ENG 294 Study Guide for Charlotte Temple, Part 2

Professor Peter Mascuch pmascuch@sjcny.edu

_____ _________________________________________________________

Charlotte Temple (aka Charlotte: A Tale of Truth) by Susanna

Rowson
Second-Half of the Novel
Volume II: Chapters XVIII-XXXV (18-35), pgs. 49-90 in
Norton Critical Edition

Note Well. The following study guide is not quite as exhaustively thorough as the
previous ones you’ve received on our readings. This novel is a fairly
straightforward read.

– You have the many questions to consider on the current course schedule as a
guide to contexts and what to think about while reading the novel.

– If you have the Norton Critical Edition,which was ordered and suggested since
the start of the semester, its footnotes along with its introduction and supporting
materials are very helpful.

– The following three websites are also worth checking out.

https://www.learner.org/series/american-passages-a-literary-survey/spirit-of-nation
alism/susanna-rowson-c-1762-1824/

(American Passagesbiographical entry on author Susanna Rowson)

http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/texts/AmClassics/RomFiction/RowsonCTe
mple/default.html

(Thorough online course guide to the novel, chapter by chapter, by Prof. Craig
White at UHCL)

https://faculty.georgetown.edu/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/rowson.html
(Good guide to the novel by Prof. Laraine Ferguson at Georgetown)

Chapter XVIII (18) (Pages 50-52 of the Norton Critical Edition)

This chapter, which begins the novel’s second-half, picks up where the first-half
left off, with a poor and distressed Charlotte contemplating “painful reflections”
about how “low” she has now fallen. On top of that, she is utterly alone – without
family or any genuine friend in a strange new world – living in a small house a few
miles from New York that Montraville has rented for her. Furthermore, she sees
little of him.

Pay close attention to the shift in this chapter’s third paragraph. Rowson’s often
intrusive and didactic narrator directly addresses the reader for the remainder of the
chapter, asking: “Who can form an adequate idea of the sorrow that preyed upon
the mind of Charlotte?” (50). She then introduces, lectures, and forcefully argues
for the need of people to be charitable and forgiving, rather than judgmental,
towards “fallen women” such as Charlotte. In the chapter’s final paragraph, the
narrator asks of her god, “O, thou benevolent giver of all good! How shall we
erring mortals dare to look up to thy mercy in the great day of retribution if we
now uncharitably refuse to overlook the errors, or alleviate the miseries, of our
fellow-creatures” (52).

This theme of individuals and society showing mercy and compassion towards
“fallen women” in Charlotte’s situation, rather than condemning them, becomes the
main focus of the novel’s second-half. While its first-half is more of a warning and
conduct guide for girls and young women regarding the dangers of seduction, the
rest of Rowson’s novel is a compassionate plea for forgiveness when it comes to
girls and young women who have been seduced.

This novel can hardly be called “proto-feminist.” While it does critique its era’s
gender double-standards and exploitation of women, it also infantilizes its
“innocent” main female character; it doesn’t question patriarchal society’s
fetishizing of female “purity” and keeping girls submissive and ignorant; and its
most diabolically evil character, La Rue, is a stereotypically misogynist portrait of
a female with agency.
Nevertheless, Rowson’s calling out readers to provide help to “fallen women” like
her protagonist and to show them charity and mercy, rather than condemnation, is
an admirably progressive message of tolerance and understanding in a society that
often demonstrated little of either.

Reminder) Didactic fictiondefinition: Used for works primarily intended to teach a

lesson.

Chapter XIX (19) (Pages 52-54 of the Norton Critical Edition)

This chapter introduces Julia Franklin. She is presented as wealthy, beautiful, and
good. Montraville meets her, and each is immediately infatuated with the other.
Montraville falls for Julia in part because she is “the very reverse of Charlotte
Temple” (53). Although he feels guilty (as usual), Montraville convinces himself
that he never really loved Charlotte and now loves Julia, who of course is wealthy
enough for him to marry.

Chapter XX (20) (Pages 54-57 of the Norton Critical Edition)

Charlotte receives a note from Montraville that, in today’s terms, signifies that he
is putting her in the “friend zone,” and then she shortly receives a visit from
Belcour, who continues to have his own designs on her.

With a quick mention of Colonel Crayton continuing to be under the sway of his
devious new wife, the former Mademoiselle La Rue, the narrator re-introduces us
to Crayton’s daughter, Mrs. Emily Crayton Beauchamp. Emily and her husband,
Captain Beauchamp, coincidentally live in the same neighborhood on the outskirts
of New York as Charlotte does.

A good hearted woman, Emily sees Charlotte in the neighborhood and says of her,
“gladly would I pour into your heart the balm of consolation, were it not for the
fear of derision” (56). In other words, she knows that she should help Charlotte,
but is fearful for her own reputation and what people might say if she were seen
with a “fallen woman.”

However, one morning Emily overhears Charlotte beautifully singing a sad and
mournful song, and then talks to her husband about befriending Charlotte. He tells
her, “Follow the impulse of thy generous heart… Let prudes and fools censure if
they dare” (57). Emily decides to visit Charlotte.

Chapter XXI (21) (Pages 58-60 of the Norton Critical Edition)

Emily pays Charlotte a visit. The two quickly become friends as Emily
sympathetically listens to Charlotte’s story.

Emily Crayton Beauchamp, offering friendship and acting with sympathy, charity,
and mercy towards Charlotte, thus becomes Rowson’s heroic character role-model
for her readers as to how one should behave towards “fallen women.”

Charlotte tells Emily that she believes that her parents have disowned her, because
they have never responded to the many letters she has written to them. Emily,
suspecting correctly that Montraville throws the letters away rather than mailing
them, promises that she will mail a letter for Charlotte.

Chapter XXII (22) (Pages 60-62 of the Norton Critical Edition)

Charlotte writes a letter of sorrowful apology to her mother. She tells of how
mistaken she realizes she was and of how terribly sorry she is for her parents and
her grandfather.

Towards the letter’s end, she reveals for the first time in the novel a major plot
point. She is pregnant with Montraville’s child: “in a few months I shall bring into
the world an innocent witness of my guilt. Oh my bleeding heart, I shall bring a
poor little helpless creature, heir to infamy and shame” (61). Charlotte lastly asks
of her parents that, even if they cannot forgive her, they care for her child to come,
since she herself seems to sense that she will die soon.

One particular element to note in this chapter is how Rowson’s having her
protagonist write a letter allows the novel to use an intimate first-person voice of a
character to advance plot points. Novels telling part or even all their story in letters
written by characters were very common in the 18thcentury. The term for them is
“epistolary fiction.”

https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-century-literature/articles/letters-letter-writing-a
nd-epistolary-novels
Chapter XXIII (23) (Pages 62-64 of the Norton Critical Edition)

Montraville continues to fall in love with Julia Franklin and is definitely out of
love with Charlotte. He confides his feelings to his friend, Belcour, who sees his
chance to put his plot in action and have Charlotte for himself. He deviously tells
Montraville that Charlotte has been “false,” or has cheated on him with other men.

Determined to find out for himself, Montraville goes to Charlotte’s house the next
morning, where he finds the devious Belcour in bed with the sleeping and
unknowing Charlotte. Montraville tells a shocked and distraught Charlotte that he
will continue to support her and their soon to arrive child, but that he is through
with her, and he then leaves.

Of course, note that Montraville, because of his desire for Julia Franklin, is looking
for an excuse to break with Charlotte and be done with her. That’s clearly why he
is so readily willing to fall for Belcour’s dastardly scheme.

Chapter XXIV (24) (Pages 64-67 of the Norton Critical Edition)

Emily having gone away traveling with her husband and Belcour’s scheme to trick
Montraville about Charlotte’s supposed unfaithfulness are revealed here. After
Montraville storms out, Belcour tries to befriend Charlotte, but she firmly pushes
him away. He then goes to patch things up with Montraville.

Julia Franklin and her father pass by, and Montraville and Belcour walk with them.
Julia – a good woman who knows nothing of Charlotte – is clearly falling in love
with Montraville and his charm. He rightfully feels guilty and undeserving of her
love, because of what he has done to Charlotte.

Chapter XXV (25) (Pages 67-69 of the Norton Critical Edition)

Charlotte’s parents and grandfather receive and read her letter. They are
enormously relieved, since they had thought that she had died or forsaken them,
this being the first they have heard from her (because Montraville destroyed all her
earlier letters). They forgive Charlotte and long to see her again as soon as
possible. Henry Temple decides to voyage to America and get his daughter.

Chapter XXVI (26) (Pages 69-71 of the Norton Critical Edition)

Montraville and Julia are planning to get married soon. Montraville tells Belcour to
take care of Charlotte and that he will give him money to support her. Belcour, of
course, keeps the money for himself in the hopes of forcing Charlotte to accept his
advances out of desperation.

His conscience bothering him on the night before his wedding to Julia, Montraville
writes a letter, which Belcour will of course not deliver, to Charlotte. He tells her
that he is sorry for what he’s done, that Belcour will provide for her, and that she
and their baby should return to England and her parents. He does not say anything
about marrying Julia.

Chapter XXVII (27) (Pages 71-74 of the Norton Critical Edition)

Lonely for months, with her pregnancy moving along, Montraville not answering
her letters (which Belcour never delivers to him), and her only friend, Emily, away,
Charlotte is visited by Belcour.

Belcour in this meeting tries to make Charlotte give in and become his mistress.
She turns down his offer, so he finally tries shocking her with the news that
Montraville has married Julia, but this causes Charlotte to faint and become quite
ill. Disgusted, Belcour leaves Charlotte for good and quickly forgets her: “He left
the unhappy girl to sink unnoticed to the grave, a prey to sickness, grief and
penury” (74).

Chapter XXVIII (28) (Pages 74-76 of the Norton Critical Edition)

In this chapter the narrator ironically anticipates young readers’ potentially being
tired of Charlotte’s misery and being curious about what might be happening with
Mademoiselle La Rue, who is now Mrs. Crayton: “But perhaps your gay hearts
would rather follow the fortunate Mrs. Crayton through the scenes of pleasure and
dissipation in which she was engaged” (75). The narrator digresses to describe La
Rue’s wild life of partying and being the proverbial toast of the town, while
making Colonel Crayton unhappy. She is also taking up with a younger man,
Corydon, who seems to be something of what today might be called her “boy toy.”

Chapter XXIX (29) (Pages 76-78 of the Norton Critical Edition)

Charlotte has recovered a bit from her illness, but has not yet heard back from her
parents in response to her letter. With Emily still away, she is alone and
contemplates suicide, but her religious faith keeps her from taking her own life.

Her landlady visits her, demanding the long overdue rent. With no money,
Charlotte has no way of paying. Rather than being charitable, the woman has no
sympathy for her and instead condemns Charlotte as a “nasty, impudent hussey”
pregnant with “a bastard” (78). Charlotte is evicted that day and thrown out on the
streets, penniless.

Chapter XXX (30) (Pages 79-81 of the Norton Critical Edition)

Charlotte decides that her only choice at his desperate point is to go to New York to
see Mademoiselle La Rue/Mrs. Crayton and seek her help. She sends a note ahead
of her, reminding La Rue of their friendship and pleading with her to help.

Walking in the snowy and cold evening, Charlotte asks a soldier for directions to
Colonel Crayton’s house, and is ironically told that she’d be better off going to
Julia and Mr. Franklin’s. But she proceeds to Crayton’s.

Chapter XXXI (31) (Pages 81-83 of the Norton Critical Edition)

Charlotte is let in by a servant and gives her note to him to bring to La Rue/Mrs.
Crayton, but the latter doesn’t read it and tells the servant not to bother. Charlotte
goes to the room and confronts her: “Oh! La Rue, this is beyond every thing I
could have believed possible” (82).

As much as Charlotte protests and reminds her of all their past connections, La Rue
continues to claim that she is deluded and continues to pretend that she does not
know nor recognize her. Charlotte finally faints in agony. La Rue tells her servant
that he has to “take her away.” Out of pity and his own sense of compassion, the
poor servant, John, takes Charlotte to his family’s “poor little hovel” and calls a
doctor (82-83). Charlotte gives birth to a baby girl that night.

Chapter XXXII (32) (Pages 83-84 of the Norton Critical Edition)

The narrator takes the reader back to La Rue, and explains that her motive for
refusing to help Charlotte was that she was afraid of what would happen if Colonel
Crayton were to find out about Charlotte and how she, his wife, had behaved
towards the innocent girl. But everyone in her household, from the servants to
Corydon, is shocked by her inhumanity.

Charlotte, meanwhile, is delirious, seeing images of her own mother, and near
dying, despite the doctor’s efforts, at John the servant’s house. The doctor decides
to seek charitable help for Charlotte, and he coincidentally enlists the help of Emily
Crayton Beauchamp, who has finally returned to New York.

Chapter XXXIII (33) (Pages 84-87 of the Norton Critical Edition)

You should take notice of Rowson’s chapter titles throughout the novel. They can
often be quite descriptive, with none more so than that for this chapter containing
the novel’s climax: “Which People Void of Felling Need Not Read” (84). In other
words, don’t bother reading it if you don’t have any feelings, but of course you
must read it if you do.

This chapter, entirely set in the servant’s poor house where Charlotte and her baby
daughter are staying, presents the reader with a series of escalating turning points
that ramp up the emotional intensity, culminating with Charlotte’s death and the
novel’s climax at chapter’s end.

In its time, this chapter was said to bring most readers to tears, which is of course
one of the main goals of sentimental fiction: to move readers’ emotionally by
appealing to their feelings or “sentiment.”

The chapter begins with the arrival of Emily Crayton Beauchamp to the house. She
is described as never having witnessed a scene of such poverty. At first she does
not recognize that the bedridden and sickly young mother is Charlotte, but when
they do recognize each other they emotionally embrace.

The next morning, Emily returns to Charlotte. She has revived a bit, but the doctor
tells Emily that her end is near. Charlotte, most concerned about what will become
of her child, requests a clergyman and says what are likely to be her final prayers.

Just after this, Henry Temple, Charlotte’s father, arrives at the house. The reunion
of father and daughter is extremely emotional. “‘My adored father.’ ‘My long lost
child’” (87). Overcome, each character collapses.
Once they are revived, Charlotte places her baby in her father’s arms, asks that he
protect the infant and bless his dying daughter, and then she dies as “a sudden
beam of joy passed across her languid features, she raised her eyes to heaven – and
then closed them for ever” (87).

Note that, although Charlotte dies tragically – the formula followed by most “fallen
women” narratives of the era – she experiences one of the most affirmative deaths
possible. She reunites with her father just in time, she learns that her child will be
cared and provided for, and the narration suggests that she is headed to a heavenly
afterlife. The novel’s climax is movingly bittersweet and completely in sympathy
with its tragic protagonist.

Chapter XXXIV (34) (Pages 87-89 of the Norton Critical Edition)

With the novel’s climax of Charlotte’s death in the previous chapter, its final two
chapters consist of an epilogue/aftermath that depicts the outcomes for its other
three remaining major characters.

In this 34thchapter, Montraville, back in New York and, struck by his conscience,
searching for Charlotte, happens upon her funeral procession. He goes to her
father, Henry Temple, confesses his crimes against Charlotte, and asks Henry to
kill him and “save me from the misery of reflexion” (88). Henry refuses, telling
him that his reflections will be his punishment.

Remembering Belcour’s part in Charlotte’s demise, Montraville rushes to find him.

They fight with their swords. Belcour wounds Montraville, but the latter stabs and
kills the former.

The wounded Montraville becomes ill as a result of his fight with Belcour, but he
recovers. However, he “to the end of his life was subject to severe fits of
melancholy” and would often visit Charlotte’s grave and weep over it (89).

These are fitting outcomes for Belcour and Montraville. One, a wretched villain, is
killed violently. The other, a more complicated villain with a conscience, survives
but feels grief and guilt for the rest of his life.

Chapter XXXV (35) (Pages 89-90 of the Norton Critical Edition)

The one remaining character whose outcome remains unknown at this late point is
Mademoiselle La Rue. In the novel’s concluding chapter, the reader finds out what
happens to the character who is arguably the novel’s most evil villain.

It is ten years later. Captain Eldridge has just died. Charlotte’s daughter, named
Lucy after her grandmother, goes with her grandparents, Lucy and Henry, to
London. One night, they find an old, incapacitated homeless woman on their door
steps. Feeling sorry for her, they take her in the house and attend to her.

When the woman awakens, she reacts with horror at the sight of her hosts and
confesses that she is none other than Mademoiselle La Rue, the woman who is “the
viper that stung your peace… who turned the poor Charlotte out to perish in the
street” and she is further shocked to see Lucy, who she fears is the ghost of her
mother (89). La Rue tells of what happened to her for the last seven years, since
she separated from Colonel Crayton, and how she has been “overtaken by poverty
and sickness” and living on the streets (90).

The Temples, taking pity on La Rue even after what she did to their daughter, take
care of her and see that she is admitted to a hospital, where she dies shortly
thereafter, “a striking example that vice, however prosperous in the beginning, in
the end leads only to misery and shame” (90).

Charlotte Temple thus concludes in a way that is similar to most novels of the
18thand 19thcenturies, in that it leaves nothing unresolved for the reader. By story’s
end, we know the outcome for each and every major character, and these are neatly
appropriate to the plot’s didactically thematic message.