds five canoes on the island and thirty cannibals on the beach preparing two victims for slaughter. After the first is killed, the second breaks away and runs toward Crusoe's hiding place. He is pursued by two cannibals but is faster than they are. Crusoe attacks both pursuers and persuades the frightened victim to approach. Finding Crusoe friendly, the native vows devotion to his liberator. After burying the remains of the two pursuers so as not to be tracked later, Crusoe and the native return to his camp, where the native sleeps.

Summary: Chapter XXIII — I Call Him Friday

Crusoe names the native Friday to commemorate the day on which Crusoe saves the native's life. Friday again asserts his subservience to Crusoe. Crusoe teaches him simple English words and clothes him. Returning together to the slaughter scene, Crusoe has Friday clean up the bones and skulls and tries to convey to his servant the horror of cannibalism. Crusoe is delighted with his new companion and teaches him to eat goat meat instead of human flesh. He realizes he must expand his grain cultivation, which Friday helps him to do.

Analysis: Chapters XVIII-XXIII

Crusoe's discovery of a mysterious single footprint in the sand is one of the most unforgettable and significant events of the novel, since it condenses into one moment Crusoe's contradictory attitude toward other humans: he has been craving human society, yet when it arrives he is deeply afraid of it. Crusoe himself comments on this irony when he says, “How strange a checker-worker of Providence is the life of man! . . . Today we love what tomorrow we hate!” Indeed, he hates this human intruder almost as much as he hates the devil himself, whose footprint he originally suspects it is. It is hard to explain why Crusoe immediately leaps to a negative conclusion about the footprint, why he is sure it is the sign of an enemy rather than a friend. Crusoe's reaction shows how solitude has become his natural state, making any human contact seem unnatural and highly disturbing. The appearance of Friday is a major development in the novel, which has had only one character in it for a large part. The sweetness and docility of Friday, who is a cannibal, and the extraordinary ease with which Crusoe overcomes Friday's two pursuers, leads us to rethink Crusoe's earlier fear. Crusoe lives in terror of the cannibals for many years, scarcely daring to leave his cave and reduced to a cavemanlike existence. Then, in only a few minutes, he stops two cannibals and makes another his lifelong servant. Suddenly it seems that Crusoe has feared not the savages themselves, but his own exaggerated mental image of them. Thus, Crusoe's self-awareness arises as a major theme of the novel, and Crusoe illustrates that a better understanding of himself and his fears leads him to more prosperity and satisfaction in life. Friday's instantaneous servitude to Crusoe also raises questions about Crusoe's sense of his own rank and power. Crusoe easily could lift Friday from the ground when Friday grovels before him, but he does not. Without so much as a second thought, Crusoe accepts Friday as a servant and an inferior, assuming his own superiority. Friday may be the first New World “savage” in English literature to force a questioning of whether white people should automatically assume superiority over other races. Crusoe's religious awareness continues to grow in these chapters. Almost every major event is taken either as cause for repentance or as proof of God's mercy. Crusoe's first assumption on seeing the footprint on the beach is that it is a mark of the devil, showing that supernatural or divine explanations have priority over natural ones in his mind. When the gunshots are heard from the wrecked ship, Crusoe is reading the Bible, and when he compares the fate of the shipwrecked men to his own fate, it seems as if he begins to see the whole process as a religious lesson. When Crusoe decides not to open fire on the cannibal feast, he does so out of a religious conviction that he has not the “authority or call . . . to pretend to be judge and executioner upon these men as criminals.” Though he later admits there were also practical reasons for not killing them, his religious reason comes across with sincerity. Perhaps most strikingly, in Chapter XXII Crusoe compares his disobedience of his father to Adam and Eve's disobedience of God in Eden, referring to his own “original sin.” The Bible, the devil, and God are all becoming very closely entwined in the fabric of Crusoe's everyday life on the island.

Chapters XXIV-XXVII

Summary: Chapter XXIV — We Make Another Canoe

Crusoe begins to love Friday and, in the course of rudimentary conversations with him, learns that the cannibals periodically visit the island. Crusoe also acquires enough geographical information to locate himself near Trinidad. Crusoe finds out that Friday is aware of mainland Spaniards who kill many men. Crusoe attempts to educate Friday in religious matters and finds that his servant easily understands the notion of God, to whom Friday draws similarities with his own deity Benamuckee. Friday has more difficulty understanding the devil, not grasping why God does not rid the world of this evil being permanently, and Crusoe has trouble answering this question. Crusoe admits that he lacks the religious knowledge necessary for instructing Friday in all the aspects of God and the devil. Friday reports that the cannibals have saved the men from the shipwreck discovered by Crusoe before Friday's liberation and that those men are living safely among the natives now. When Friday expresses a yearning to return to his country, Crusoe fears losing him, and when Crusoe considers trying to join the shipwreck survivors, Friday becomes upset and begs Crusoe not to leave him. Together, the two build a boat in which they plan to sail to Friday's land in November or December. Summary: ChapterBefore Crusoe and Friday have a chance for their voyage to the cannibals' land, the cannibals visit Crusoe's island. Twenty-one natives come in three canoes to carry out another cannibalistic attack on three prisoners. Hesitant on moral grounds to kill so many, Crusoe reasons that since Friday belongs to an enemy nation, the situation can be construed as a state of war in which killing is permissible. Approaching the shore, Crusoe observes that one of the prisoners is a European. Crusoe and Friday fall upon the cannibals and quickly overcome them with their superior weapons, allowing only four to escape. Friday is overjoyed to find that another of the prisoners is his own father. Crusoe and Friday feed the dazed prisoners and carry them back to Crusoe's dwelling, where a tent is erected for them. Crusoe reflects contentedly on the peopling of his kingdom with loyal subjects.

Summary: Chapter XXV — We March Out Against the Cannibals

Before Crusoe and Friday have a chance for their voyage to the cannibals' land, the cannibals visit Crusoe's island. Twenty-one natives come in three canoes to carry out another cannibalistic attack on three prisoners. Hesitant on moral grounds to kill so many, Crusoe reasons that since Friday belongs to an enemy nation, the situation can be construed as a state of war in which killing is permissible. Approaching the shore, Crusoe observes that one of the prisoners is a European. Crusoe and Friday fall upon the cannibals and quickly overcome them with their superior weapons, allowing only four to escape. Friday is overjoyed to find that another of the prisoners is his own father. Crusoe and Friday feed the dazed prisoners and carry them back to Crusoe's dwelling, where a tent is erected for them. Crusoe reflects contentedly on the peopling of his kingdom with loyal subjects.

Summary: Chapter XXVI — We Plan a Voyage to the Colonies of America

After conversing with his “two new subjects,” Friday's father and the Spaniard, Crusoe revisits his earlier dream of returning to the mainland. Crusoe asks the Spaniard whether he can count on the support of the remaining men held on the cannibals' territory. The Spaniard says yes, but reminds Crusoe that food production would have to be expanded to accommodate so many extra men. With the help of his new workers, Crusoe increases his agricultural capacity. He gives each of the new men a gun.

Summary: Chapter XXVII — We Quell a Mutiny

One day Friday comes running to Crusoe with news that a boat is approaching the island, and Crusoe, with his spyglass, discovers it to be English. Crusoe is suspicious. Near the shore, Crusoe and Friday discover that the boat contains eleven men, three of whom are bound as prisoners. Friday suspects that the captors are preparing for cannibalism. When the eight free men wander around the island, Crusoe approaches the prisoners, who mistake him for an angel. One prisoner explains that he is the captain of the ship and that the sailors have mutinied. Crusoe proposes that in exchange for liberating him and the other two, he and Friday should be granted free passage to England. The captain agrees and Crusoe gives him a gun. Crusoe realizes that the other seamen may notice something wrong and send more men onshore to overpower Crusoe's men. They disable the boat to prevent the additional men from escaping. Sure enough, ten seamen come in from the ship to discover the boat destroyed. Leaving three in the second boat as watchmen, the other seven come ashore. Crusoe then sends Friday and another to shout at the men from various directions, and Crusoe succeeds in confusing and tiring them so that they are finally separated. The men in the boat eventually come inland and are overwhelmed by Crusoe's stratagems. On behalf of Crusoe, the captain, finally addressing the remaining men, offers to spare everybody's life except that of the ringleader if they surrender now. All the mutineers surrender. The captain makes up a story that the island is a royal colony and that the governor is preparing to execute the ringleader the next day.

Analysis: Chapters XXIV-XXVII

The affectionate and loyal bond between Crusoe and Friday is a remarkable feature of this early novel. Indeed, it is striking that this tender friendship is depicted in an age when Europeans were engaged in the large-scale devastation of nonwhite populations across the globe. Even to represent a Native American with the individual characterization that Defoe gives Friday, much less as an individual with admirable traits, was an unprecedented move in English literature. But, in accordance with the Eurocentric attitude of the time, Defoe ensures that Friday is not Crusoe's equal in the novel. He is clearly a servant and an inferior in rank, power, and respect. Nevertheless, when Crusoe describes his own “singular satisfaction in the fellow himself,” and says, “I began really to love the creature,” his emotional attachment seems sincere, even if we object to Crusoe's treatment of Friday as a creature rather than a human being. As the bond between Crusoe and Friday becomes stronger, the similarities between the two men's cultures gain more importance than their differences. Crusoe is struck by the ease with which Friday learns about the Christian God, finding a close resemblance with the native's own deity Benamuckee. Friday is less able to understand the devil, but it is soon revealed that Crusoe does not understand him perfectly either, when Crusoe admits that he has more “sincerity than knowledge” in the subject of religious instruction. Crusoe first believes the savages to be wicked, but we soon learn that the cannibals have shown an almost Christian charity in saving seventeen European men from the shipwreck. Moreover, Chapter XXVII, with its mutiny and scheduled execution, reminds us that Europeans kill their own kind too, just like Friday's people. The coincidental numerical equivalence between the eleven savages arriving in Crusoe's dream in Chapter XXII and the eleven Europeans now arriving after the mutiny is Defoe's method of emphasizing the similarities between natives and Europeans. Both groups can be violent and murderous, yet both groups can also produce individuals—like Crusoe and Friday—who are kind and good. Generalizing them into the good and the bad, or the civilized and the wild, proves impossible. Crusoe's story, which has until now been mainly about his own individual survival, takes on a strong political and national dimension when Crusoe wonders whether he can trust the other sixteen Spaniards—who are, historically, often enemies of the British—as his comrades-in-arms against the cannibals. Ironically, it turns out that he can trust these foreigners much more than he can his own countrymen, the eight English mutineers he encounters later. Furthermore, the two non-European cannibal “nations,” as Friday terms them, enlarge this national dimension. Friday explains that the cannibals do not eat each other randomly, but that each nation eats only its enemy. Therefore, those cannibalistic actions that seem steeped in savagery are in fact governed by political motives. In Chapter XXV, Crusoe is reluctant to kill the cannibals until he reasons that Friday is in a state of war, thus making murder permissible. This nationalist thinking permeates Crusoe's language too. As usual, our hero's vocabulary reveals much about how he imagines his role on the island, and he starts to describe himself as “generalissimo” of an “army,” with Friday as his “lieutenant-general.” No longer a mere castaway, Crusoe now openly refers to himself as a national leader of military forces. When he refers to his two new guests on the island as his “subjects,” we sense how deeply ingrained his imagined national role as king of the island has become.

Chapters XXVIII-XXXI

Summary: Chapter XXVIII — We Seize the Ship

Having defeated the mutineers, Crusoe decides that it is time to seize the ship, and he tells the captain of his plans. The captain agrees. Crusoe and the captain intimidate the captive mutineers with a fictitious report that the island's governor intends to execute them all but would pardon most of them if they help seize the ship. To guarantee the men's promises, Crusoe keeps five hostages. The plan works: the rebel captain on the ship is killed, and the ship is reclaimed. When Crusoe glimpses the ship, he nearly faints from shock. In gratitude, the captain presents Crusoe with gifts of wine, food, and clothing. The mutineers are offered the chance to remain on the island in order to avoid certain execution for mutiny in England. Gratefully, they accept. On December 19, 1686, Crusoe boards the ship with his money and a few possessions and sets sail for England after twenty-eight years on the island. Back in England, Crusoe discovers that the widow who has been guarding his money is alive but not prosperous. Crusoe's family is dead, except for two sisters and the children of a brother. Crusoe decides to go to Lisbon to seek information about his plantations in Brazil.

Summary: Chapter XXIX — I Find My Wealth All About Me

Arriving in Lisbon, Crusoe looks up his old friend and benefactor, the Portuguese captain who first took him to Brazil. The Portuguese captain tells Crusoe that his Brazilian lands have been placed in trust and have been very profitable. The captain is indebted to Crusoe for a large sum that he partially repays on the spot. Crusoe, moved by the captain's honesty, returns a portion of the money. Obtaining a notarized letter, Crusoe is able to transfer his Brazilian investments back into his own name. He finds himself in possession of a large fortune. Crusoe sends gifts of money to his widow friend and to his two sisters. Tempted to move to Brazil, Crusoe decides against the idea because he is reluctant to become Catholic. He resolves to return to England, but he is averse to traveling by sea, removing his baggage from three different ships at the last moment. He later learns that two of those ships are either taken by pirates or foundered. Crusoe decides to proceed on land, assembling a traveling group of Europeans and their servants.

Summary: Chapter XXX — We Cross the Mountains

Crusoe and his group set out from Lisbon and reach the Spanish town of Pampeluna (Pamplona) in late autumn, and Crusoe finds the cold almost unbearable. The snow is excessive, forcing the group to stay several weeks in Pamplona. On November 15 they finally set out toward France, despite inclement weather. They encounter three wolves and a bear in the woods. Friday kills a wolf and drives away the others. Friday also amuses the group by teasing the bear before killing it. Proceeding onward, the group encounters a frightened horse without a rider, and then finds the remains of two men who have been devoured by wolves. Three hundred wolves soon surround Crusoe's group. The group shoots the wolves and frightens them with an explosion of gunpowder, finally driving them away. Arriving at last in Toulouse, France, Crusoe learns that his group's escape from the wolves was virtually miraculous.

Summary: Chapter XXXI — I Revisit My Island

Crusoe lands safely at Dover, England, on January 14. He deposits his personal effects with his widow friend, who cares for him well. Crusoe contemplates returning to Lisbon and going from there to Brazil, but he is once again dissuaded by religious concerns. He decides to stay in England, giving orders to sell his investments in Brazil. This sale earns Crusoe the large fortune of 33,000 pieces of eight. Since Crusoe is unattached to any family members and is used to a wandering life, he again thinks about leaving England, though the widow does all she can to dissuade him. Crusoe marries, but after the death of his wife he decides to head for the East Indies as a private trader in 1694. On this voyage he revisits his island. Crusoe finds that the Spaniards who have remained there have subjugated the mutineers, treating them kindly. Crusoe provides them with gifts of cattle, supplies, and even women. The colony has survived a cannibal invasion and is now prospering.

Analysis: Chapters XXVIII-XXXI

The last chapters force us to reevaluate the escape from the island of which Crusoe has spent decades dreaming. It is ironic that he has yearned, plotted, and labored to get off the island, but when he finally does, the return home seems curiously unsatisfying. We might imagine that Europe feels safe and comfortable to him after his ordeal, but the opposite is true: in Spain, Crusoe faces inclement weather, a bear, and 300 ravenous wolves. His island with its bower seems positively luxurious by comparison. Nor does Europe offer Crusoe the human society he has craved as a castaway. The widow and the Portuguese captain are kind, but we feel they do not offer him the love and intense affection Friday shows him. When Crusoe gets married in England, he seems indifferent to his wife, whose name he does not even bother to tell us. In short, with “no family” and “not many relations,” and with little interest in forging new relationships, Crusoe appears almost as isolated in England as he does on his island. Defoe thus invites us to wonder whether Crusoe would have been happier if he had remained in his little kingdom forever and makes us question the value of the return to civilization that Crusoe thinks he desires. The religious dimension of Crusoe's ordeal reaches its climax in his final salvation and reward. Crusoe so easily reclaims his earlier fortune—and, indeed, finds it so immensely multiplied—that the restoration of his possessions seems more like a miraculous windfall—manna from heaven—than mere good luck. We sense that Crusoe imagines God to be rewarding him for his devout patience, especially when he explicitly compares himself to Job: “I might well say now, indeed, that the latter end of Job was better than the beginning.” For Crusoe, the shipwreck, the decades of isolation, and the final rescue have not been merely events in a long adventure story, as children read it today, but elements in a religious or moral tale of instruction. Specifically, it is a Protestant tale, with its emphasis on the virtues of independence, self-examination, and hard work. Crusoe underscores this Protestant aspect by mentioning twice that he does not go to Brazil because he would have to convert and live as a Catholic there. Implicitly, Crusoe makes his survival into proof of God's approval of his particular faith. Crusoe's story is often read in modern times as an allegory of colonialism, and there is much in the last chapters to defend this view. Friday's subjugation to Crusoe reflects colonial race relations, especially in Crusoe's unquestioning belief that he is helping Friday by making him a servant. Moreover, colonial terminology appears. When dealing with the hostile mutineers, Crusoe and the captain intimidate them by referring to a fictional “governor” of the island who will punish them severely. This fiction of a governor foreshadows the very real governor who will no doubt be installed on the island eventually, since Crusoe has apparently claimed the territory for England. The prosperity of the island after Crusoe leaves it is emphasized in the last chapter: it is no longer a wasteland, as when he first arrives, but a thriving community with women and children. This notion of triumphantly bringing the blessings of civilization to a desolate and undeveloped locale was a common theme of European colonial thought. Indeed, Crusoe explicitly refers to this community as “my new colony in the island,” which makes us wonder whether he really considers it his own, and whether it is officially a colony or merely figuratively so. In any case, Crusoe has turned his story of one man's survival into a political tale replete with its own ideas about imperialism.

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS PART I - important quotations & the content

1. My Father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons. . . . I was bound Apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent Surgeon in London . . . my Father now and then sending me small Sums of Money. . . . When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my Father; where, by the Assistance of him and my Uncle John . . . I got Forty Pounds, and a Promise of Thirty Pounds a Year.

This introductory paragraph from Part I, Chapter I, is often passed over as simply providing the preliminary facts of Gulliver's life, the bare essentials needed in order to proceed to the more interesting travel narrative. But this introduction is deeply significant in its own right, and it reveals much about Gulliver's character that is necessary to understand not just his journeys but also his way of narrating them. Gulliver is bourgeois: he is primarily interested in money, acquisitions, and achievement, and his life story is filtered through these desires. The first sentence means more than just a statement of his financial situation, since the third son of a possessor of only a “small Estate” would have no hopes of inheriting enough on which to support himself and would be expected to leave the estate and seek his own fortune. If Gulliver had been the first-born son, he might very well not have embarked on his travels. But the passage is even more revealing in its tone, which is starkly impersonal. Gulliver provides no sentimental characterization of his father, Bates, or Uncle John; they appear in his story only insofar as they further him in life. There is no mention of any youthful dreams or ambitions or of any romantic attachments. This lack of an emotional inner life is traceable throughout his narrative until his virtual nervous breakdown at the very end

2. Lilliputians

The Lilliputians symbolize humankind's wildly excessive pride in its own puny existence. Swift fully intends the irony of representing the tiniest race visited by Gulliver as by far the most vainglorious and smug, both collectively and individually. There is surely no character more odious in all of Gulliver's travels than the noxious Skyresh. There is more backbiting and conspiracy in Lilliput than anywhere else, and more of the pettiness of small minds who imagine themselves to be grand. Gulliver is a naïve consumer of the Lilliputians' grandiose imaginings: he is flattered by the attention of their royal family and cowed by their threats of punishment, forgetting that they have no real physical power over him. Their formally worded condemnation of Gulliver on grounds of treason is a model of pompous and self-important verbiage, but it works quite effectively on the naïve Gulliver. The Lilliputians show off not only to Gulliver but to themselves as well. There is no mention of armies proudly marching in any of the other societies Gulliver visits—only in Lilliput and neighboring Blefuscu are the six-inch inhabitants possessed of the need to show off their patriotic glories with such displays. When the Lilliputian emperor requests that Gulliver serve as a kind of makeshift Arch of Triumph for the troops to pass under, it is a pathetic reminder that their grand parade—in full view of Gulliver's nether regions—is supremely silly, a basically absurd way to boost the collective ego of the nation. Indeed, the war with Blefuscu is itself an absurdity springing from wounded vanity, since the cause is not a material concern like disputed territory but, rather, the proper interpretation of scripture by the emperor's forebears and the hurt feelings resulting from the disagreement. All in all, the Lilliputians symbolize misplaced human pride, and point out Gulliver's inability to diagnose it correctly.

The Content

Summary Chapter I

The novel begins with Lemuel Gulliver recounting the story of his life, beginning with his family history. He is born to a family in Nottinghamshire, the third of five sons. Although he studies at Cambridge as a teenager, his family is too poor to keep him there, so he is sent to London to be a surgeon's apprentice. There, under a man named James Bates, he learns mathematics and navigation with the hope of traveling. When his apprenticeship ends, he studies physics at Leyden. He then becomes a surgeon aboard a ship called the Swallow for three years. Afterward, he settles in London, working as a doctor, and marries a woman named Mary Burton. His business begins to fail when his patron dies, so he decides to go to sea again and travels for six years. Although he has planned to return home at the end of this time, he decides to accept one last job on a ship called the Antelope. In the East Indies, the Antelope encounters a violent storm in which twelve crewmen die. Six of the crewmembers, including Gulliver, board a small rowboat to escape. Soon the rowboat capsizes, and Gulliver loses track of his companions. They are never seen again. Gulliver, however, swims safely to shore. Gulliver lies down on the grass to rest, and soon he falls asleep. When he wakes up, he finds that his arms, legs, and long hair have been tied to the ground with pieces of thread. He can only look up, and the bright sun prevents him from seeing anything. He feels something move across his leg and over his chest. He looks down and sees, to his surprise, a six-inch-tall human carrying a bow and arrow. At least forty more little people climb onto his body. He is surprised and shouts loudly, frightening the little people away. They return, however, and one of the little men cries out, “Hekinah Degul.” Gulliver struggles to get loose and finally succeeds in breaking the strings binding his left arm. He loosens the ropes tying his hair so he can turn to the left. In response, the little people fire a volley of arrows into his hand and violently attack his body and face. He decides that the safest thing to do is to lie still until nightfall. The noise increases as the little people build a stage next to Gulliver about a foot and a half off the ground. One of them climbs onto it and makes a speech in a language that Gulliver does not understand. Gulliver indicates that he is hungry, and the little people bring him baskets of meat. He devours it all and then shows that he is thirsty, so they bring him two large barrels of wine. Gulliver is tempted to pick up forty or fifty of the little people and throw them against the ground, but he decides that he has made them a promise of goodwill and is grateful for their hospitality. He is also struck by their bravery, since they climb onto his body despite his great size. An official climbs onto Gulliver's body and tells him that he is to be carried to the capital city. Gulliver wants to walk, but they tell him that that will not be permitted. Instead, they bring a frame of wood raised three inches off the ground and carried by twenty-two wheels. Nine hundred men pull this cart about half a mile to the city. Gulliver's left leg is then padlocked to a large temple, giving him only enough freedom to walk around the building in a semicircle and lie down inside the temple.

Analysis

Gulliver's narrative begins much like other travel records of his time. The description of his youth and education provides background knowledge, establishes Gulliver's position in English society, and causes the novel to resemble true-life accounts of travels at sea published during Swift's lifetime. Swift imitates the style of a standard travelogue throughout the novel to heighten the satire. Here he creates a set of expectations in our minds, namely a short-lived belief in the truth of Gulliver's observations. Later in the novel, Swift uses the style of the travelogue to exaggerate the absurdity of the people and places with which Gulliver comes into contact. A fantastical style—one that made no attempt to seem truthful, accurate, or traditional—would have weakened the satire by making it irrelevant, but the factual, reportorial style of Gulliver's Travels does the opposite. Gulliver is surprised to discover the Lilliputians but is not particularly shocked. This encounter is only the first of many in the novel in which we are asked to accept Gulliver's extraordinary experiences as merely unusual. Seeing the world through Gulliver's eyes, we also adopt, for a moment, Gulliver's view of the world. But at the same time, we can step back and recognize that the Lilliputians are nothing but a figment of Swift's imagination. The distance between these two stances—the gullible Gulliver and the skeptical reader—is where the narrative's multiple levels of meaning are created: on one level, we have a true-life story of adventure; on another, a purely fictional fairy tale; and on a third level, transcending the first two and closest to Swift's original intention, a satirical critique of European pretensions to rationality and goodwill. Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels at a time when Europe was the world's dominant power, and when England, despite its small size, was rising in power on the basis of its formidable fleet. England's growing military and economic power brought it into contact with a wide variety of new animals, plants, places, and things, but the most significant change wrought by European expansion was the encounter with previously unknown people—like the inhabitants of the Americas—with radically different modes of existence. The miniature stature of the Lilliputians can be interpreted as a physical incarnation of exactly these kinds of cultural differences. The choice of physical size as the way of manifesting cultural differences has a number of important consequences. The main consequence is the radical difference in power between Gulliver and the Lilliputian nation. His physical size and strength put Gulliver in a unique position within Lilliputian society and give him obligations and capabilities far beyond those of the people who keep him prisoner. Despite Gulliver's fear of the Lilliputians' arrows, there is an element of condescension in his willingness to be held prisoner by them. The power differential may represent England's position with respect to the people it was in the process of colonizing. It may also be a way for Swift to reveal the importance of might in a society supposedly guided by right. Finally, it may be a way of destabilizing humanity's position at the center of the universe by demonstrating that size, power, and significance are all relative. Although the Lilliputians are almost pitifully small in Gulliver's eyes, they are unwilling to see themselves that way; rather, they think of themselves as normal and of Gulliver as a freakish giant. That Gulliver may himself be the Lilliputian to some other nation's Englishman—a notion elaborated fully in Part II—is already implied in the first chapter.

Summary: Chapter II

Once the Lilliputians chain Gulliver to the building, he is finally allowed to stand up and view the entire countryside, which he discovers is beautiful and rustic. The tallest trees are seven feet tall, and the whole area looks to him like a theater set. Gulliver meticulously describes his process of relieving himself, which initially involves walking inside the building to the edge of his chain. After the first time, he makes sure to relieve himself in open air, and servants carry away his excrement in wheelbarrows. He says that he describes this process in order to establish his cleanliness, which has been called into question by his critics. The emperor visits on horseback from his tower. He orders his servants to give Gulliver food and drink. The emperor is dressed plainly and carries a sword to defend himself. He and Gulliver converse, though they cannot understand each other. Gulliver tries to speak every language he knows, but nothing works. After two hours, Gulliver is left with a group of soldiers guarding him. Some of them, disobeying orders, try to shoot arrows at him. As a punishment, the brigadier ties up six of these offenders and places them in Gulliver's hand. Gulliver puts five of them into his pocket and pretends that he is going to eat the sixth, but then cuts loose his ropes and sets him free. He does the same with the other five, which pleases the court. After two weeks, a bed is made for Gulliver. It consists of 600 small beds sewn together. News of his arrival also spreads throughout the kingdom and curious people from the villages come to see him. Meanwhile, the government tries to decide what to do with him. Frequent councils bring up various concerns: that he will break loose, for instance, or that he will eat enough to cause a famine. Some suggest that they starve him or shoot him in the face to kill him, but others argue that doing so would leave them with a giant corpse and a large health risk. Officers who witnessed Gulliver's lenient treatment of the six offending soldiers report to the council, and the emperor and his court decide to respond with kindness. They arrange to deliver large amounts of food to Gulliver every morning, supply him with servants to wait on him, hire tailors to make him clothing, and offer teachers to instruct him in their language. Every morning Gulliver asks the emperor to set him free, but the emperor refuses, saying that Gulliver must be patient. The emperor also orders him to be searched to ensure that he does not have any weapons. Gulliver agrees to this search, and the Lilliputians take an inventory of his possessions. In the process, all of his weapons are taken away.

Summary: Chapter III

Gulliver hopes to be set free, as he is getting along well with the Lilliputians and earning their trust. The emperor decides to entertain him with shows, including a performance by Rope-Dancers, who are Lilliputians seeking employment in the government. For the performance, which doubles as a sort of competitive entrance examination, the candidates dance on “ropes”—slender threads suspended two feet above the ground. When a vacancy occurs, candidates petition the emperor to entertain him with a dance, and whoever jumps the highest earns the office. The current ministers continue this practice as well, in order to show that they have not lost their skill. As another diversion for Gulliver, the emperor lays three silken threads of different colors on a table. He then holds out a stick, and candidates are asked to leap over it or creep under it. Whoever shows the most dexterity wins one of the ribbons. Gulliver builds a platform from sticks and his handkerchief and invites horsemen to exercise upon it. The emperor greatly enjoys watching this new entertainment, but it is cut short when a horse steps through the handkerchief, after which Gulliver decides that it is too dangerous for them to keep riding on the cloth.

Some Lilliputians discover Gulliver's hat, which washed ashore after him, and he asks them to bring it back. Soon after, the emperor asks Gulliver to pose like a colossus, or giant statue, so that his troops might march under Gulliver. Gulliver's petitions for freedom are finally answered. Gulliver must swear to obey the articles put forth, which include stipulations that he must assist the Lilliputians in times of war, survey the land around them, help with construction, and deliver urgent messages. Gulliver agrees and his chains are removed.

Analysis: Part I, Chapters II-III

In these chapters, Gulliver learns more about Lilliputian culture, and the great difference in size between him and the Lilliputians is emphasized by a number of examples, many of which are explicit satires of British government. For instance, Lilliputian government officials are chosen by their skill at rope-dancing, which the Lilliputians see as relevant but which Gulliver recognizes as arbitrary and ridiculous. The would-be officials are almost literally forced to jump through hoops in order to qualify for their positions. Clearly, Swift intends for us to understand this episode as a satire of England's system of political appointments and to infer that England's system is similarly arbitrary. Gulliver, however, never suggests that he finds the Lilliputians ridiculous. Throughout the entire novel, Gulliver tends to be very sympathetic in his descriptions of the cultures he visits, never criticizing them or finding anything funny, no matter how ludicrous certain customs seem to us. Nor does Gulliver point out the similarities between the ridiculous practices he observes in his travels and the ridiculous customs of Europe. Instead, Swift leaves us to infer all of the satire based on the difference between how things appear to us and how they appear to Gulliver. The difference in size between Gulliver and the Lilliputians helps to emphasize the importance of physical power, a theme that recurs throughout the novel. Over time, Gulliver begins to earn the Lilliputians' trust, but it is clearly unnecessary: for all their threats, Gulliver could crush the Lilliputians by simply walking carelessly. The humor comes from the Lilliputians' view of the situation: despite the evidence before their eyes, they never realize their own insignificance. They keep Gulliver tied up, believing that they can control him, while in truth he could destroy them effortlessly. In this way, Swift satirizes humanity's pretensions to power and significance. In these chapters, Swift plays with language in a way that again pokes fun at humanity's belief in its own importance. When the Lilliputians draw up an inventory of Gulliver's possessions, the whole endeavor is treated as if it were a serious matter of state. The contrast between the tone of the inventory, which is given in the Lilliputians' own words, and the utter triviality of the possessions that are being inventoried, serves as a mockery of people who take themselves too seriously. Similarly, the articles that Gulliver is forced to sign in order to gain his freedom are couched in formal, self-important language. But the document is nothing but a meaningless and self-contradictory piece of paper: each article emphasizes the fact that Gulliver is so powerful that, if he so desires, he could violate all of the articles without much concern for his own safety.

Summary: Chapter IV

After regaining his freedom, Gulliver goes to Mildendo, the capital city of the Lilliputians. The residents are told to stay indoors, and they all sit on their roofs and in their garret windows to see him. The town is 500 feet square with a wall surrounding it, and can hold 500,000 people. The emperor wants Gulliver to see the magnificence of his palace, which is at the center of the city, so Gulliver cuts down trees to make himself a stool, which he carries around with him so that he can sit down and see things from a shorter distance than a standing position allows. About two weeks after Gulliver obtains his liberty, a government official, Reldresal, comes to see him. He tells Gulliver that two forces, one rebel group and one foreign empire, threaten the kingdom. The rebel group exists because the kingdom is divided into two factions, called Tramecksan and Slamecksan. The people in the two factions are distinguished by the heights of their heels. Reldresal tells Gulliver that the current emperor has chosen to employ primarily the low-heeled Slamecksan in his administration. He adds that the emperor himself has lower heels than all of his officials but that his heir has one heel higher than the other, which makes him walk unevenly. At the same time, the Lilliputians fear an invasion from the Island of Blefuscu, which Reldresal calls the “Other Great Empire of the Universe.” He adds that the philosophers of Lilliput do not believe Gulliver's claim that there are other countries in the world inhabited by other people of his size, preferring to think that Gulliver dropped from the moon or a star. Reldresal describes the history of the two nations. The conflict between them, he tells Gulliver, began years ago, when the emperor's grandfather, then in command of the country, commanded all Lilliputians to break their eggs on the small end first. He made this decision after breaking an egg in the old way, large end first, and cutting his finger. The people resented the law, and six rebellions were started in protest. The monarchs of Blefuscu fueled these rebellions, and when they were over the rebels fled to that country to seek refuge. Eleven thousand people chose death rather than submit to the law. Many books were written on the controversy, but books written by the Big-Endians were banned in Lilliput. The government of Blefuscu accused the Lilliputians of disobeying their religious doctrine, the Brundrecral, by breaking their eggs at the small end. The Lilliputians argued that the doctrine reads, “That all true believers shall break their eggs at the convenient end,” which could be interpreted as the small end. Reldresal continues that the exiles gained support in Blefuscu to launch a war against Lilliput and were aided by rebel forces inside Lilliput. A war has been raging between the two nations ever since, and Gulliver is asked to help defend Lilliput against its enemies. Gulliver does not feel that it is appropriate to intervene, but he nonetheless offers his services to the emperor.

Summary: Chapter V

Gulliver spies on the empire of Blefuscu and devises a plan. He asks for cables and bars of iron, out of which he makes hooks with cables attached. He then wades and swims the channel to Blefuscu and catches their ships at port. The people are so frightened that they leap out of their ships and swim to shore. Gulliver attaches a hook to each ship and ties them together. The Blefuscu soldiers fire arrows at him, but he keeps working, protecting his eyes by putting on the spectacles he keeps in his coat pocket. He tries to pull the ships away, but they are anchored too tightly, so he cuts them away with his pocketknife and pulls the ships back to Lilliput. In Lilliput, Gulliver is greeted as a hero. The emperor asks him to go back to retrieve the other ships, intending to destroy Blefuscu's military strength and make it a province in his empire. Gulliver dissuades him from this action, saying that he does not want to encourage slavery or injustice. This position causes great disagreement in the government, with some officials turning staunchly against Gulliver and calling for his destruction. Three weeks later, a delegation arrives from Blefuscu, and the war ends with Blefuscu's surrender. The Blefuscu delegates are privately told of Gulliver's kindness toward the Lilliputians, and they ask him to visit their kingdom. He wishes to do so, and the emperor reluctantly allows it. As a Nardac, or person of high rank, Gulliver no longer has to perform all the duties laid down in his contract. He does, however, have the opportunity to help the Lilliputians when the emperor's wife's room catches fire. He forgets his coat and cannot put the flames out with his clothing, so instead he thinks of a new plan: he urinates on the palace, putting out the fire entirely. He worries afterward that since the act of public urination is a crime in Lilliput he will be prosecuted, but the emperor tells him he will be pardoned. He is told, however, that the emperor's wife can no longer tolerate living in her rescued quarters.

Analysis: Part I, Chapters IV-V

Despite the fact that the history of the conflict between Lilliput and Blefuscu is blatantly ridiculous, Gulliver reports it with complete seriousness. The more serious the tone, the more laughable this conflict appears. But Swift expects us to understand immediately that the entire history Gulliver relates parallels European history exactly, down to the smallest details. The High-Heels and the Low-Heels correspond to the Whigs and Tories of English politics. Lilliput and Blefuscu represent England and France. The violent conflict between Big-Endians and Little-Endians represents the Protestant Reformation and the centuries of warfare between Catholics and Protestants. By recasting European history as a series of brutal wars over meaningless and arbitrary disagreements, Swift implies that the differences between Protestants and Catholics, between Whigs and Tories, and between France and England are as silly and meaningless as how a person chooses to crack an egg. Once we make this connection, though, we face the question of why Swift thinks that these conflicts are trivial and irrelevant. After all, religion, politics, and national identity would have been considered the most important issues in Swift's time, and we continue to think of these things as important today. The answer to this question is less obvious, and the text does not give us a simple explanation. The debate between the Big-Endians and Little-Endians does provide some clues, however. The egg controversy is ridiculous because there cannot be any right or wrong way to crack an egg, so it is unreasonable to legislate how people must do it. Similarly, we may conclude that there is no right or wrong way to worship God—at least, there is no way to prove that one way is right and another way is wrong. Moreover, the Big-Endians and Little-Endians both share the same religious text, but they disagree on how to interpret a passage that can clearly be interpreted two ways. Similarly, Swift is suggesting that the Christian Bible can be interpreted in more than one way, and that it is ridiculous for people to fight over how to interpret it when no one can really be certain that one interpretation is right and others are wrong. The text contains a number of allusions to events in Swift's life and to the politics of Europe. For instance, it has been suggested that the empress represents Queen Anne of England, Gulliver's urination on her quarters represents Swift's work A Tale of a Tub, and the empress's disgust at Gulliver's urination is analogous to Queen Anne's criticism of Swift's work and her attempts to limit his prospects in the Church of England. Within the story, Gulliver's urination on the palace is not merely an offense to the Lilliputians' sense of decency, it is also a suggestion of their insignificance, to which they respond indignantly. Although Gulliver's urination is intended to prevent a disaster, it is also an assertion of his ability to control the Lilliputians—even by the most profane of actions. The episode illustrates again the importance of physical power, which can turn a normally insignificant and vulgar action into a lifesaving act. Gulliver's refusal to obey the emperor's orders to destroy the fleet of Blefuscu is a sign that he feels some responsibility toward all beings. However small, the inhabitants of Blefuscu still have rights, one of which is freedom from tyranny. Granted almost godlike power by his unusual size, Gulliver finds himself in a position to change the Lilliputians' society forever.

Summary: Chapter VI

Gulliver describes the general customs and practices of Lilliput in more detail, beginning by explaining that everything in Lilliput— their animals, trees, and plants—is sized in proportion to the Lilliputians. Their eyesight is also adapted to their scale: Gulliver cannot see as clearly close-up as they can, while they cannot see as far as he can. The Lilliputians are well educated, but their writing system is odd to Gulliver, who jokes that they write not left to right like the Europeans or top to bottom like the Chinese, but from one corner of the page to the other, “like the ladies in England.” The dead are buried with their heads pointing directly downward, because the Lilliputians believe that eventually the dead will rise again and that the Earth, which they think is flat, will turn upside down. Gulliver adds that the better-educated Lilliputians no longer believe in this custom. Gulliver describes some of the other laws of Lilliput, such as a tradition by which anyone who falsely accuses someone else of a crime against the state is put to death. Deceit is considered worse than theft, because honest people are more vulnerable to liars than to thieves, since commerce requires people to trust one another. The law provides not only for punishment but also for rewards of special titles and privileges for good behavior. Children are raised not by individual parents but by the kingdom as a whole. They are sent to live in schools at a very young age. The schools are chosen according to the station of their parents, whom they see only twice a year. Only the laborers' children stay home, since their job is to farm. There are no beggars at all, since the poor are well looked after.

Summary: Chapter VII

Gulliver goes on to describe the “intrigue” that precipitates his departure from Lilliput. While he prepares to make his trip to Blefuscu, a court official tells Gulliver that he has been charged with treason by enemies in the government. He shows Gulliver the document calling for his execution: Gulliver is charged with public urination, refusing to obey the emperor's orders to seize the remaining Blefuscu ships, aiding enemy ambassadors, and traveling to Blefuscu. Gulliver is told that Reldresal has asked for his sentence to be reduced, calling not for execution but for putting his eyes out. This punishment has been agreed upon, along with a plan to starve him to death slowly. The official tells Gulliver that the operation to blind him will take place in three days. Fearing this resolution, Gulliver crosses the channel and arrives in Blefuscu.

Summary: Chapter VIII

Three days later, he sees a boat of normal size—that is, big enough to carry him—overturned in the water. He asks the emperor of Blefuscu to help him fix it. At the same time, the emperor of Lilliput sends an envoy with the articles commanding Gulliver to give up his eyesight. The emperor of Blefuscu sends it back with the message that Gulliver will soon be leaving both their kingdoms. After about a month, the boat is ready and Gulliver sets sail. He arrives safely back in England, where he makes a good profit showing miniature farm animals that he carried away from Blefuscu in his pockets.

Analysis: Part I, Chapters VI-VIII

Throughout much of Part I, Swift satirizes European practices by implicitly comparing them to outrageous Lilliputian customs. In Chapter VI, however, Gulliver describes a number of unusual Lilliputian customs that he presents as reasonable and sensible. This chapter, which describes improvements that could be made in European society, is less satirical and ironic than the previous chapters. We may infer that Swift approves of many of these institutions. Clearly, there is a good case to be made for treating fraud as a more serious crime than theft and for making false testimony a capital crime. The very fabric of society depends upon trust, so dishonesty may be even more damaging than theft and violence. In general, the customs of Lilliput that Swift presents as good are those that contribute to the good of the community or the nation as opposed to those that promote individual rights or freedoms. Ingratitude is punishable by death, for instance, because anybody who would treat a benefactor badly must be an enemy to all mankind. Children are raised by the community rather than by their parents because parents are thinking only of their own appetites when they conceive children. Children are raised in public nurseries, but parents are financially penalized if they burden society by bringing children for whom they cannot pay into the world. Gulliver's analysis of Lilliputian customs also serves to illuminate the arbitrary nature of such practices, as well as the fact that societies tend to assume, nonetheless, that certain customs are simply natural. The Lilliputians do not question their cultural norms because they have no reason to believe that there is any other way to conduct affairs. When alternatives are discussed, as in the case of the egg-breaking controversy, the discussion ends in violent conflict. The articles of accusation against Gulliver, like the inventory of his possessions and the articles of his freedom in the previous chapters, are written in formal language that serves only to emphasize their absurdity. Swift makes a mockery of formal language by showing how it can be used to mask simple fears and desires, such as the Lilliputians' desire to eliminate the threat that Gulliver poses. The help that Gulliver gets from Reldresal is an illustration of a persistent motif in Gulliver's Travels: the good person surrounded by a corrupt society.

TOM JONES - important quotations & the content

1. …I intend to digress, through this whole History, as often as I see Occasion: Of which I am myself a better Judge than any pitiful Critic whatever. And here I must desire all those Critics to mind their own Business … For, till they produce the Authority by which they are constituted Judges, I shall [not] plead to their Jurisdiction.

The narrator directly addresses the reader with these words in Chapter II of Book I. The direct address of the reader is a typical trait of the narrator's throughout the novel, to the point where he even assumes the status of a character within the novel. These words also allow us to assume that Fielding himself is the narrator, since he refers self-consciously to his own writing style. The narrator's contempt for critics of his work becomes a recurring theme—indeed, Fielding was obliged to preempt the slander of critics since his work urges the rather unconventional vision of Virtue as an entity that can be separated from Religion.

The Content

Book I

Chapter I

The narrator sets up a contract with the Reader, casting himself as a Restauranteur, his work as a "Feast," and the Reader as his patron. Since the Reader must pay for what he eats—the book—the narrator invites the Reader to mull over the menu, which he promises to provide in the way of an introductory clause at the opening of each Book and each Chapter. The type of cuisine is none other than "human nature," a topic which has been written about in the cheaper kind of literature, —thought it has been grossly bandied about in stall-bound "Romances, Novels, Plays and Poems"—may have refinement depending on the "Cookery of the Author." The narrator intends to mimic the cookery of Heliogabalus, a Roman emperor who initiated his guests with simple fare, slowly building to more sophisticated delicacies. After serving up his simple fare of country characters, the narrator will present the Reader with the "high French and Italian Seasoning of Affectation and Vice which Courts and Cities afford."

Chapter II

In the western domain of England lives a retired gentleman, Mr. Allworthy, blessed by Nature with good looks, robust health, understanding, an altruistic disposition, and one of the most prosperous estates in the county of Somersetshire. Five years before the story begins, Allworthy's beautiful and virtuous wife passed away, following their three children, who died as infants. Allworthy, however, still considers himself married—a sentiment that inspires the praise of his neighbors. Allworthy lives with his only sibling, his beloved sister, Miss Bridget Allworthy, who is called an "old Maid" because she is thirty years old and unmarried. Miss Bridget is one of those "very good sort of Women," which is the description women give to other women who are deprived of beauty.

Chapter III

The reader may assume, based on the previous chapter's description, that Allworthy does nothing other than perform benevolent deeds. But if this were the case, the narrator says, he would not have wasted his time producing a work of such epic length. If the Reader would rather read such matter, he can peruse instead one of those boring books called The History of England. An exhausted Allworthy, returning from business in London, retires to bed. On pulling back the sheets he discovers a baby boy, swaddled in linen, sleeping sweetly. Although greatly surprised, Allworthy cannot help but feel empathy for the little being, and awe at its beauty. Allworthy rings his bell to summon his old-time servant, Mrs. Deborah Wilkins. Mrs. Deborah takes some time to preen herself, in spite of the urgency of Allworthy's summons, and it should therefore come as no surprise, the narrator says, that she is shocked to find Allworthy, who in his haste has forgotten to dress, wearing only his nightshirt. After delivering a long monologue on the indecency of unchaste women—whom she calls "wicked Sluts", Mrs. Deborah advises Allworthy to discard the baby at the parish door. But, during Mrs. Deborah's speech, the baby has clasped Allworthy's finger in his tiny hand, winning the man's heart. Allworthy orders Mrs. Deborah to carry the boy to her bed, prepare food for him, and to seek out appropriate clothes the next day. Mrs. Deborah, always loyal to her master, now calls the boy a "sweet little Infant" and whisks the child away in her arms.

Chapter IV

Allworthy's Gothic-style house, which resides on a hill beneath a grove of old oaks, is on a property that stretches out beyond lawns, meadows, and woods, and out to the sea. Allworthy takes in this view during a mid-May morning walk, in which his mind stews over the noble question of how he "might render himself most acceptable to his Creator, by doing most Good to his Creatures." At breakfast, Allworthy tells Miss Bridget he has a gift for her, which she suspects will be a gown, or jewelry. She is therefore speechless with surprise on first being presented with the baby boy Allworthy found in his bed the night before. Miss Bridget calls the unknown mother every vile name she knows, but she nevertheless shows some compassion for the child. All the female servants in the house are suspected, but all are "acquitted" by Mrs. Wilkins, to whom the task of inspecting all the women in the parish is given. Miss Bridget agrees to take care of the child, at her brother's request.

Chapter V

Once Allworthy departs, Mrs. Deborah waits for contradictory orders from Miss Bridget, since she knows that the brother and sister's opinions begin to differ as soon as they are apart. Miss Bridget, after staring for a little while at the baby sleeping in Mrs. Deborah's lap, cannot refrain from kissing it and praising its beauty. She then sets about ordering "Necessaries" for the child, and appoints one of the best rooms in the house to be its nursery. This is not without a sly and contradictory quip at her brother, however, whom she scorns for desiring to support Vice by adopting "the little Brat."

Chapter VI

Mrs. Deborah hurries to the parish in pursuit of the mother of the baby. Due to her habit of treating the parish inhabitants with disdain and ill will, none of the matrons there look forward to Mrs. Deborah's visit, but one old woman, who is equal to Mrs. Deborah in age and ugliness, likes her better than the others. The two women discuss the characters of various young women, and decide that a certain Jenny Jones must have committed the crime. Though Jenny is not beautiful, she has been endowed with "Understanding." She has developed this quality through study, as she is the servant of a schoolmaster who has undertaken to teach Latin to Jenny. The narrator grants that Jenny is "perhaps, as good a Scholar as most of the young Men of Quality of the Age," but, because of her superior intellect and accompanying pride, Jenny has become the envy of her neighbors. This is why the elderly woman suspects Jenny to be the mother of the foundling. Mrs. Wilkins, has additional reason to suspect Jenny, because Jenny has recently spent time at Allworthy's house nursing Miss Bridget out of an illness. Summoned to face Mrs. Deborah, who dubs her an "audacious Strumpet," Jenny confesses to being the mother of the child. Even though Jenny shows remorse, Mrs. Deborah upbraids her even more, backed up by a chorus of female on-lookers who have gathered around. Mrs. Deborah conveys the news to Mr. Allworthy, who is greatly surprised, since he intended to reward Jenny's diligencet self- improvement by arranging for her a decent living and a marriage with a neighboring Curate. Mrs. Bridget is sent to summon Jenny to a conference with Allworthy.

Chapter VII

Jenny meets Allworthy in his study, where he delivers an effusive monologue on the crime of a woman's spoiling her Chastity. Allworthy reminds Jenny that fleeting pleasure can overwhelm reason, which should remind one of the dire consequences of passion. He argues that a woman cannot invoke love as an excuse for her behavior, since no man who truly loved a woman would use her in so base a way. On a more positive note, Allworthy expresses admiration for Jenny's decision not to abandon the child, as some callous mothers might have. He appreciates her judgment in leaving the child to his care. When Allworthy asks the name of the child's father, Jenny pleads with him, claiming she is "under the most solemn Ties and Engagements of Honour, as well as the most religious Vows and Protestations" not to reveal the father's name. Allworthy asserts that he does not desire to know the man's name out of curiosity, but so that he may at least know who to avoid doing favors for in the future. Jenny assures Allworthy that the man is "entirely out of his Reach." Allworthy therefore respects Jenny's wish that the man's name remain private and bids her to seek forgiveness from God.

Chapter VIII

Miss Bridget and Mrs. Deborah, who have used the keyhole of the adjoining room as a conduit to eavesdrop on Allworthy and Jenny's conversation, debate the proceedings. Mrs. Deborah speaks out first, shrilly proclaiming that Mr. Allworthy should have been harsher in his treatment of Jenny. She swears that if she had been in his position, she would certainly have extracted the name of the father. At this Miss Bridget smiles, a rare occurrence. Miss Bridget contradicts Mrs. Deborah's outburst by praising Jenny for confessing to her crime and hypocritically chastises Miss Bridget for prying into other people's business. Mrs. Deborah, who normally reserves her judgment until her mistress has spoken, now retracts all she said earlier. The women essentially take Jenny's side because, like them, she is not beautiful, and the conversation ends with "a general and bitter Invective against Beauty, and with many compassionate Considerations for all honest, plain Girls, who are deluded by the wicked Arts of deceitful Men."

Chapter IX

When the neighbors learn that instead of sending Jenny to a House of Correction, Allworthy has simply banished her from the parish, they unleash invectives against her. Jenny's distance prevents her from being the recipient of their animosity, so the neighbors begin directing their maliciousness toward Mr. Allworthy himself and spread rumors that he is the father himself. The narrator assures the Reader that "Mr. Allworthy was, and will hereafter appear to be, absolutely innocent of any criminal Intention whatever."

Chapter X

Although he favors "Men of Merit" and "Men of Genius and Learning," Allworthy opens his house and heart to anyone. Men flock to Allworthy's company not only because they are certain of being showered with hospitality, but because Allworthy allows every guest to spend his time according to that guest's inclination. The gentleman Dr. Blifil, one such visitor, has won Allworthy's pity. This is due to the fact that Dr. Blifil's father forced him to study medicine or "Physic" against his will and Allworthy pities anyone who has found misfortune because of the "Folly or Villainy of others." Since he detests his profession, Dr. Blifil hardly practices and, thus, has accumulated very little fortune. Dr. Blifil's one shining quality, which is his "great Appearance of Religion," attracts Miss Bridget to him. A romance springs up between the two based on their particular "sympathy" of religious views. The narrator expresses no surprise at this event, since he wryly observes that "Sympathies of all Kinds are apt to beget Love; so Experience teaches us that none have a more direct Tendency this Way than those of a religious Kind between Persons of different Sexes." One obstacle stands in Miss Bridget and Dr. Blifil's way: Dr. Blifil is married. There is nothing for Dr. Blifil to do but try to conjure a match between Miss Bridget and his brother. The narrator muses as to the reason for such a decision, especially since Dr. Blifil "had no great Friendship for his Brother." The narrator speculates that Dr. Blifil might just have an evil nature, or that he wishes to be an accomplice in the "Theft" of a wealthy lady, or that he hopes his status will vicariously be raised through his brother's marriage. Captain Blifil, Dr. Blifil's brother, arrives at Allworthy's house almost immediately after receiving the summons from his brother. The thirty-five-year- old Captain is well built and has a scar on his forehead. His demeanor and voice are rough, yet he is "not ungenteel, nor entirely void of Wit." The Captain's father wanted his son to become a priest, but died before the ordination, and the Captain became an army man instead. After an argument with his Colonel, however, the Captain was forced to resign his commission and has since been devoting himself to Biblical study in the countryside. Only a week after his arrival at Allworthy's estate, Captain Blifil begins to make an impression on the "Saint-like" character of Miss Bridget, thus fulfilling his brother's hopes for him.

Chapter XI

Miss Bridget falls for Captain Blifil, even though the Captain is not good- looking, which the narrator ascribes to Bridget's search for something profound and meaningful. Bridget is not beautiful either, making it unnecessary for the narrator to "draw her Picture." Moreover, the narrator relates, a better artist—the famous Mr. Hogarth—has already undertaken that task. Once the Captain catches scent of Bridget's passion for him, he returns it. The Captain, however, has actually fallen in love with Mr. Allworthy's estate. He harbors a fear that Allworthy will not approve of a match between his sister and a man who is so much poorer than her, so he attempts to conceal his brief courtship from Allworthy. The Captain proposes and is rejected twice before Miss Bridget finally submits.

Chapter XII

Dr. Blifil takes the task of breaking the news of Dr. Blifil and Miss Bridget's marriage to Allworthy upon himself. Finding Allworthy strolling in the garden, Dr. Blifil greets him with a bitter speech about men's self- interestedness and women's debauchery. Mr. Allworthy, however, already knows about his sister's marriage and wholeheartedly supports it in spite of Captain Blifil's lack of finances. Allworthy stops Dr. Blifil mid-sentence with his angelic philosophies about marriage being based on love. Allworthy does not believe that physical attraction and financial concerns should be renounced entirely, but he also believes that they should not be the sole basis for matrimony.

Chapter XIII

Dr. Blifil tells his brother about how he pretended to be angry when he met Allworthy in the garden, saying that he wanted to dismiss any suspicions Allworthy might have that Dr. Blifil set up the marriage. The narrator says that the Captain will later make use of this disclosure. Now that the Captain possesses Miss Bridget and her money, he treats his brother with the utmost disdain. No one can help noticing this behavior, not even Allworthy, to whom the Captain confides that he can never forgive his brother for a past injury. Allworthy protests so loudly against not forgiving that the Captain affects a pretense of goodwill toward his brother when they are in company, but in private his contempt continues. Dr. Blifil appeals to his brother, but the Captain rudely tells him to quit the house if he is not content. The narrator hints that Dr. Blifil is indeed guilty of some former crime, and submits to his brother's behavior because he does not want the Captain to reveal this secret to Allworthy. Moreover, the Captain, who is proud and fierce, has long resented his brother's intellectual capacities. The narrator concludes that envy mangled with contempt and obligation tends to breed indignation rather than gratitude. Dr. Blifil can no longer bear his brother's cruelty and departs for London, where he dies of a broken heart.

Analysis

By beginning Book I with some self-conscious reflections on the role of an author, Fielding immediately incorporates his "Reader" into the novel. In Chapter I, Fielding refers to the reader in the third person, and in the rest of Book I he addresses the reader directly—a form of address known as apostrophe. Fielding's deep concern for establishing a relationship between author and reader reflects on the context in which he was writing: with the "novel" as a newly emerging form of literature, the act of reading was shifting from a public to a private experience, which explains why Fielding always refers to a single reader, not to a group of readers. Fielding's concern is not without irony, however, since Fielding often makes the reader aware of how little power he or she has. While the narrator promises in Chapter I to provide a menu at the beginning of each chapter, the reader soon realizes that this menu is not to be as lucid and useful as promised. By involving the Reader in the novel, Fielding invites us to reflect on the construction of the work and on the reading process itself. By relentlessly alluding to writers and figures from Classical Antiquity and Mythology, Fielding reminds the reader of the strong intellectual foundation on which this work has been built. Yet Fielding greets even these references with some irony. Indeed, Fielding questions the very definition of a "novel" by creating a pastiche of various styles of writing. He expresses scorn towards the "Romances, Novels, Plays and Poems, with which the Stalls abound" and implies in Chapter III that his work deserves to be placed among the more reputable "History" genre. Yet the plot that drives Book I—Mr. Allworthy's discovery of the foundling in his bed, and the marriage of Miss Bridget Allworthy to Captain Blifil—suggests that Fielding is trying to revolutionize the very notion of "History," by rejecting dour political histories and trying to construct a set of personal histories instead. Instead of probing into his characters' psychologies, as a more traditional novel might, Fielding insists on presenting "scenes" to the reader—faithful transcriptions of their actions and dialogue that read like historical facts.

Book II

Chapter I

This is to be a different kind of History, the narrator informs us, one that chooses carefully where to devote its "Pains" and "Paper." The narrator invokes the simile of a lottery, declaring that he will focus on the prizes drawn, not on the blanks. The narrator dubs himself "the Founder of a new Province of Writing" and states that this entitles him to operate by his own laws, which readers will have to respect. The narrator hopes that the Reader will recognize his authority, but he promises not be a tyrant nor to make the readers his slaves.

Chapter II

Eight months after Miss Bridget and Captain Blifil's wedding, Miss Bridget gives birth to a boy. Even though Mr. Allworthy relishes the fact that his sister has given birth to an heir, it does not diminish his love for the foundling, whom he has named Thomas after himself, and for whom he has taken on the role of godfather. Allworthy visits the baby Tom in his nursery at least once a day. Allworthy tells Bridget that her son will be brought up with Tom, and after some resistance, she finally agrees. The Captain voices more opposition than his wife by quoting scripture about the unworthy status of children born out of wedlock. Allworthy counters with his own set of quotations, arguing that children are born innocent and should not have to bear their parents' guilt. The truth is that the Captain envies Allworthy's attentions to Tom. Miss Bridget, while verbally abusing Allworthy and Tom behind their backs, has a tongue of honey in public. Mrs. Deborah, the narrator concludes, has discovered Tom's rascal of a father.

Chapter III

The narrator explains the history of Tom's mother, Jenny Jones, and the schoolmaster, Mr. Partridge. Although Partridge and his shrew of a wife have been married for nine years, they have no children. The narrator confides that the reason for this is that "Children are rightly called the Pledges of Love; and [Partridge] … had given [his wife] no such Pledges…" Terrified that her husband will be less abstinent with other women, Mrs. Partridge handpicks her maidservants, choosing the least attractive women. Jenny Jones is one such maidservants. Jenny, however, is allowed to set aside her housework in order to pursue her studies with Mr. Partridge. One day, about four years after Jenny has arrived, Mrs. Partridge strolls past her husband's study and notices Jenny suddenly rise up from her reading. Mrs. Partridge interprets this as evidence that Jenny and her husband are having an affair. She believes that their guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt when, at dinner, she witnesses Jenny smiling when Partridge asks her to "give him some drink" in Latin. Mrs. Partridge glares at Jenny, who blushes. Taking this blush as even further corroboration, Mrs. Partridge grabs a knife and threatens Jenny and her husband. Jenny escapes by running from the room, while Partridge simply sits and trembles. That night Mrs. Partridge orders Jenny to leave her house. Jenny protests her innocence, but Partridge does not defend her. Instead, he wins back his wife's favor by making love to her. Partridge is secretly happy that Jenny has been dismissed, since the girl was beginning to exceed his intellectual heights.

Chapter IV

Mrs. Partridge, once frigid, now lavishes her husband with affection. However, the narrator warns, this is the calm before the storm, for the women in the parish now report that Jenny has given birth to a second bastard. Since it is less than nine months since Mrs. Partridge ousted Jenny, Mrs. Partridge assumes that Mr. Partridge must also be the father of this child. Tearing home, Mrs. Partridge attacks her husband, scratching him into a bloody mess. He attempts to restrain her, but she fights so furiously that her cap falls off, and the "stays" at the front of her dress split open, leaving her breasts exposed. Mad with terror, Mr. Partridge runs into the street imploring his neighbors to help his wife. A gaggle of women attend to him. Mrs. Partridge slanders her husband, accusing him of wrenching off her cap and stays, pulling hair from her head, and beating her. Mr. Partridge, his face scarred from his wife's nails, stands stunned and speechless. The parish women, interpreting this silence as guilt, scream at his insolence.

Chapter V

Rumors begin to fly around the Little Baddington parish that Partridge has beaten his wife. Different reasons are given for Partridge's behavior: some report that he was having an affair, while others believe that Mrs. Partridge is the guilty party. Mrs. Wilkins scavenges for information that might reduce Allworthy's affection for Tom in an effort to please the Captain. When she hears that Partridge is Tom's father, she passes the news on to Captain Blifil. Instead of rewarding Mrs. Wilkins, however, the Captain, who does not want to ally himself with a servant for fear of being blackmailed, dismisses Mrs. Wilkins. Mrs. Wilkins says nothing to Mr. Allworthy, nor does she mention her secret to Mrs. Blifil, with whom her friendship has faded due to their differing opinions of Tom. Captain Blifil debates the meaning of "Charity" with Allworthy. The Captain believes that "Charity" does not stipulate the actual distribution of money, whereas Mr. Allworthy believes that it does. At the conclusion of the conversation, the Captain subtly drops the news that Partridge is Tom's father. Allworthy summons Mrs. Wilkins to corrobate the story, which she does. The Captain advises Allworthy to treat Partridge with mercy.

Chapter VI

The news of Partridge's guilt comes as a shock to Allworthy, who is the only person in the county who has not already heard the rumors. Mrs. Wilkins, having been sent to unearth more evidence of the scandal, returns to Allworthy with "confirmation," which is actually the word of a neighbor. The Partridge couple appears before Allworthy to make their "Defence." Allworthy, in the Chair of Justice, first listens to Mrs. Partridge's story. Mr. Partridge then proclaims his innocence, at which point Mrs. Partridge bursts into tears and launches into further accusations, now attesting that Mr. Partridge has had affairs with numerous women. The narrator takes this opportunity to refer to the common law, which states that a wife cannot provide evidence either for or against her husband. Mr. Partridge pleads that Jenny be allowed to testify to his innocence, but a messenger who is sent to find her brings the news that Jenny has run away with a recruiting officer. Allworthy decides that the testimony of "such a Slut" could not be trusted, and that Mrs. Partridge has won the case. Mr. Partridge loses his annuity and falls into slothful poverty. Mrs. Partridge dies of smallpox shortly after. Mr. Partridge leaves the county.

Chapter VII

In spite of what Captain Blifil hopes, Allworthy's affections for Tom are steadily increasing, and the narrator observes that it is as though Allworthy feels a need to atone for his severity to Partridge through extra affection for Tom. This disgruntles the Captain, who fears that Tom's existence will lessen his own inheritance. Captain Blifil and Bridget's marriage has rapidly descended from infatuation to hatred. Their religious views are diametrically opposed, and the narrator reveals that during their courtship, the Captain made a point of conceding to Bridget even when he did not agree. Now that the Captain has no reason to comply with Bridget, he belittles her arguments. They remain together, however, because, the narrator philosophizes, married couples sometimes find more enjoyment in tormenting one another than in being separated. Although Allworthy notices the tenstion, he does not realize the magnitude of the discord, and the Captain and Bridget try to conceal it before him. In spite of his noble character, Allworthy "might" notice some flaws in the Captain, but the narrator condones this, since he believes that a good friend will recognize the faults of others and not try to cure them.

Chapter VIII

Captain Blifil meditates on how much he will inherit, and what improvements he will make to Allworthy's house and gardens once Allworthy has died. Captain Blifil's greed prompts him to lay his hands on every book available about life expectancy, from which he calculates how long he will have to wait for Allworthy's death. One night, as he takes his solitary evening walk to ponder such questions, Captain Blifil dies of Apoplexy.

Chapter IX

Mr. Allworthy, concerned about the Captain's absence from the dinner table, orders the outside bell to be rung. Allworthy himself heads for the gardens while a friend who has joined them for dinner attempts to calm Bridget down with words and wine. When Allworthy returns, silent and upset, Bridget wails and laments that someone must have murdered her husband. Suddenly a servant bursts in, crying that the Captain has been found. Two servants carry in his dead body, and Allworthy weeps at the sight, while Bridget screams and faints. Two doctors Dr. Y. and Dr. Z., arrive and debate the cause of death. Each doctor has a favorite disease that he invokes for every autopsy. Although Captain Blifil is now confirmed to be dead, Dr. Y and Dr. Z need to invent an excuse to stay longer so they will receive more money. Bridget remains bed-ridden for a month and Allworthy generously commissions an epitaph for the Captain's grave.

Analysis

At first sight the narrator seems to treat all of his characters with deference, but on closer inspection, we notice Fielding's irony toward his characters. For example, Fielding slyly undercuts Partridge's authority by describing Partridge as a "Pedagogue" rather than as a "teacher." The names Fielding chooses for characters are also parodies, following the eighteenth-century custom of using names that magnify the essential qualities of each character. Allworthy, for instance, is a genuinely worthy man, a moral yardstick against which the other characters should be evaluated. However, Book II introduces us to Allworthy's greatest flaw, which is that he is unable to perceive the cunning and conniving of others. While this may be a minor flaw, one that stems from virtue rather than vice, Allworthy's inability to sport the machinations of others drives much of the plot of Tom Jones. It may seem contradictory that Fielding has constructed this character with a flaw, but Allworthy's characterization is consistent with the narrator's stated refusal to believe that anyone can be perfect. This attitude was a precocious one in the eighteenth century, and distinguishes Fielding from authors such as Samuel Richardson, who intended for his novels to be read as instruction manuals for morality. Fielding desires to record life more accurately, and this desire demands the creation of imperfect characters. The lack of perfect characters in Tom Jones does not mean that the novel is devoid of morality. Indeed, Book II centers on Allworthy's kindness to the foundling child, Tom. Many of the characters, particularly Captain Blifil and Mrs. Wilkins, condemn Allworthy's decision to keep the boy, arguing that he is thereby supporting "Vice." Yet the narrator subtly reveals how the characters most critical of Allworthy's decision to raise Tom are driven by questionable motives in their own right. In such a way, Fielding allows questions of morality to take the form of debates among his characters, rather than writing dogmatic authoritative lectures. The lengthy debate between the Captain and Allworthy on the topic of "Charity" indicates Fielding's interest in solving moral dilemmas through philosophy rather than religion. Philosophy, Fielding implies, presents a variety of questions but no definitive answers.

LIFE AND OPINION ON TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENTELMAN: the content

The Content

Volume 1

Tristram Shandy begins his autobiographical tale with the story of his conception, in which his mother interrupts the sexual moment by asking an irrelevant question about the winding of the clock. The author speculates that the circumstances in which a child is conceived profoundly influence its eventual mind, body, and character. He laments his parents' careless demeanor at this decisive juncture: "had they duly consider'd how much depended on what they were then doing...I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world." As it stands, he blames his own "thousand weaknesses both of body and mind" on their negligence. Tristram reveals that the whole circumstance of his coming into the world occurred as a series of such accidents and misfortunes. Stating succinctly that he was born on November 5, 1718, he promises to give the full details of his birth eventually, but only after a detour through his "opinions." He admits from the beginning that his narration will be unconventional, and he begs the reader to be patient and to "let me go on, and tell the story in my own way." Meandering through the history of the town midwife, Tristram takes the opportunity to satirize the obscure legal language of her license document. He also introduces the character of Parson Yorick, whom he relates to the jester Yorick in Hamlet and to Cervantes's Don Quixote. At the suggestion of his wife, Parson Yorick sponsors the training of the midwife as a service to the town. The parson actually stands to benefit personally from this benevolent gesture, since the townspeople were frequently borrowing his fine horses to ride the seven miles to the nearest doctor. In order to secure himself against charges of ulterior motives, he has vowed always to ride the decrepit old horse on which we now see him. Yorick's constant joking and acid wit make him many enemies; his unpopularity eventually drives him to a miserable early death. The transition from the satire of legal language to the story of Yorick and his horses takes place by means of a brief, essayistic account of "hobby-horses": the narrow and often esoteric pursuits (hobbies, essentially) that interest people--often, to the point of obsession. The stories of Yorick and the midwife are also interrupted by the Dedication in Chapter 8, and by a passage in which Tristram forecasts his own literary fame. Tristram again defends his digressive style, promising "to go on leisurely, writing and publishing two volumes of my life every year" until he dies. The marriage settlement between Tristram's parents stipulates that Mrs. Shandy could choose to bear her children in London, where she would find superior medical care. It also states, however, that if she made the trip to London on any false alarms, the husband could require her to stay in the country on the next occasion. This is the clause Walter Shandy invokes at the time of Tristram's birth. While Tristram thinks the legal arrangement, on the whole, a fair one, he thinks it "hard that the whole weight of the article should have fallen entirely, as it did, upon myself." He chalks this up as another one of his misfortunes, since it led him to be born with a flattened nose (the explanation about how this came to pass is deferred). Mrs. Shandy, since she cannot have "the famous Dr. Maningham" of London, insists on employing the midwife to deliver the baby--out of peevishness, Tristram suggests. Walter feels strongly that she should have Dr. Slop instead, and they finally agree to pay him to wait downstairs, in case of emergency. Tristram introduces his father's theory that "there was a strange kind of magick bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly impress'd upon our characters and conduct." The most disadvantageous name of all, and the one Walter most detests, is Tristram. The narrator declares that he cannot yet tell the story of how he came to be called Tristram, appealing to the necessity that "I should be born before I [am] christened." He follows this statement with a more academic version of the same argument (about the proper order of the rituals surrounding birth), quoting a long and abstruse document dealing with the question of whether fetuses can be baptized in the womb. Walter and Uncle Toby sit downstairs while Mrs. Shandy is going into labor. Before any dialogue gets properly underway, Tristram interrupts to give an account of Toby's character, promising to return to their conversation subsequently. Toby, we learn (after a few asides about the English climate and the scandalous marriage of Aunt Dinah) is notable for his overweening modesty, the fuller explanation of which Tristram, as usual, reserves for later, telling us only that it stems from a wound to the groin that Toby received during the siege of Namur. Tristram then enters into a digression on digressions, explaining that his work is both digressive and progressive. Though the story may sometimes seem to be sidetracked or standing still, he claims that it is actually moving forward all the while. He then returns to Toby's character, which he says will be best illustrated by means of his uncle's strange hobby-horse. He relates how Toby, after being wounded, spent four years confined to his bed, where he was frequently called upon by sympathetic visitors. They usually wanted to hear the story of his injury, a fact that caused Toby some consternation--for reasons that Tristram declines to supply until the next volume.

Commentary

Tristram's story begins ab Ovo ("from the egg"), in defiance of the Homeric epic tradition that begins stories in the middle of things and then allows the background to unfold along with the action. The alternative, seemingly, would be to begin with the beginning; Tristram takes this possibility to an almost ludicrous extreme by beginning before the beginning, from his conception rather than his birth. This strategy leads him into the problem of relating events of which he could have no knowledge, which would call into question his status as an autobiographical narrator. He anticipates and answers this concern by explaining that he has learned the story of his conception from his Uncle Toby, who in turn heard it from Walter Shandy. The effect is to emphasize that Tristram's accounts are not fictional--but neither should we take them as perfectly objective. Tristram represents a type of authorial presence different from that of Sterne himself: he is not free to invent characters or imagine events, but rather filters a "real" world (and a drastically limited and personal one, with a radius of but five miles) through his own experience, memory, personality, and opinions. It quickly becomes apparent that the chronology of the story will be more complex and unorthodox than just its ab Ovo beginning. The narrative oversteps its own declared limits, including events that took place long before even the night of conception, and also drawing Jenny, the author's companion as the story is being written, into the book. And not only does Tristam stretch his chronological coverage to its extreme possibilities, he also disrupts it internally by presenting events in the wrong order, interrupting one anecdote with others or with essayistic digressions, and scrambling the beginnings, middles, and ends of his sequences. Yet, he maintains, the story is going on all the while. This is largely true because the narrator's own voice and interpretations provide a source of continuity. By listening to Tristram, we are getting to know him, which was the whole point, and which takes precedence over the details of his birth, or any other single episode. "As you proceed further with me, the slight acquaintance that is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and...will terminate in friendship." The idea of the hobby-horse, which is introduced casually here, will become a major thematic concern. There is nothing inherently sinister about these hobby-horses; most people have them, and Tristram confesses readily to having a few of his own (we are clearly to assume that his writing is one). But the novel will dramatize the way they can lead into a state of total self-absorption, when they become such a constant preoccupation that everything in the world gets subordinated to a single, all-consuming idea. In exploring this possibility, Sterne seems to see it as simply an extreme instance of what is already our innate psychological nature: drawing on Locke's chapter on association in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he dramatizes the way ideas that seem to be unrelated become connected in our minds. The novel will explore the implications of these associations for scientific knowledge, for our everyday understanding of cause and effect, and for social interactions. The digressiveness of the narrative, in the way it follows chains of association rather than sticking to a rigid, formal structure, is also a manifestation of this principle. Obsessively formal thinking can be a kind of hobby-horse. Walter is the prime example of this deluding approach to the world: "like all systematic reasoners, he would move both heaven and earth, and twist and torture everything in nature to support his hypothesis." The open form of Tristram's writing, then, is an effort to take in the world in all its variety and flux. It is a resistance, in part, to the distortions and manipulations that Tristam sees his father performing to force evidence for his preconceived ideas. It remains for the reader to decide whether Tristram's approach offers any more objective window on reality, or whether Tristram's own set of hobby-horses gives rise to just as much distortion. Another open question is whether Sterne's attitude toward Tristram and his project is one of endorsement or irony. Tristram's frequent addresses to the reader (imagined variously and flexibly as Sir, Madam, Dear Reader, your worships, etc.) draw us into the novel. From Tristram's perspective, we are asked to be open-minded, and to follow his lead in an experimental kind of literary adventure. The gap between Tristram-the-author and Sterne-the-author, however, invites us not only to participate with Tristram, but also to assess his character and his narrative.

Volume 2

Tristram picks up where the last chapter left off, undertaking now "to explain the nature of the perplexities in which my uncle Toby was involved" in his attempts to tell the story of his war wound. Toby's trouble was that the military maneuvers in question were so intricate and technical that nobody could understand him; indeed he sometimes even confused himself as well. It occurs to him now to get a large map of the environs of Namur, which relieves him of his difficulty and also sets him off on his hobby-horse. Tristram informs the reader that his book is to be a "history-book" in the same way that Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a history-book--that is, as a history "of what passes in a man's own mind." He goes on to attribute the obscurity in Toby's battle descriptions not to any kind of mental confusion, but to a confusion in language itself: the "unsteady uses of words" that predominates especially in the technical jargons of specialized fields. Captain Toby's obsession with his map grows, and he launches into a detailed study of fortification and military science that becomes his ruling passion. He soon grows restless for his recovery. Tristram, after reminding us that he still means to resume the interrupted conversation from Volume 1, Chapter 21 (when he cut Toby off at "I think --"), proceeds with the story of his uncle's sudden desire to leave the sickbed: Corporal Trim, Toby's servant, had planted the suggestion in his master's mind that they should move to the country in order to construct a replica, built to scale, of the battle site and fortifications. This idea pleases Toby so intensely that he can hardly wait to begin. Tristram resumes the scene by the fireside on the day of his own birth, and Toby finishes his long-delayed sentence by suggesting that they ring the bell to inquire about all the noise upstairs. The labor has begun in earnest; Susannah runs for the midwife, and Walter sends Obadiah to fetch Dr. Slop. Speculating about Mrs. Shandy's preference for the midwife, Toby suggests that it might be a question of modesty. Walter challenges him on this point, and Toby defers, admitting that he knows nothing about women. He alludes to the unfortunate outcome of his affair with Widow Wadman as evidence of the fact. Walter begins to hold forth about the right and the wrong end of a woman, but is interrupted by a knock at the door. Obadiah and Dr. Slop have arrived. Tristram reflects on the complications of calculating time in a narrative where events are happening simultaneously, or in comparing narrative time with lived time. He first claims that it has been an hour and a half since Obadiah left on his errand--plenty of time to return with the doctor. He then argues, from the other side, that no more than two minutes, thirteen and three-fifths seconds could possibly have passed. Finally, he offers the conjecture that years have passed, since all the stories of Uncle Toby's military career and invalidism have intervened since the birthday was first mentioned. His imaginary critic remains unpersuaded, so Tristram closes the matter by revealing that Obadiah actually ran into Dr. Slop just outside the house, in a collision that sent them both into the mud. Obadiah is sent back out to fetch the doctor's tools, which the doctor has left at home. Toby has been put in mind of Stevinus, an engineer and writer on fortifications; he explains the connection, which seems illogical to everyone else. Walter insults him for his doggedness and stupidity. Tristram relates that Toby's feelings were hurt, but that he "was a man patient of injuries." He goes on to tell a sentimental anecdote about how Toby "scarce had heart to retaliate upon a fly," and attributes whatever goodwill he himself has learned to the early impression of his uncle's gentleness and humanity. Walter, seeing Toby's serene countenance, quickly apologizes, and the brothers are reconciled. Corporal Trim delivers a sermon on conscience (actually one of Sterne's own) that has fallen out of the volume of Stevinus. Tristram gives a minutely detailed visual description of the stance Trim assumes for this oration. The sermon proves to have been left in the book by Parson Yorick, who subsequently retrieves it. Obadiah returns with the bag of surgical instruments, and attention turns once again to Mrs. Shandy's labor. Dr. Slop is told that he is not to interfere unless called for, so he contents himself with educating the company about recent advances in the science of obstetrics. We learn about another one of Walter's pet theories: that the medulla oblongata is the most important part of the brain, and that it stands in great danger during the process of childbirth. With strength in numbers, the medical hobby-horses of Walter and Dr. Slop outpace Uncle Toby's militaristic reflections, and the latter is unable to regain the floor. The volume closes with a reminder of certain narrative loose ends still to be picked up, most importantly: how Toby got his modesty from his groin-wound, how Tristram's nose was lost in the marriage contract, and how he came to be named Tristram.

Commentary

In calling his work a history of "what passes in a man's mind," Tristram draws attention to the fact that, in writing his own "life and opinions," he will be portraying mostly a mental life. This reassurance is important in light of the fact that we have moved through two volumes without yet arriving at the point of the protagonist's birth. He addresses our expectations on this point not only to help us make sense of the work, but also because those expectations are part of what the work is about--as is the question of how exactly the mental life figures in the life of a man. Still, the comparison to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a provocative one: does Tristram mean that Locke's highly theoretical book is actually more autobiographical and introspective than philosophical? Or is he suggesting that his own book, however personal it may be, will draw out general truths about human nature? The author problematizes, through considerations like these, the relationship between a history of an individual mind and a philosophical account of human thinking in general. The comparison to Locke also raises the question of the genre of this text. Sterne's book could be considered a novel; Tristram's narrative is certainly not one. Tristram Shandy actually draws on the conventions of a number of genres, if often only to poke fun at them or turn them on their heads. Ultimately, the novel recasts these conventions into a unique structure of its own. Comedy, essay, and satire are all modes the author regularly takes up. He refers to other literary works, and also pronounces his own work's independence from them. The presence of whole documents from various non-literary disciplines (like the sermon in this volume, and the memorandum in the first) contributes likewise to the generic heterogeneity of the book. The inclusion of these texts also develops a thematic concern about the clash between everyday human life and the world of esoteric scholarship. We begin to see more clearly, in this volume, that the novel is weaving together two major narrative lines: one is the sequence that involves the pivotal events of Tristram's early existence. The other traces the story of Uncle Toby, from his soldiering days to his hobby-horse and eventually to his lovelife. In this volume, the spotlight focuses on Toby while Tristram hangs suspended in the background, just on the verge of being born. As Tristram reveals more about his uncle's hobby- horse, the reader sees the ridiculous behaviors into which his obsession with fortifications carries him. We also, however, see him as genuinely kind and sympathetic: the famous anecdote of Toby and the fly invites us to empathize with him as strongly as Tristram does. Yet the overly sentimental tones in which the story is presented suggest that Sterne might be poking fun at the eighteenth-century culture of sensibility, into which Tristram's tale squarely falls. With the allusion to Toby's modesty in the first volume, and to his affair with the Widow Wadman in this volume, Tristram is outlining the trajectory Toby's part of the story will take. Conversation, in these chapters, is governed by dueling hobby-horses. As the male characters compete for the chance to vocalize their various intellectual obsessions, the dialogue degenerates, becoming at certain moments either unintelligible or utterly irrelevant. The real, consequential event that is taking place upstairs is all but forgotten in the stupidity and self-absorption of their discourse. Yet pregnancy becomes a metaphor for these (often abortive) intellectual labors: Tristram speaks of his father's failure "to be safely delivered of" his explanation about women, and he discusses Walter's speculative tendencies in similar terms: "It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it assimilates every thing to itself as proper nourishment; and, from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand." When Tristram compares Walter's philosophizing with the labor going on upstairs, we are encouraged to think of Tristram's own writing project in the same way. The birth at the center of the novel is a figure for the idea of the "brainchild"--the process of mental construction that is the major subject of the book, and of which the book itself stands as an example.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE - important quotations & the content

1. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

This is the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice and stands as one of the most famous first lines in literature. Even as it briskly introduces the arrival of Mr. Bingley at Netherfield—the event that sets the novel in motion—this sentence also offers a miniature sketch of the entire plot, which concerns itself with the pursuit of “single men in possession of a good fortune” by various female characters. The preoccupation with socially advantageous marriage in nineteenth-century English society manifests itself here, for in claiming that a single man “must be in want of a wife,” the narrator reveals that the reverse is also true: a single woman, whose socially prescribed options are quite limited, is in (perhaps desperate) want of a husband.

2. “Which do you mean?” and turning round, he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said, “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.”

These words describe Darcy's reaction at the Meryton ball in Chapter 3 to Bingley's suggestion that he dance with Elizabeth. Darcy, who sees the people of Meryton as his social inferiors, haughtily refuses to condescend to dancing with someone “not handsome enough” for him. Moreover, he does so within range of Elizabeth, thereby establishing a reputation among the entire community for pride and bad manners. His sense of social superiority, artfully exposed in this passing comment, later proves his chief difficulty in admitting his love for Elizabeth. The rudeness with which Darcy treats Elizabeth creates a negative impression of him in her mind, one that will linger for nearly half of the novel, until the underlying nobility of his character is gradually revealed to her.

3. “In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement, and the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her, immediately followed. He spoke well, but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority—of its being a degradation—of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit.

Darcy's proposal of marriage to Elizabeth in Chapter 34 demonstrates how his feelings toward her transformed since his earlier dismissal of her as “not handsome enough.” While Elizabeth rejects his proposal, this event marks the turning point in the novel. Before Darcy asks Elizabeth to marry him, she feels only contempt for him; afterward, she begins to see him in a new light, as certain incidents help illustrate the essential goodness of his character. At this moment, however, Elizabeth's eventual change of heart remains unforeseen—all she thinks of is Darcy's arrogance, his attempts to interfere in Bingley's courtship of Jane, and his alleged mistreatment of Wickham. Her judgment of Darcy stems from her initial prejudice against his snobbishness, just as his pride about his high social status hampers his attempt to express his affection. As the above quote makes clear, he spends more time emphasizing her lower rank and unsuitability for marriage to him than he does complimenting her or pledging his love. “He was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride,” the narrator states; Darcy must prioritize love over his sense of superiority before he is worthy of Elizabeth's hand.

4. They gradually ascended for half a mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills;—and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal, nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place where nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them warm in her admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!

These lines open Chapter 43 and provide Elizabeth's introduction to Darcy's grand estate at Pemberley. Her visit to Darcy's home, which occupies a central place in the narrative, operates as a catalyst for her growing attraction toward its owner. In her conversations with the housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds, Elizabeth hears testimonials of Darcy's wonderful generosity and his kindness as a master; when she encounters Darcy himself, while walking through Pemberley's grounds, he seems altogether changed and his previous arrogance has diminished remarkably. This initial description of the building and grounds at Pemberley serves as a symbol of Darcy's character. The “stream of some natural importance . . . swelled into greater” reminds the reader of his pride, but the fact that it lacks “any artificial appearance” indicates his basic honesty, as does the fact that the stream is neither “formal, nor falsely adorned.” Elizabeth's delight, and her sudden epiphany about the pleasure that being mistress of Pemberley must hold, prefigure her later joy in Darcy's continued devotion.

5. Elizabeth was much too embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, “You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.” Elizabeth feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances.

This proposal and Elizabeth's acceptance mark the climax of the novel, occurring in Chapter 58. Austen famously prefers not to stage successful proposals in full, and the reader may be disappointed in the anticlimactic manner in which the narrator relates Elizabeth's acceptance. It is important to remember, however, that the proposal and acceptance are almost a foregone conclusion by this point. Darcy's intervention on behalf of Lydia makes obvious his continuing devotion to Elizabeth, and the shocking appearance of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in the previous chapter, with her haughty attempts to forestall the engagement, serves to suggest strongly that a second proposal from Darcy is imminent. The clunky language with which the narrator summarizes Elizabeth's acceptance serves a specific purpose, as it captures the one moment of joyful incoherence for this supremely well-spoken character. She accepts Darcy's proposal “immediately,” the narrator relates, but “not very fluently.” As Elizabeth allows herself to admit that her love has supplanted her long-standing prejudice, her control of language breaks down. The reader is left to imagine, with some delight, the ever-clever Elizabeth fumbling for words to express her irrepressible happiness.

Themes

Love

Pride and Prejudice contains one of the most cherished love stories in English literature: the courtship between Darcy and Elizabeth. As in any good love story, the lovers must elude and overcome numerous stumbling blocks, beginning with the tensions caused by the lovers' own personal qualities. Elizabeth's pride makes her misjudge Darcy on the basis of a poor first impression, while Darcy's prejudice against Elizabeth's poor social standing blinds him, for a time, to her many virtues. (Of course, one could also say that Elizabeth is guilty of prejudice and Darcy of pride—the title cuts both ways.) Austen, meanwhile, poses countless smaller obstacles to the realization of the love between Elizabeth and Darcy, including Lady Catherine's attempt to control her nephew, Miss Bingley's snobbery, Mrs. Bennet's idiocy, and Wickham's deceit. In each case, anxieties about social connections, or the desire for better social connections, interfere with the workings of love. Darcy and Elizabeth's realization of a mutual and tender love seems to imply that Austen views love as something independent of these social forces, as something that can be captured if only an individual is able to escape the warping effects of hierarchical society. Austen does sound some more realist (or, one could say, cynical) notes about love, using the character of Charlotte Lucas, who marries the buffoon Mr. Collins for his money, to demonstrate that the heart does not always dictate marriage. Yet with her central characters, Austen suggests that true love is a force separate from society and one that can conquer even the most difficult of circumstances.

Reputation

Pride and Prejudice depicts a society in which a woman's reputation is of the utmost importance. A woman is expected to behave in certain ways. Stepping outside the social norms makes her vulnerable to ostracism. This theme appears in the novel, when Elizabeth walks to Netherfield and arrives with muddy skirts, to the shock of the reputation-conscious Miss Bingley and her friends. At other points, the ill-mannered, ridiculous behavior of Mrs. Bennet gives her a bad reputation with the more refined (and snobbish) Darcys and Bingleys. Austen pokes gentle fun at the snobs in these examples, but later in the novel, when Lydia elopes with Wickham and lives with him out of wedlock, the author treats reputation as a very serious matter. By becoming Wickham's lover without benefit of marriage, Lydia clearly places herself outside the social pale, and her disgrace threatens the entire Bennet family. The fact that Lydia's judgment, however terrible, would likely have condemned the other Bennet sisters to marriageless lives seems grossly unfair. Why should Elizabeth's reputation suffer along with Lydia's? Darcy's intervention on the Bennets' behalf thus becomes all the more generous, but some readers might resent that such an intervention was necessary at all. If Darcy's money had failed to convince Wickham to marry Lydia, would Darcy have still married Elizabeth? Does his transcendence of prejudice extend that far? The happy ending of Pride and Prejudice is certainly emotionally satisfying, but in many ways it leaves the theme of reputation, and the importance placed on reputation, unexplored. One can ask of Pride and Prejudice, to what extent does it critique social structures, and to what extent does it simply accept their inevitability?

Class

The theme of class is related to reputation, in that both reflect the strictly regimented nature of life for the middle and upper classes in Regency England. The lines of class are strictly drawn. While the Bennets, who are middle class, may socialize with the upper-class Bingleys and Darcys, they are clearly their social inferiors and are treated as such. Austen satirizes this kind of class-consciousness, particularly in the character of Mr. Collins, who spends most of his time toadying to his upper-class patron, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Though Mr. Collins offers an extreme example, he is not the only one to hold such views. His conception of the importance of class is shared, among others, by Mr. Darcy, who believes in the dignity of his lineage; Miss Bingley, who dislikes anyone not as socially accepted as she is; and Wickham, who will do anything he can to get enough money to raise himself into a higher station. Mr. Collins's views are merely the most extreme and obvious. The satire directed at Mr. Collins is therefore also more subtly directed at the entire social hierarchy and the conception of all those within it at its correctness, in complete disregard of other, more worthy virtues. Through the Darcy-Elizabeth and Bingley-Jane marriages, Austen shows the power of love and happiness to overcome class boundaries and prejudices, thereby implying that such prejudices are hollow, unfeeling, and unproductive. Of course, this whole discussion of class must be made with the understanding that Austen herself is often criticized as being a classist: she doesn't really represent anyone from the lower classes; those servants she does portray are generally happy with their lot. Austen does criticize class structure but only a limited slice of that structure.

Motifs

Courtship

In a sense, Pride and Prejudice is the story of two courtships—those between Darcy and Elizabeth and between Bingley and Jane. Within this broad structure appear other, smaller courtships: Mr. Collins's aborted wooing of Elizabeth, followed by his successful wooing of Charlotte Lucas; Miss Bingley's unsuccessful attempt to attract Darcy; Wickham's pursuit first of Elizabeth, then of the never-seen Miss King, and finally of Lydia. Courtship therefore takes on a profound, if often unspoken, importance in the novel. Marriage is the ultimate goal, courtship constitutes the real working-out of love. Courtship becomes a sort of forge of a person's personality, and each courtship becomes a microcosm for different sorts of love (or different ways to abuse love as a means to social advancement).

Journeys

Nearly every scene in Pride and Prejudice takes place indoors, and the action centers around the Bennet home in the small village of Longbourn. Nevertheless, journeys—even short ones—function repeatedly as catalysts for change in the novel. Elizabeth's first journey, by which she intends simply to visit Charlotte and Mr. Collins, brings her into contact with Mr. Darcy, and leads to his first proposal. Her second journey takes her to Derby and Pemberley, where she fans the growing flame of her affection for Darcy. The third journey, meanwhile, sends various people in pursuit of Wickham and Lydia, and the journey ends with Darcy tracking them down and saving the Bennet family honor, in the process demonstrating his continued devotion to Elizabeth.

Symbols

Pemberley

Pride and Prejudice is remarkably free of explicit symbolism, which perhaps has something to do with the novel's reliance on dialogue over description. Nevertheless, Pemberley, Darcy's estate, sits at the center of the novel, literally and figuratively, as a geographic symbol of the man who owns it. Elizabeth visits it at a time when her feelings toward Darcy are beginning to warm; she is enchanted by its beauty and charm, and by the picturesque countryside, just as she will be charmed, increasingly, by the gifts of its owner. Austen makes the connection explicit when she describes the stream that flows beside the mansion. “In front,” she writes, “a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance.” Darcy possesses a “natural importance” that is “swelled” by his arrogance, but which coexists with a genuine honesty and lack of “artificial appearance.” Like the stream, he is neither “formal, nor falsely adorned.” Pemberley even offers a symbol-within-a-symbol for their budding romance: when Elizabeth encounters Darcy on the estate, she is crossing a small bridge, suggesting the broad gulf of misunderstanding and class prejudice that lies between them—and the bridge that their love will build across it.

The Content

Chapters 1-4

Summary: Chapters 1-2

The news that a wealthy young gentleman named Charles Bingley has rented the manor known as Netherfield Park causes a great stir in the neighboring village of Longbourn, especially in the Bennet household. The Bennets have five unmarried daughters, and Mrs. Bennet, a foolish and fussy gossip, is the sort who agrees with the novel's opening words: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” She sees Bingley's arrival as an opportunity for one of the girls to obtain a wealthy spouse, and she therefore insists that her husband call on the new arrival immediately. Mr. Bennet torments his family by pretending to have no interest in doing so, but he eventually meets with Mr. Bingley without their knowing. When he reveals to Mrs. Bennet and his daughters that he has made their new neighbor's acquaintance, they are overjoyed and excited.

Summary: Chapters 3-4

Eager to learn more, Mrs. Bennet and the girls question Mr. Bennet incessantly. A few days later, Mr. Bingley returns the visit, though he does not meet Mr. Bennet's daughters. The Bennets invite him to dinner shortly afterward, but he is called away to London. Soon, however, he returns to Netherfield Park with his two sisters, his brother-in-law, and a friend named Darcy. Mr. Bingley and his guests go to a ball in the nearby town of Meryton. The Bennet sisters attend the ball with their mother. The eldest daughter, Jane, dances twice with Bingley. Within Elizabeth's hearing, Bingley exclaims to Darcy that Jane is “the most beautiful creature” he has ever beheld. Bingley suggests that Darcy dance with Elizabeth, but Darcy refuses, saying, “she is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.” He proceeds to declare that he has no interest in women who are “slighted by other men.” Elizabeth takes an immediate and understandable disliking to Darcy. Because of Darcy's comments and refusal to dance with anyone not rich and well bred, the neighborhood takes a similar dislike; it declares Bingley, on the other hand, to be quite “amiable.” At the end of the evening, the Bennet women return to their house, where Mrs. Bennet regales her husband with stories from the evening until he insists that she be silent. Upstairs, Jane relates to Elizabeth her surprise that Bingley danced with her twice, and Elizabeth replies that Jane is unaware of her own beauty. Both girls agree that Bingley's sisters are not well-mannered, but whereas Jane insists that they are charming in close conversation, Elizabeth continues to harbor a dislike for them. The narrator then provides the reader with Bingley's background: he inherited a hundred thousand pounds from his father, but for now, in spite of his sisters' complaints, he lives as a tenant. His friendship with Darcy is “steady,” despite the contrast in their characters, illustrated in their respective reactions to the Meryton ball. Bingley, cheerful and sociable, has an excellent time and is taken with Jane; Darcy, more clever but less tactful, finds the people dull and even criticizes Jane for smiling too often (Bingley's sisters, on the other hand, find Jane to be “a sweet girl,” and Bingley therefore feels secure in his good opinion of her).

Analysis: Chapters 1-4

The opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice—“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”—establishes the centrality of advantageous marriage, a fundamental social value of Regency England. The arrival of Mr. Bingley (and news of his fortune) is the event that sets the novel in motion. He delivers the prospect of a marriage of wealth and good connections for the eager Bennet girls. The opening sentence has a subtle, unstated significance. In its declarative and hopeful claim that a wealthy man must be looking for a wife, it hides beneath its surface the truth of such matters: a single woman must be in want of a husband, especially a wealthy one. The first chapter consists almost entirely of dialogue, a typical instance of Austen's technique of using the manner in which characters express themselves to reveal their traits and attitudes. Its last paragraph, in which the narrator describes Mr. Bennet as a “mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice,” and his wife as “a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper,” simply confirms the character assessments that the reader has already made based on their conversation: Mrs. Bennett embodies ill breeding and is prone to monotone hysteria; Mr. Bennet is a wit who retreats from his wife's overly serious demeanor. There is little physical description of the characters in Pride and Prejudice, so the reader's perception of them is shaped largely by their words. Darcy makes the importance of the verbal explicit at the end of the novel when he tells Elizabeth that he was first attracted to her by “the liveliness of [her] mind.” The ball at Meryton is important to the structure of the novel since it brings the two couples—Darcy and Elizabeth, Bingley and Jane—together for the first time. Austen's original title for the novel was First Impressions, and these individuals' first impressions at the ball initiate the contrasting patterns of the two principal male-female relationships. The relative effortlessness with which Bingley and Jane interact is indicative of their easygoing natures; the obstacles that the novel places in the way of their happiness are in no way caused by Jane or Bingley themselves. Indeed, their feelings for one another seem to change little after the initial attraction—there is no development of their love, only the delay of its consummation. Darcy's bad behavior, on the other hand, immediately betrays the pride and sense of social superiority that will most hinder him from finding his way to Elizabeth. His snub of her creates a mutual dislike, in contrast to the mutual attraction between Jane and Bingley. Further, while Darcy's opinion of Elizabeth changes within a few chapters, her (and the reader's) sense of him as self-important and arrogant remains unaltered until midway through the novel.

Chapters 5-8

Summary: Chapters 5-6

The Bennets' neighbors are Sir William Lucas, his wife, and their children. The eldest of these children, Charlotte, is Elizabeth's closest friend. The morning after the ball, the women of the two families discuss the evening. They decide that while Bingley danced with Charlotte first, he considered Jane to be the prettiest of the local girls. The discussion then turns to Mr. Darcy, and Elizabeth states that she will never dance with him; everyone agrees that Darcy, despite his family and fortune, is too proud to be likable. Bingley's sisters exchange visits with the Bennets and attempt to befriend Elizabeth and Jane. Meanwhile, Bingley continues to pay attention to Jane, and Elizabeth decides that her sister is “in a way to be very much in love” with him but is concealing it very well. She discusses this with Charlotte Lucas, who comments that if Jane conceals it too well, Bingley may lose interest. Elizabeth says it is better for a young woman to be patient until she is sure of her feelings; Charlotte disagrees, saying that it is best not to know too much about the faults of one's future husband. Darcy finds himself attracted to Elizabeth. He begins listening to her conversations at parties, much to her surprise. At one party at the Lucas house, Sir William attempts to persuade Elizabeth and Darcy to dance together, but Elizabeth refuses. Shortly afterward, Darcy tells Bingley's unmarried sister that “Miss Elizabeth Bennet” is now the object of his admiration.

Summary: Chapters 7-8

The reader learns that Mr. Bennet's property is entailed, meaning that it must pass to a man after Mr. Bennet's death and cannot be inherited by any of his daughters. His two youngest children, Catherine (nicknamed Kitty) and Lydia, entertain themselves by beginning a series of visits to their mother's sister, Mrs. Phillips, in the town of Meryton, and gossiping about the militia stationed there. One night, while the Bennets are discussing the soldiers over dinner, a note arrives inviting Jane to Netherfield Park for a day. Mrs. Bennet conspires to send Jane by horse rather than coach, knowing that it will rain and that Jane will consequently have to spend the night at Mr. Bingley's house. Unfortunately, their plan works out too well: Jane is soaked, falls ill, and is forced to remain at Netherfield as an invalid. Elizabeth goes to visit her, hiking over on foot. When she arrives with soaked and dirty stockings she causes quite a stir and is certain that the Bingleys hold her in contempt for her soiled clothes. Jane insists that her sister spend the night, and the Bingleys consent. That night, while Elizabeth visits Jane, the Bingley sisters poke fun at the Bennets. Darcy and Mr. Bingley defend them, though Darcy concedes, first, that he would not want his sister ever to go out on such a walking expedition and, second, that the Bennets' lack of wealth and family make them poor marriage prospects. When Elizabeth returns to the room, the discussion turns to Darcy's library at his ancestral home of Pemberley and then to Darcy's opinions on what constitutes an “accomplished woman.” After he and Bingley list the attributes that such a woman would possess, Elizabeth declares that she “never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe, united,” implying that Darcy is far too demanding.

Analysis: Chapters 5-8

The introduction of the Lucases allows Austen to comment on the pretensions that accompany social rank. Recently knighted, Sir William is described as having felt his new distinction “a little too strongly” and moved away from town in order to “think with pleasure of his own importance.” Sir William remains a sympathetic figure despite his snobbery, but the same cannot be said of Bingley's sister, whose class-consciousness becomes increasingly evident. Awareness of class difference is a pressing reality in Pride and Prejudice. This awareness colors the attitudes that characters of different social status feel toward one another. This awareness cuts both ways: as Darcy and Elizabeth demonstrate, the well-born and the socially inferior prove equally likely to harbor prejudices that blind them to others' true natures. Charlotte Lucas's observation that Jane does not display her affection for Bingley illuminates the careful structure of the novel. Darcy notices the same reticence in Jane, but he assumes that she is not in love with Bingley. Charlotte's conversation with Elizabeth, then, foreshadows Darcy's justification for separating Bingley from Jane. Similarly, the author prepares the reader for subsequent developments in other relationships: Charlotte's belief that it is better not to know one's husband too well foreshadows her “practical” marriage to Collins, while Elizabeth's more romantic view anticipates her refusal of two proposals that might have been accepted by others. As in Sense and Sensibility, Austen emphasizes the matter of entailment in order to create a sense of urgency about the search for a husband. Though Jane is the eldest child in a fairly well-off family, her status as a woman precludes her from enjoying the success her father has experienced. When her father dies, the estate will turn over to Mr. Collins, the oldest male relative. The mention of entailment stresses not just the value society places on making a good marriage but also the way that the structures of society make a good marriage a prerequisite for a “good” life (the connotation of “good” being wealthy). Austen thus offers commentary on the plight of women. Through both law and prescribed gender roles, Austen's society leaves women few options for the advancement or betterment of their situations. Language proves of central importance to relationships in Pride and Prejudice, as Austen uses conversation to reveal character. The interactions between Darcy and Elizabeth primarily take the forms of banter and argument, and Elizabeth's words provide Darcy access to a deeper aspect of her character, one that appeals to him and allows him to begin to move past his initial prejudice. While their disagreement over the possibility of a “perfect” woman reinforces his apparent egotism and self-absorption, it also gives Elizabeth a chance to shine in debate. Whereas she does not live up to Darcy's physical and social requirements for a perfect woman, she exceeds those concerning the “liveliness” of the perfect woman's mind. The novel begins to undermine the reader's negative impression of Darcy by contrasting him with Miss Bingley. Though his arrogance remains unpleasant, he is unwilling to join in Miss Bingley's snobbish dismissals of Elizabeth and her family. Like Lady Catherine de Bourgh later on, Miss Bingley serves as the voice of “society,” criticizing Elizabeth's middle-class status and lack of social connections. Also like Lady Catherine, her primary motivation is jealousy: just as Lady Catherine wants Darcy to marry her niece, Miss Bingley wants him for herself. Both women exhibit a spite colored by self-interest.

Chapters 9-12

Summary: Chapters 9-10

The next day, Mrs. Bennet arrives with Lydia and Catherine to visit Jane. To Elizabeth's dismay, Mrs. Bennet spends much of her visit trying to convince Bingley to remain at Netherfield. During her stay, Mrs. Bennet makes a general fool of herself, first by comparing country life to the city and then by prattling on about Jane's beauty. Near the end of the visit, fifteen-year-old Lydia asks Bingley whether he will hold a ball at Netherfield Park. He replies that he must wait until Jane is fully recovered to hold a ball. In the evening, Elizabeth observes Miss Bingley piling compliments upon Darcy as he writes to his sister. The conversation turns to Bingley's style of letter writing and then to Bingley's impetuous behavior, which entangles Elizabeth and Darcy in an argument over the virtues of accepting the advice of friends. Afterward, Miss Bingley plays “a lively Scotch air” on the pianoforte, and Elizabeth again refuses to dance with Darcy. Her refusal only increases his admiration, and he considers that “were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger.” Miss Bingley, observing his attraction, becomes jealous and spends the following day making fun of Elizabeth's family, inviting Darcy to imagine them connected to his proud and respectable line. That night, Miss Bingley begins reading in imitation of Darcy—a further attempt to impress him. She chooses her book merely because it is the second volume of the one that Darcy is reading. Of course, being uninterested in literature, she is quickly bored and says loudly, “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!—When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

Summary: Chapters 11-12

Miss Bingley spends the following night in similar fashion, trying to attract Darcy's attention: first by reading, then by criticizing the foolishness of balls, and finally by walking about the room. Only when she asks Elizabeth to walk with her, however, does Darcy look up, and then the two women discuss the possibility of finding something to ridicule in his character. He states that his only fault is resentment—“my good opinion once lost is lost forever.” Elizabeth replies that it is hard to laugh at a “propensity to hate every body,” and Miss Bingley, observing Elizabeth's monopolization of Darcy's attention once again, insists on music. The next morning, Elizabeth writes to her mother to say that she and Jane are ready to return home. Mrs. Bennet wishes Jane to stay longer with Bingley, and she refuses to send the carriage. Elizabeth, anxious to be away, insists on borrowing Bingley's carriage and she and her sister leave Netherfield Park. Darcy is glad to see them go, as Elizabeth attracts him “more than he liked,” considering her unsuitability as a prospect for matrimony.

Analysis: Chapters 9-12

The continuation of Elizabeth's visit to Netherfield accentuates the respective attitudes of Miss Bingley and Darcy toward their guest: jealousy on the part of the former, admiration on that of the latter. Elizabeth poses a separate threat to each of them. Miss Bingley fears her as a rival for Darcy's affection, and Darcy fears that he will succumb to his growing attraction to her despite the impracticality of marriage to one of such inferior rank and family. The anxiety created by class-consciousness thereby becomes a self-perpetuating, warping institution. Darcy, concerned that he may affect his own reputation by linking it to the poor reputation of another, tries to avoid talking to Elizabeth entirely on the final day she spends at Netherfield. He must tie himself up in a sort of logical knot; class-consciousness transforms Elizabeth, who is perfect for him, as something to be feared. Miss Bingley demonstrates how, once a class system develops, it maintains its coherence. Miss Bingley feels threatened by Elizabeth and knows she cannot compete with Elizabeth on the basis of her virtues or talents. Her means of defense is to bring class-anxiety to bear; by the luck of her birth, Miss Bingley has been stamped as superior. She now uses the entire social institution of class to maintain her superiority, even though all logic and experience show that superiority to be a lie. In these chapters, the narrator portrays Miss Bingley as Elizabeth's opposite—foolish where the heroine is quick-witted, desperate for Darcy's attention while Elizabeth disdains him. Bingley's sister spends her energy attempting to conform to what she perceives to be Darcy's idea of a perfect woman. Her embarrassingly obvious flirtation makes her a figure of amusement for the reader—she is a parody of the man-hungry, snobbish, upper-class woman. By toadying up to Darcy, she ends up losing him to Elizabeth, despite the fact that Elizabeth does not make any attempt to appeal to him. By showing Miss Bingley as a scheming rival for Darcy's love whose tactics are uninspired, the novel highlights Elizabeth's originality and independence of spirit, and suggests that these, not the laundry list of accomplishments that Darcy gives, are the qualities that Darcy truly desires in a woman. His rejection of Miss Bingley's advances, then, serves to improve the reader's opinion of Darcy, as his ability to admire a social inferior separates him from ultra-elitist snobs such as Miss Bingley.

Chapters 13-17

Summary: Chapters 13-15

The morning after his daughters return from Netherfield, Mr. Bennet informs his wife of an imminent visit from a Mr. William Collins, who will inherit Mr. Bennet's property. Mr. Collins, the reader learns from a letter he sends to the Bennets, is a clergyman whom the wealthy noblewoman Lady Catherine de Bourgh has recently selected to serve her parish. His letter, as Mr. Bennet puts it, contains “a mixture of servility and self-importance,” and his personality is similar. He arrives at Longbourn and apologizes for being entitled to the Bennets' property but spends much of his time admiring and complimenting the house that will one day be his. At dinner, Mr. Collins lavishes praise on Lady Catherine de Bourgh and her daughter, a lovely invalid who will one day inherit the de Bourgh fortune. After the meal, he is asked to read to the girls, but he refuses to read a novel and reads from a book of sermons instead. Lydia becomes so bored that she interrupts his reading with more gossip about the soldiers. Mr. Collins is offended and abandons the reading, choosing to play backgammon with Mr. Bennet. Mr. Collins is in search of a wife and when Mrs. Bennet hints that Jane may soon be engaged, he fixes his attention on Elizabeth. The day after his arrival, he accompanies the sisters to the town of Meryton, where they encounter one of Lydia's officer friends, Mr. Denny. Denny introduces his friend, Mr. Wickham, who has just joined the militia, and the young women find Wickham charming. While they converse, Darcy and Bingley happen by, and Elizabeth notices that Wickham and Darcy are extremely cold to each other. Darcy and Bingley depart, and the company pays a visit to Mrs. Phillips, Mrs. Bennet's sister, who invites the Bennets and Mr. Collins to dine at her house the following night. The girls convince her to invite Wickham as well. They return home and Mr. Collins spends the evening telling Mrs. Bennet how greatly her sister's good breeding impresses him.

Summary: Chapters 16-17

At the Phillips's dinner party, Wickham proves the center of attention and Mr. Collins fades into the background. Eventually, Wickham and Elizabeth find themselves in conversation, and she hears his story: he had planned on entering the ministry, rather than the militia, but was unable to do so because he lacked money. Darcy's father, Wickham says, had intended to provide for him, but Darcy used a loophole in the will to keep the money for himself. Elizabeth, who instinctively likes and trusts Wickham, accepts his story immediately. Later in the evening, while she is watching Mr. Collins, Wickham tells her that Darcy is Lady Catherine de Bourgh's nephew. He describes Lady Catherine as “dictatorial and insolent.” Elizabeth leaves the party thinking of nothing “but Mr. Wickham, and what he had told her, all the way home.” She decides that Darcy deserves nothing but contempt. Elizabeth expresses these feelings to Jane the next day, and Jane defends Darcy, saying that there is probably a misunderstanding between the two men. Elizabeth will have none of it, and when Bingley invites the neighborhood to a ball the following Tuesday, she looks forward to seeing Wickham. Unfortunately, she is forced to promise the first two dances to Mr. Collins.

Analysis: Chapters 13-17

These chapters introduce Mr. Collins, the target of Jane Austen's greatest satire, and Wickham, the novel's most villainous character. Collins, a parody of a serious cleric, serves as a vehicle for criticism of the practice of entailment, by which the law forces Mr. Bennet to leave his property to such a ridiculous man instead of his own daughters. Collins functions as another example of Austen's criticism of snobbery. He differs, however, from Miss Bingley and Lady de Bourgh in that he is not snobbish because of his own rank; rather, he is snobbish by association. He is a man who believes wholeheartedly in class, even though he gains only the second helpings of its benefits. And in order to receive those benefits, he must toady himself to Lady de Bourgh. Rather than feel embarrassment at his behavior, he believes so strongly in the value conferred upon a person by class that he is full of self-importance because he has a noblewoman as his patroness. Additionally, Collins's long, foolish speeches render him a prime example of Austen's talent for making stupidity comical. His absurdity increases as the story progresses, but even when the reader first meets him, he reveals himself to be so full of self-importance and exaggerated politeness that Mr. Bennet cannot resist making fun of him (Elizabeth's father suggests that Collins's pretense runs even deeper when he asks if his compliments are thought up in advance). With no sense of how foolish he sounds—none of the ridiculous characters in Pride and Prejudice are aware of their own absurdity—Mr. Collins replies that his flattering remarks “arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and though I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible.” The reader can only agree with Mr. Bennet that “his cousin was as absurd” as he had hoped. The arrival of Collins immediately precedes the first appearance of Wickham, and the clergyman's foolishness contrasts with Wickham's ability to charm. Wickham himself is one of the only male characters described by Austen as being extremely good-looking: his appeal exists only on the surface, but it is an attractive surface. This superficial appeal is crucial because it makes his story about Darcy's mistreatment of him believable, at least to Elizabeth. Darcy's pride has been obvious from his first appearance in the novel, but Elizabeth's decision to trust Wickham introduces her “prejudice” into the story. The reader may wonder about a man who tells self-pitying stories about his own life to a woman he barely knows, but Elizabeth seems to have few doubts—a testament, again, to the power of “first impressions” that is so important in the novel. She dislikes Darcy the first time she meets him. In contrast, she likes Wickham at their first acquaintance, leading her to believe his story even without hearing Darcy's side of it, and against Jane's greater sensibility. These chapters also bring the reader to Mrs. Phillips's house for the first time. Mrs. Phillips is less shrill than her sister, Mrs. Bennet, but remains another low-class connection for the Bennet sisters to live down. Mr. Phillips is a Meryton attorney, which places him in a significantly lower station than the Darcys and Bingleys of the world.

Chapters 18-23

Summary: Chapter 18

Much to Elizabeth's dismay, Wickham does not attend the ball. Mr. Denny tells Elizabeth and Lydia that Darcy's presence keeps Wickham away from Netherfield. Elizabeth's unhappiness increases during two clumsy dances with Mr. Collins and reaches its peak when she finds herself dancing with Darcy. Their conversation is awkward, especially when she mentions Wickham, a subject Darcy clearly wishes to avoid. At the end of the dance, Elizabeth encounters Miss Bingley, who warns her not to trust Wickham. Elizabeth assumes that Bingley's sister is only being spiteful, however, and chooses to ignore the warning. Jane then tells her sister that she has asked Bingley for information about Wickham. But everything Bingley knows about the officer comes from Darcy and is therefore (in Elizabeth's mind) suspect. Mr. Collins, meanwhile, realizes that Darcy is related to his patroness, Lady Catherine. In spite of Elizabeth's best attempts to dissuade him, he introduces himself. Darcy treats Mr. Collins with contempt, but Mr. Collins is so obtuse that he does not notice. At supper, Mrs. Bennet discusses the hoped-for union of Bingley and Jane so loudly that Elizabeth criticizes her, noting that Darcy is listening. Mrs. Bennet, however, ignores Elizabeth and continues rambling about the impending marriage. At the end of the meal, Mary performs a terrible song for the company, and Mr. Collins delivers a speech of epic and absurd pomposity. Elizabeth feels that her family has completely embarrassed itself.

Summary: Chapters 19-21

The next day, Mr. Collins proposes marriage to Elizabeth, assuming that she will be overjoyed. She turns him down as gently as possible, but he insists that she will change her mind shortly. Mrs. Bennet, who regards a match between her daughter and Mr. Collins as advantageous, is infuriated. She tells Elizabeth that if she does not marry Mr. Collins she will never see her again, and she asks Mr. Bennet to order Elizabeth to marry the clergyman. Her husband refuses and, befitting his wit and his desire to annoy his wife, actually informs his daughter that if she were to marry Mr. Collins, he would refuse to see her again.

A few days after the refused proposal, Elizabeth encounters Wickham in Meryton. He apologizes for his absence from the ball and walks her home, where Elizabeth introduces him to her parents. That same day, a letter arrives for Jane from Miss Bingley, informing her that Bingley and his party are returning to the city indefinitely and implying that Bingley plans to marry Darcy's sister, Georgiana. Elizabeth comforts Jane, telling her that this turn of events is all Miss Bingley's doing, not her brother's, and that Bingley will return to Netherfield.

Summary: Chapters 22-23

Suddenly, news arrives that Mr. Collins has proposed to Charlotte Lucas and that Elizabeth's friend has accepted. Elizabeth is shocked, despite Charlotte's insistence that the match is the best for which she could hope. Mrs. Bennet, of course, is furious with her daughter for allowing a husband to escape her, and as the days go by with no word from Bingley, Jane's marriage prospects, too, begin to appear limited.

Analysis: Chapters 18-23

Elizabeth's prejudice against Darcy survives these chapters, despite Miss Bingley's warning. It is difficult to blame Elizabeth for not seeing the truth, however. Austen has established Miss Bingley as a spiteful, treacherous figure in the preceding chapters, and Elizabeth has no reason to value her warning about Wickham more than the trust she instinctively places in him. Elizabeth's failure to ask Darcy about the matter directly while they are dancing is less excusable, however: she brings the issue up in a manner that assumes Wickham to be telling the truth (an assumption that is her key error). Unsurprisingly, Darcy is unwilling to talk given those terms. The absurdity of Collins's snobbery is played to the hilt when he approaches Darcy and fails to notice the contempt with which Darcy replies to his introduction. Disdain and rejection do not have a place in Mr. Collins's perception of himself, by which his connection to Lady Catherine guarantees him a lofty place in society. His behavior in proposing to Elizabeth further illustrates his obtuseness. Austen tends to describe proposals in full only when they meet with rejection, primarily because rejections have so many comic and dramatic possibilities. Elizabeth's later rebuff of Darcy constitutes a thrilling moment in the story; here, Mr. Collins's lengthy speech is an opportunity for Austen to make him completely ridiculous. His refusal to accept “no” as an answer is, of course, unsurprising. His complete self-absorption blinds him to any answer other than “yes.” Mr. Collins's subsequent proposal to Charlotte Lucas, on the other hand, is far from comic because Charlotte accepts. Readers often argue that Pride and Prejudice and the rest of Austen's novels are unrealistic in their frequent portrayals of happy marriages. Charlotte's marriage to Collins injects a grim note into the romantic happiness that Elizabeth will later find. Indeed, one can interpret Charlotte's fate as a component of Austen's critique of a male-dominated society that leaves unmarried women without a future. Whereas Elizabeth is an idealist who will not marry solely for money, to either a fool (Collins) or a man she dislikes (Darcy, at first), Charlotte, six years older than her friend and lacking a fortune, is a pragmatist: she must capitalize on any opportunity that presents itself in order to avoid the societal scorn that accompanies old maid status. As Austen says of Charlotte: she “accepted [Mr. Collins] solely from the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment.” While the novel ultimately delivers Jane and Elizabeth to happiness, at this point in the story it seems as though the Bennet girls are losing out in their respective pursuits of husbands. When Charlotte says, “I am not a romantic you know . . . I ask only a comfortable home,” it seems as though romanticism compels Elizabeth to ask for too much, to seek more than her society is willing to grant her. Jane must now cope with the snobbery of Miss Bingley, who is apparently not content to disparage the Bennets solely orally, just as Elizabeth earlier faced Miss Bingley's scorn in reaction to Darcy's attraction to her. The suggestion in her letters that Bingley may marry Darcy's sister makes it clear that Miss Bingley, like Darcy himself, considers Jane too “low” to marry her brother. Indeed, while Darcy is later blamed for the temporary separation of Bingley and Jane, Miss Bingley's words and behavior suggest that she, too, plays a role in it.

Chapters 24-26

Summary: Chapters 24-25

Miss Bingley sends another letter, this one praising the beauty and charm of Darcy's sister. The letter further states that Bingley will remain in London all winter, putting an end to the Bennets's hopes that he might return to Netherfield. Elizabeth is very upset by this news and complains to Jane that people lack “merit or sense,” referring to Bingley for apparently abandoning Jane, and to Charlotte Lucas for agreeing to marry Mr. Collins. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bennet's hopes of seeing her daughters wed fade rapidly. Mr. Bennet seems amused: he encourages Elizabeth's interest in Wickham, so that she, like her sister, can be “crossed in love.” Mrs. Bennet's brother, Mr. Gardiner, comes to stay with the family. Immediately recognizing Jane's sadness, the Gardiners invite Jane to accompany them back to London when they finish their visit, hoping that a change in scenery might raise Jane's spirits. Jane accepts, excited also that in London she might get an opportunity to see Mr. Bingley. In the course of evenings spent with various friends and the military officers, Mrs. Gardiner notices that Elizabeth and Wickham, though not in any serious sort of love, show a definite preference for each other. Because of his lack of money, Mrs. Gardiner does not think of Wickham as a good match for Elizabeth, though she is fond of Wickham's stories of his life around Darcy's estate at Pemberley, which is near where Mrs. Gardiner grew up.

Summary: Chapter 26

At the first opportunity, Mrs. Gardiner warns Elizabeth that Wickham's lack of money makes him an unsuitable match. She further says that Elizabeth should be careful not to embarrass her father by becoming attached to Wickham. Elizabeth responds carefully, stating that she will try to keep Wickham from falling in love with her and that she devoutly wishes not to upset her father, but concluding that all she can do is her best. After Jane and the Gardiners depart for London, Mr. Collins returns from a visit to his parish for his wedding. Elizabeth reluctantly promises to visit Charlotte after her marriage. Meanwhile, Jane's letters from London recount how she called on Miss Bingley and how Miss Bingley was cold to her and visited her only briefly in return. Jane believes that Bingley's sister views her as an obstacle to her brother's marrying Georgiana Darcy. Mrs. Gardiner writes to Elizabeth to ask about Wickham, and Elizabeth replies that his attentions have shifted to another girl, a Miss King, who has just inherited a large fortune. This turn of events touches Elizabeth's heart “but slightly . . . and her vanity was satisfied with believing that she would have been his only choice, had fortune permitted it.” The narrator then goes on to point out that Elizabeth's equanimity about Wickham trying to marry for money is somewhat out of joint with her disgust that Charlotte would do the same thing. As for Elizabeth, the very limited pain that Wickham's transfer of affections causes her makes her believe she was never in love with him.

Analysis: Chapters 24-26

The first three chapters of Book Two introduce the Gardiners, who prove to be Elizabeth's most sensible relatives. They often seem to act as surrogate parents to Jane and Elizabeth. The nurturing and supportive Gardiners take Jane to London to distract her from her unhappiness over Bingley. However amusing the reader finds him, Mr. Bennet, in contrast, seems to have no real understanding of when his children even need help. He prefers withdrawing into the peace of his library to coping with the problems facing his family. In particular, Mr. Bennet's amusement at his wife's distress and his suggestion that Elizabeth develop a crush on Wickham emphasize the extent to which he has abandoned the paternal role in the family. His wit and intelligence make him a sympathetic character in many ways, but he seems to absent himself from important matters. Later in the novel, his negligence allows Lydia to go to Brighton for the summer and then to elope with Wickham. At this point in the novel, Austen compels her reader to contrast Mr. Bennet's unhelpful suggestion about Wickham with Mrs. Gardiner's recognition that the officer is not a suitable match for her niece. Mrs. Gardiner's observation about Wickham raises an interesting irony. Wickham is not suitable for Elizabeth for the same reason Elizabeth is not suitable for Darcy. Elizabeth's response to Mrs. Gardiner's warning is equivocal, suggesting first that she recognizes this irony but also that she is aware that, though social strictures on marriage might be illogical and unromantic, were she to break them she would be negatively affecting her family. Elizabeth and Austen are both saved from having to worry about this moral conundrum when Wickham shifts his affections to the suddenly wealthy Miss King. The narrator's comment that Elizabeth's feelings about Wickham's decision to marry for money do not match her feelings about Charlotte's similar decision imply that there is a double standard at work in Elizabeth's logic: though she seems to consider it acceptable for men to marry for money, she believes so strongly in love that she believes her female friends should ignore such considerations. While Elizabeth may forgive Wickham for chasing Ms. King's money, the reader is more likely to see him as a simple fortune hunter. By establishing this aspect of his character, Austen prepares the reader for the revelation that Wickham attempted to elope with Darcy's sister in order to obtain her fortune. In this seemingly minor fact, which Elizabeth herself seems to brush aside, resides a clue to Wickham's generally poor character.

Chapters 27-34

Summary: Chapters 27-29

In March, Elizabeth travels with Sir William Lucas to visit Charlotte and her new husband, Mr. Collins. On the way, they spend a night in London with Jane and the Gardiners. Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner speak about Wickham's attempts to win over Miss King. Mrs. Gardiner is critical of him, calling him a “mercenary,” but Elizabeth defends him, calling him prudent. Before Elizabeth leaves London, the Gardiners invite her to accompany them on a tour, perhaps out to the lakes. Elizabeth gleefully accepts. When Elizabeth arrives in Hunsford, the location of Mr. Collins's parish, the clergyman greets her enthusiastically, as does Charlotte. On the second day of her visit, she sees Miss de Bourgh, Lady de Bourgh's daughter, from a window. The girl is “sickly and cross,” Elizabeth decides, and she imagines with some satisfaction Darcy's marrying such an unappealing person. Miss de Bourgh invites them to dine at Rosings, a mansion that awes even Sir William Lucas with its grandeur. At dinner, Lady Catherine dominates the conversation. After the meal, she grills Elizabeth concerning her upbringing, deciding that the Bennet sisters have been badly reared. The failure of Mrs. Bennet to hire a governess, the girls' lack of musical and artistic talents, and Elizabeth's own impudence are all mentioned before the end of the evening.

Summary: Chapters 30-32

Sir William departs after a week, satisfied with his daughter's contentment. Shortly thereafter, Darcy and a cousin named Colonel Fitzwilliam visit their aunt at Rosings. When Mr. Collins pays his respects, the two men accompany him back to his parsonage and visit briefly with Elizabeth and Charlotte. Another invitation to Rosings follows, and Colonel Fitzwilliam pays special attention to Elizabeth during the dinner. After the meal, she plays the pianoforte and pokes fun at Darcy, informing Colonel Fitzwilliam of his bad behavior at the Meryton ball, at which he refused to dance with her. Lady Catherine lectures Elizabeth on the proper manner of playing the instrument, forcing Elizabeth to remain at the keyboard until the end of the evening. The next day, Darcy visits the parsonage and tells Elizabeth that Bingley is unlikely to spend much of his time at Netherfield Park in the future. The rest of their conversation is awkward, and when Darcy departs, Charlotte declares that he must be in love with Elizabeth, or he would never have called in such an odd manner. In the days that follow, both Darcy and his cousin visit frequently, however, and eventually Charlotte surmises that it is perhaps Colonel Fitzwilliam who is interested in Elizabeth.

Summary: Chapters 33-34

Elizabeth encounters Darcy and his cousin frequently in her walks through the countryside. During one conversation, Colonel Fitzwilliam mentions that Darcy claims to have recently saved a friend from an imprudent marriage. Elizabeth conjectures that the “friend” was Bingley and the “imprudent marriage” a marriage to Jane. She views Darcy as the agent of her sister's unhappiness. Alone at the parsonage, Elizabeth is still mulling over what Fitzwilliam has told her when Darcy enters and abruptly declares his love for her. His proposal of marriage dwells at length upon her social inferiority, and Elizabeth's initially polite rejection turns into an angry accusation. She demands to know if he sabotaged Jane's romance with Bingley; he admits that he did. She then repeats Wickham's accusations and declares that she thinks Darcy to be proud and selfish and that marriage to him is utterly unthinkable. Darcy grimly departs.

Analysis: Chapters 27-34

Mrs. Gardiner tends to function as the voice of reason in the novel, and her criticism of Wickham counters Elizabeth's unwillingness to question his purposes. Mrs. Gardiner ascribes a mercenary motive to Wickham's interest in Miss King, whereas Elizabeth defends him by asking her aunt “what . . . the difference [is] in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive.” This does seem a fine question, and not one her aunt can readily answer. But in asking the question, Elizabeth seems to violate her own principles—she herself has already refused to marry Mr. Collins for social advantage, and she does so again when Darcy proposes. It appears that sympathy for Wickham leads Elizabeth to betray her conscience. The visit to Rosings introduces Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who serves as another vehicle for Austen's criticism of snobbery. Lady Catherine's favorite pastime is ordering everyone else about (“Elizabeth found that nothing was beneath this great Lady's attention, which could furnish her with an occasion of dictating to others”). The only individual who dares to stand up to the haughty Lady Catherine is Elizabeth (unsurprisingly, as elsewhere she sees through the pretensions of pompous and arrogant people like Mr. Collins and Miss Bingley). When Lady Catherine criticizes the Bennet sisters' upbringing, Elizabeth defends her family, “suspect[ing] herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence.” The same dignified impertinence with which Elizabeth combats Lady Catherine's preconceptions reappears later in her refusal to let Lady Catherine prevent her from marrying Darcy. Darcy's proposal is the turning point of Pride and Prejudice. Until he asks her to marry him, Elizabeth's main preoccupation with Darcy centers around dislike; after the proposal, the novel chronicles the slow, steady growth of her love. At the moment, however, Elizabeth's attitude toward Darcy corresponds to the judgments she has already made about him. She refuses him because she thinks that he is too arrogant, part of her first impression of him at the Meryton ball, and because of the role she believes he played in disinheriting Wickham and his admitted role in disrupting the romance between Jane and Bingley. Just as Elizabeth yields to her prejudices (she has not yet heard Darcy's side of the story), Darcy allows his pride to guide him. In his proposal to Elizabeth, he spends more time emphasizing Elizabeth's lower rank than actually asking her to marry him (“he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride”). This turning point thus occurs with the two central characters occupying seemingly irreconcilable emotional locations, leaving the reader, in the words of critic Douglas Bush, “almost exactly in the middle of the book, wondering if and how the chasm . . . can be bridged.”

Chapters 35-42

Summary: Chapters 35-36

The following day, Elizabeth takes a walk and runs into Darcy, who gives her a letter. He walks away, and Elizabeth begins to read it. In the letter, Darcy again admits to attempting to break Bingley's romance with Jane, but he defends himself by arguing that Jane's attachment to his friend was not yet strong enough to lead to heartbreak. He adds that he did not wish Bingley to involve himself with the social encumbrance of marrying into the Bennet family, with its lack of both wealth and propriety. In relation to Wickham, the letter states that Darcy did provide for him after his father's death and that the root of their quarrel lay in an attempt by Wickham to elope with Darcy's sister, Georgiana, in the hopes of obtaining her fortune. Elizabeth is stunned by this revelation, and while she dismisses some of what Darcy says about Jane and Bingley, his account of Wickham's doings causes her to reappraise the officer and decide that she was probably wrong to trust him. Her feelings toward Darcy suddenly enter into flux.

Summary: Chapters 37-39

Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam leave Rosings. A week later, Elizabeth departs the parsonage, despite Lady Catherine's insistence that she stay another two weeks. Before Elizabeth leaves, Mr. Collins informs her that he and Charlotte seem to be made for one another (which is clearly not true). He wishes Elizabeth the same happiness in marriage that he himself enjoys. After a short stay at the Gardiners's London house, Elizabeth, joined by Jane, returns home. The two are met by Catherine and Lydia, who talk of nothing but the soldiers as they ride home in their father's coach. The regiment is to be sent to Brighton for the summer, and the two girls are hoping to convince their parents to summer there also. In the course of the conversation, Lydia mentions, with some satisfaction, that Wickham is no longer interested in Miss King, who has gone to Liverpool to stay with her uncle.

Mr. and Mrs. Bennet welcome their daughters home, and the Lucases come for dinner. Lydia prattles about the exciting coach ride and insists that the girls go to Meryton to see the officers. Not wanting to see Wickham, Elizabeth refuses.

Summary: Chapters 40-42

Elizabeth tells Jane the truth about Wickham. They debate whether to expose him publicly, ultimately deciding against it. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bennet continues to bemoan the loss of Mr. Bingley as a husband for Jane and voices her displeasure at the happy marriage of Charlotte and Mr. Collins. Lydia is invited to spend the summer in Brighton by the wife of a Colonel Forster. Mr. Bennet allows her to go, assuming that the colonel will keep her out of trouble. Elizabeth sees Wickham once more before his regiment departs, and they discuss Darcy in a guarded manner. Elizabeth avoids any mention of what she has discovered. The soldiers leave Meryton for Brighton; Kitty is distraught to see them go and even more distraught that her sister is allowed to follow them. In July, Elizabeth accompanies the Gardiners on a tour of the Derbyshire countryside, and their travels take them close to Darcy's manor, Pemberley. Hearing that Darcy is not in the neighborhood, she agrees to take a tour of the estate.

Analysis: Chapters 35-42

Darcy's letter begins a humbling process for both Elizabeth and him, which results in a maturation of each of their attitudes toward the other. In Darcy's case, the rejection of his proposal strikes a blow to his pride and compels him to respond to Elizabeth's anger. The resulting letter reveals to Elizabeth how she misjudged both him and Wickham. With the extent of her mistaken prejudice suddenly apparent, she is humbled enough to begin to look at Darcy in a new light. Some critics maintain that Darcy's letter is unrealistic, contending that such a proud and reserved man would never reveal so many details of his private life. In this view, the letter functions primarily as an artificial device through which Austen is able to introduce a large quantity of information while vindicating Darcy. One can argue, however, that the “dreadful bitterness of spirit” in which Darcy claims to have written the letter explains its uncharacteristic nature. Regardless of its realism, the letter serves its purpose: it reveals the truth about Wickham's relationship to Darcy and consequently shifts sympathy from Wickham to Darcy. It is interesting to note that the idea of a man eloping with a young woman was clichéd in the literature of Austen's era; nevertheless, its appearance in Pride and Prejudice serves a vital function, as it later provides Darcy with a motive (besides his love of Elizabeth) for helping Lydia after she elopes with Wickham. After the reception of the letter, the novel contrives to separate Darcy and Elizabeth, giving each of them space in which to adjust their feelings and behavior. In the meantime, Austen lays the groundwork for Lydia's whirlwind romance with Wickham and establishes a contrast between Elizabeth's maturity concerning Darcy and Lydia's girlish imprudence. Whereas Elizabeth assumes a passive stance in matters of love, consenting to go to Pemberley only because she thinks Darcy will not be there, Lydia actively pursues her beloved officers and stakes her claim to Wickham now that he has lost interest in Miss King: “I will answer for it that he never cared three straws for her.” That Mr. Bennet is unaware of Lydia's infatuation with the officer and permits her to follow the militia to Brighton reminds us of his irresponsible detachment from family life. Because of their decision not to expose Wickham, Jane and Elizabeth are also partly responsible for Lydia's imminent romance. Darcy maintains a similar silence about Wickham's past, which brings him into the beginnings of an alignment with Elizabeth.

Chapters 43-45

Summary: Chapter 43

As Elizabeth tours the beautiful estate of Pemberley with the Gardiners, she imagines what it would be like to be mistress there, as Darcy's wife. The housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds, shows them portraits of Darcy and Wickham and relates that Darcy, in his youth, was “the sweetest, most generous-hearted boy in the world.” She adds that he is the kindest of masters: “I have never had a cross word from him in my life.” Elizabeth is surprised to hear such an agreeable description of a man she considers unbearably arrogant. While Elizabeth and the Gardiners continue to explore the grounds, Darcy himself suddenly appears. He joins them in their walk, proving remarkably polite. Elizabeth is immediately embarrassed at having come to Pemberley after the events of recent months, and she assures Darcy that she came only because she thought that he was away. Darcy tells her that he has just arrived to prepare his home for a group of guests that includes the Bingleys and his own sister, Georgiana. He asks Elizabeth if she would like to meet Georgiana, and Elizabeth replies that she would. After Darcy leaves them, the Gardiners comment on his good looks and good manners, so strikingly divergent from the account of Darcy's character that Elizabeth has given them.

Summary: Chapters 44-45

The next day, Darcy and Georgiana, who is pretty but very shy, visit Elizabeth at her inn. Bingley joins them, and after a brief visit, they invite Elizabeth and the Gardiners, who perceive that Darcy is in love with their niece, to dine at Pemberley. The following morning, Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner visit Pemberley to call on Miss Darcy. Bingley's sisters are both present; when Darcy enters the room, Miss Bingley makes a spiteful comment to Elizabeth, noting that the departure of the militia from Meryton “must be a great loss to your family.” Elizabeth dodges the subject of Wickham. This deflection proves fortunate given the presence of Georgiana, as references to the man with whom she almost eloped would embarrass her. After the guests depart, Miss Bingley attempts to criticize Elizabeth to Darcy, and makes a light remark about how he once thought Elizabeth “rather pretty.” Darcy replies that he now considers Elizabeth “one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.”

Analysis: Chapters 43-45

Elizabeth's visit to Pemberley constitutes a critical step in her progress toward marrying Darcy. The house itself is representative, even a symbol, of its owner—the narrator describes it as a “large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground . . . in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal, nor falsely adorned.” Darcy is similarly large and handsome, elevated socially just as his house is elevated physically. The description of the way the stream's “natural importance was swelled into greater” reminds the reader of Darcy's pride; that the stream is “neither formal, nor falsely adorned,” however, reminds the reader of Darcy's honesty and lack of pretense. Most importantly, the property delights Elizabeth, foreshadowing her eventual realization that the master of Pemberley similarly delights her. Mrs. Reynolds's glowing descriptions of Darcy continue the process of breaking down Elizabeth's initial prejudice against him. As Mrs. Reynolds reveals a hidden side of Darcy, Elizabeth realizes how hastily she has judged him. This ability to admit the error of her ways demonstrates Elizabeth's emotional maturity; unlike Miss Bingley, who resorts to denigrating Elizabeth when she realizes that Darcy favors her, Elizabeth does not allow arrogance to prevent her from confronting her own shortcomings. The arrival of Darcy himself further encourages Elizabeth's change of heart. Humbled by her rejection of his marriage proposal, Darcy has altered his conduct toward her and become a perfect gentleman. This courteous behavior both illustrates his love for her and compels the growth of her estimation of him. His ability to overcome his pride in much the same way that Elizabeth overcomes her prejudice gives Elizabeth and the reader hope that her rejection of him has not caused him to give up and that he may propose again under different terms. The reader meets Georgiana Darcy for the first time in these chapters. Previously, she has been described as a possible wife for Mr. Bingley because of her beauty and accomplishments. In person, however, she is painfully shy; as a result, the reader ceases to see her as a threat to Jane. She cuts a very different figure—and one with whom the reader can sympathize—from the overeager Miss Bingley, whose aggressive pursuit of Darcy highlights her obnoxiousness. Indeed, Miss Bingley reappears with more spite than before. The mean-spiritedness behind her derisive insinuation about the Bennet girls' unladylike obsession with the soldiers contrasts with Elizabeth's thoughtful protection of the vulnerable Georgiana.

Chapters 46-49

Summary: Chapter 46

When Elizabeth returns to her inn, she finds two letters from Jane: the first relates that Lydia has eloped with Wickham, the second that there is no word from the couple and that they may not be married yet. Elizabeth panics, realizing that if Wickham does not marry Lydia, the reputations of both Lydia and the entire family will be ruined. As Elizabeth rushes out to find the Gardiners, Darcy appears and she tells him the story. Darcy immediately blames himself for not exposing Wickham, and Elizabeth blames herself for the same reason. She decides to return home immediately. After an apology to Darcy and his sister for breaking their dinner engagement, Elizabeth and the Gardiners hasten back to the Bennet home in Longbourn.

Summary: Chapter 47

On the way home, Mr. Gardiner attempts to reassure his niece that Wickham will certainly marry Lydia because he will not want his own career and reputation ruined. Elizabeth replies by telling them generally about Wickham's past behavior, without revealing the details of his romance with Darcy's sister. When she gets home, Elizabeth learns that her father has gone to London in search of Lydia and Wickham. Mrs. Bennet, of course, is hysterical, blaming Colonel Forster for not taking care of her daughter. In private, Jane assures Elizabeth that there was no way anyone could have known about their sister's attachment to Wickham. Fretfully, they examine the letter that Lydia left for Colonel Forster's wife, in which she looks forward to signing her name “Lydia Wickham.”

Summary: Chapter 48

Mr. Gardiner follows Mr. Bennet to London and writes to Longbourn a few days later with the news that the search has been unsuccessful so far. He reports that Mr. Bennet is now going to every hotel in turn looking for the couple. Meanwhile, a letter arrives from Mr. Collins that, in his usual manner, accuses the Bennets of poor parenting and notes that Lydia's behavior reflects poorly on the family as a whole. More time passes before Mr. Gardiner writes to say that attempts to trace Wickham through friends and family have failed. The letter further says, to Mrs. Bennet's consternation, that Mr. Bennet is returning home.

Summary: Chapter 49

Two days after Mr. Bennet returns to Longbourn, Mr. Gardiner writes to tell him that Wickham and Lydia have been found and that Wickham will marry her if the Bennets will guarantee him a small income. Mr. Bennet gladly acquiesces, deciding that marriage to a scoundrel is better than a ruined reputation. The Bennets assume that the Gardiners have paid Wickham a sizable amount to get him to agree to the wedding. Not “a farthing less than ten thousand pounds,” Mr. Bennet guesses. The Bennets assume that they owe a deep debt to their relatives. Mrs. Bennet is deliriously happy at having Lydia married, even when her husband and daughters point out how much it has probably cost. Her happiness is tempered when her husband refuses to allow Wickham and Lydia to visit or to provide his newly married daughter with money to purchase clothes.

Analysis: Chapters 46-49

The plot, which had slowed since Darcy's proposal, now picks up speed as it rushes toward its conclusion. Amid the turmoil of Lydia's folly, Elizabeth turns immediately to Darcy, illustrating the closeness developing between them. Their shared sense of guilt about failing to expose Wickham's true nature (which they believe would have prevented the elopement) aligns them emotionally and gives them a common purpose. Though she and her husband are obviously at fault, Mrs. Bennet reacts to the news of Lydia's elopement by blaming Colonel Forster. The Bennet parents come across as highly inadequate at this point in the text—Mrs. Bennet because of her stupidity and Mr. Bennet because of his refusal to take responsibility for his children. The issue for Jane and Elizabeth about family connections has receded somewhat into the background, but here it reappears and reminds the reader that the Bennet parents' lack of refinement still threatens the prospective romances of the two eldest Bennet daughters. During the crisis, the Gardiners again step forward to act responsibly. It is Mr. Gardiner, rather than Mr. Bennet, who takes charge of the search in the city—Mr. Bennet even returns home after a time. (Mrs. Bennet's fear that her husband will die in London and leave her destitute typifies her general tendency to ignore real problems and magnify trivial ones.) It is not terribly surprising that Mr. Gardiner apparently finds Lydia, or even that he apparently pays Wickham to convince him to marry her. He is simply filling the adult role that the Bennet parents have vacated. Pride and Prejudice is critical of the difficulties faced by women in English society of the period. Whereas Austen passes judgment on both the practice of entailment and the necessity of marriage for women to avoid public scorn (which leads to Charlotte's union with Mr. Collins for practicality's sake), she does not question the idea that living with a man out of wedlock ruins a girl. Elizabeth, the voice of reason and common sense at this point in the novel, condemns Lydia's behavior as “infamy” and declares that if Lydia does not marry Wickham, “she is lost forever.” The only voice of moral relativism belongs to Mrs. Bennet, who is so happy to have Lydia married that she does not care about the manner of the marriage's accomplishment. While Lydia may have escaped social stigma, Mr. Bennet still condemns her and Wickham, saying, “I will not encourage the impudence of either, by receiving them at Longbourn.” Though she criticizes sexism, Austen lets bourgeois morality alone.

Chapters 50-55

Summary: Chapters 50-51

Elizabeth realizes that her opinion of Darcy has changed so completely that if he were to propose to her again, she would accept. She understands, however, that, given Lydia's embarrassing behavior and the addition of Wickham to the Bennet family, such a proposal seems extremely unlikely. Mr. Gardiner writes to Mr. Bennet again to inform him that Wickham has accepted a commission in the North of England. Lydia asks to be allowed to visit her family before she goes north with her new husband. After much disagreement, the Bennets allow the newlyweds to stay at their home. The ten-day visit is difficult: Lydia is oblivious to all of the trouble that she has caused, and Wickham behaves as if he has done nothing wrong. One morning while sitting with Jane and Elizabeth, Lydia describes her wedding and mentions that Darcy was in the church. Elizabeth is amazed and sends a letter to Mrs. Gardiner asking for details.

Summary: Chapters 52-53

Mrs. Gardiner replies to Elizabeth that it was Darcy who found Lydia and Wickham, and Darcy who paid Wickham the money that facilitated the marriage. She drops hints that Darcy did so because of his love for Elizabeth. Elizabeth's surprise is immense, and she is unsure whether to be upset or pleased. After Wickham and Lydia depart for their new home in the North, news arrives that Bingley is returning to Netherfield Park for a few weeks. Mr. Bennet refuses to visit him, much to the family's discomfort. Three days after his arrival at Netherfield, however, Bingley comes to the Bennets's home, accompanied by Darcy. Mrs. Bennet is overly attentive to Bingley and quite rude to Darcy, completely unaware that he was the one who saved Lydia. Before departing, the gentlemen promise to dine at Longbourn soon.

Summary: Chapters 54-55

Darcy and Bingley come to dinner; Bingley places himself next to Jane and pays her much attention while Darcy finds a seat at the opposite end of the table from Elizabeth, rendering conversation between the two impossible. Elizabeth accepts that having been refused by her once, Darcy will not ask her to marry him again. Bingley visits the Bennets a few days later, and Mrs. Bennet invites him to dinner. He tells her that he is already engaged for the day but eagerly accepts an invitation for the following day. He calls so early in the morning that he arrives before the women have gotten dressed. After the meal, Mrs. Bennet manages (clumsily) to leave Bingley alone with Jane but he does not propose. The following day, however, Bingley goes shooting with Mr. Bennet and stays for dinner. After the meal, he finds himself alone with Jane again. This time, he tells her that he will ask Mr. Bennet for permission to marry her. Mr. Bennet happily agrees and Jane tells Elizabeth that she is “the happiest creature in the world.” The engagement settled, Bingley comes to visit often. Jane learns that he had no idea that she was in London over the winter, and she realizes that his sisters were attempting to keep him away from her. Meanwhile, the neighborhood agrees that the Bennets are extremely fortunate in their daughter's marriage.

Analysis: Chapters 50-55

Elizabeth's realization that Darcy is “exactly the man, who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her” is ironic, since she not only rejected his marriage proposal earlier but did so in a manner that made it clear that she despised him. To Elizabeth, the irony is obvious: “she became jealous of his esteem, when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it . . . she wanted to hear of him, when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence.” Her feelings toward Darcy are now what his were toward her earlier; she assumes that he has changed his mind and that her change of heart has come too late. For even if Darcy were still interested in her, Lydia's elopement seems likely to have destroyed any chance of his proposing again. The Lydia-Wickham affair serves as a reminder of Darcy's original objection to marrying Elizabeth, and Elizabeth believes that he must certainly consider it a symptom of the poor breeding of her family and an example of the embarrassment that association with her family would bring him. While Elizabeth's hope of Darcy's still loving her slowly grows in these chapters, the reader receives hints all along that Darcy's feelings for her have not altered. He has paid for Lydia's wedding, and the insightful Mrs. Gardiner, who provides levelheaded analyses of situations at various points in the novel, can think of only one reason for him to do so. Elizabeth's instincts tell her the same thing: “Her heart did whisper, that he had done it for her.” Nevertheless, she insists on squashing that whisper, as her embarrassment about Lydia and her sense of Darcy's pride compel her to the assumption that Darcy would never connect himself with her family, especially now that the odious Wickham is her brother-in-law. The happy conclusion to Bingley's courtship of Jane suggests that Darcy no longer cares about the Bennet sisters' low social status. As evidence that Darcy has overcome this important obstacle at least to some, he now does nothing to dissuade his friend from tying himself to a disreputable family. Whereas Darcy previously disrupted the romance between Bingley and Jane in order to protect his friend's social status, he now allows their love to triumph over their class difference, despite Lydia's elopement scandal, which he could easily have used as an excuse to distance himself and his friends from the Bennets. Austen does not allow Elizabeth to assume anything from Jane's engagement, but the reader is allowed to assume that another wedding will follow.

Chapters 56-61

Summary: Chapter 56

A week after Bingley and Jane become engaged, Lady Catherine de Bourgh visits the Bennets. The noblewoman wants to speak with Elizabeth and insists that they walk outside to hold a conversation. There, Lady Catherine informs Elizabeth that she has heard a rumor that Darcy is planning to marry her. Such a notion, Lady Catherine insists, is ridiculous, given Elizabeth's low station in life and the tacit engagement of Darcy to her own daughter. Elizabeth conceals her surprise at this news and acts very coolly toward Lady Catherine. She admits that she and Darcy are not engaged but, despite the noblewoman's demands, refuses to promise not to enter into an engagement to him. Lady Catherine claims that Elizabeth is bound to obey her by “the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude.” She presents the familiar objection: the Bennets have such low connections that Darcy's marrying Elizabeth would “ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world.” Elizabeth defends her family, declaring, “I am a gentleman's daughter,” and then asserts her independence from the exasperating control that such snobs as Mr. Collins, Miss Bingley, and Lady Catherine herself always attempt to exert over their social inferiors. “I am . . . resolved,” she says, “to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.” Lady Catherine leaves, furious and frustrated, and Elizabeth keeps their conversation secret.

Summary: Chapters 57-58

A short time later, a letter arrives from Mr. Collins that suggests that an engagement between Darcy and Elizabeth is imminent. The letter comes to Mr. Bennet, who reads it to Elizabeth and comments on the absurdity of the idea of an engagement with Darcy—“who never looked at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his life.” A little while after Lady Catherine's visit, Darcy again comes to stay with Bingley at Netherfield. The two friends visit the Bennets, and everyone takes a walk together. Elizabeth and Darcy lag behind, and when they are alone, Elizabeth thanks him for his generosity in saving Lydia's good name. Darcy replies that he did so only because Lydia is her sister. He then says that his feelings toward her have not changed since his proposal. Elizabeth tells him that her own feelings have changed and that she is now willing to marry him.

Summary: Chapters 59-60

That night, Elizabeth tells Jane about Darcy's intention to marry her. Jane, stunned, cannot believe that Elizabeth truly loves Darcy. Elizabeth promises Jane that she does. The next day, Darcy and Elizabeth walk together again, and that night Darcy goes to Mr. Bennet to ask him for his consent to the match. Like Jane, Mr. Bennet needs Elizabeth to convince him that she does indeed care for Darcy. After she assures him of her love, she tells him how Darcy paid off Wickham. Mrs. Bennet then learns of her daughter's engagement and is actually struck dumb for a time before bursting into cries of delight. Darcy and Elizabeth discuss how their love began and how it developed. Darcy writes to inform Lady Catherine of his engagement, while Mr. Bennet sends a letter to Mr. Collins to do likewise. The Collinses come to Longbourn to congratulate the couple (and escape an angry Lady Catherine), as do the Lucases and Mrs. Phillips.

Summary: Chapter 61

After the weddings, Bingley purchases an estate near Pemberley, and the Bennet sisters visit one another frequently. Kitty is kept away from Lydia and her bad influence, and she matures greatly by spending time at her elder sisters' homes. Lydia and Wickham remain incorrigible, asking Darcy for money and visiting the Bingleys so frequently that even the good-humored Bingley grows tired of them. Elizabeth becomes great friends with Georgiana. She even comes to interact on decent terms with Miss Bingley. Lady Catherine eventually accepts the marriage and visits her nephew and his wife at Pemberley. Darcy and Elizabeth continue to consider the Gardiners close friends, grateful for the fact that they brought Elizabeth to Pemberley the first time and helped to bring the two together.

Analysis: Chapters 56-61

Lady Catherine is the last of the many obstacles facing the romance between Darcy and Elizabeth, and Elizabeth's confrontation with her marks the heroine's finest moment. This encounter crystallizes the tensions that their difference in social status has created. All of the qualities that Elizabeth has embodied thus far—intelligence, wit, lack of pretense, and resistance to snobbery—are evident in her dialogue. Lady Catherine, with the weight of birth and money on her side, responds to Elizabeth's brazenness with a snobbishness that reflects her unassailable preoccupation with social concerns and demonstrates her lack of appreciation for the richness of Elizabeth's character. Elizabeth, of course, has not yet received a new proposal of marriage from Darcy and has no way of knowing if one is forthcoming, but her pride in herself and her love of Darcy allow her to stand up to the domineering Lady Catherine. With the expression of her beliefs, Elizabeth demonstrates the enduring strength of her will and self-respect. After the dynamic confrontation between these two firebrands, Darcy's proposal, theoretically the climax of the novel, is almost a letdown. As noted previously, Austen rarely stages successful proposals in full; accordingly, the narrator summarizes Elizabeth's affirmative response to Darcy's bid in a brief paragraph. Some critics argue that the novel becomes simplistic in this third and final part—that Darcy's character changes too drastically from the arrogant figure of the opening chapters. One can also argue, however, that his initial pride feeds to some extent off of Elizabeth's initial prejudice, and that as one dissolves as its bearer matures, so does the other. It is the nature of Austen's novels that romance must win out over all of the obstacles, whether social or personal, that it faces. Just as love triumphs over pride in social status for Darcy, it triumphs over prejudice for Elizabeth. Elizabeth's friends and family, thinking that she dislikes Darcy, ask her if she is marrying for love; in the end, in Austen, despite the undeniably relevant social issues of class, money, and practicality, this question always proves most important.

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