A Hazard of New Fortunes · Chapter
XVI explained
Dryfoos offers to give March and Fulkerson control of Every Other Week on generous terms, planning to take his family to Europe.
What happens
Dryfoos offers to give March and Fulkerson control of Every Other Week on generous terms, planning to take his family to Europe. March insists on consulting Fulkerson before accepting. Meanwhile, Fulkerson and March discuss Beaton's rejection by Alma Leighton, with Fulkerson regretting the lost match and March defending her choice.
Themes in this chapter
Capitalism and Moral Compromise
Dryfoos's offer to hand over the magazine tests March's integrity and loyalty to Fulkerson, revealing the moral complexities of business partnerships.
Love and Marriage
The discussion of Beaton's rejection and March's anti-marriage novel idea critique the societal pressure to marry and the romantic idealization of matrimony.
Characters to notice
- Basil March
Torn between personal ambition and loyalty to Fulkerson when Dryfoos offers him the magazine.
- Fulkerson
Eagerly welcomes Dryfoos's offer and speculates on the old man's motives.
- Mr. Dryfoos
Offers Every Other Week to March and Fulkerson, citing his family's planned trip to Europe.
- Mrs. March
Discusses Beaton's rejection with her husband and takes Fulkerson's view that Alma should have married him.
- Alma Leighton
Reported to have finally rejected Beaton, a decision March supports but Fulkerson and Mrs. March question.
- Angus Beaton
Mentioned as having been rejected by Alma Leighton; Fulkerson still holds a fondness for him.
Key passages
“I don’t know which it’s worse for, March: you or me. I don’t know, under the circumstances, whether it’s worse to have a family or to want to have one.”
Fulkerson says he can't decide whether it's harder for March, who already has a family, or for himself, who wants to start one, given their uncertain financial situation.
Fulkerson expresses the shared anxiety about the magazine's future and its impact on their personal lives.
“I believe that this popular demand for the matrimony of others comes from our novel-reading. We get to thinking that there is no other happiness or good-fortune in life except marriage; and it’s offered in fiction as the highest premium for virtue, courage, beauty, learning, and saving human life.”
March argues that society's obsession with marriage stems from novels, which portray it as the ultimate reward for all virtues, ignoring that it is actually common and often not the key to happiness.
March critiques the romantic literary convention that equates marriage with ultimate success, proposing an anti-marriage novel instead.