A Hazard of New Fortunes · Chapter
III explained
The Marches explore New York via the Elevated Railroad, reflecting on the city's growth and their own changed perspectives.
What happens
The Marches explore New York via the Elevated Railroad, reflecting on the city's growth and their own changed perspectives. March becomes deeply involved in his editorship of 'Every Other Week,' though he finds the social aspects less engaging than anticipated. The chapter also covers their summer plans, a brief trip to Boston by Mrs. March and the children, and March's evenings with Fulkerson, Colonel Woodburn, and the Leightons, where Beaton's behavior toward Alma Leighton is noted.
Themes in this chapter
Urban vs. Rural Life
The Marches observe New York's expansion into the countryside, contrasting the city's 'shapeless tumult' with the quiet, orderly streets of Boston.
Art and Commerce
March's editorship involves navigating young writers' artistic pretensions and the commercial realities of publishing, as well as Beaton's artistic temperament clashing with others.
Labor and Social Justice
Colonel Woodburn studies labor and poverty in the streets, and March feels a 'sense of complicity' with the city's striving and suffering.
Characters to notice
- Basil March
Explores New York via Elevated Railroad, reflects on the city and his editorship, dines with Fulkerson and the Leightons.
- Mrs. March
Takes children to Boston but feels alienated; returns to New York finding comfort in its 'shapeless tumult.'
- Fulkerson
Dines with March, discusses the magazine and the social dynamics at the Leightons'.
- Angus Beaton
Rude to Colonel Woodburn; devotes evening to Alma Leighton, causing March to speculate on his feelings.
- Alma Leighton
Seems harassed by Beaton's attention; March and Mrs. March discuss her composure.
- Colonel Woodburn
Spends summer in New York studying labor and poverty; engages March in discussions.
- Mrs. Leighton
Rents out her St. Barnaby house for summer; hosts evenings with the group.
Key passages
“First and last, the Marches did a good deal of travel on the Elevated roads, which, he said, gave you such glimpses of material aspects in the city as some violent invasion of others' lives might afford in human nature.”
The Marches frequently rode the Elevated Railroad, which March felt offered intimate, almost intrusive views of the city's physical reality, akin to witnessing others' private lives.
Highlights March's reflective and observational nature, using the El as a metaphor for urban voyeurism.
“He could not release himself from a sense of complicity with it, no matter what whimsical, or alien, or critical attitude he took. A sense of the striving and the suffering deeply possessed him; and this grew the more intense as he gained some knowledge of the forces at work—forces of pity, of destruction, of perdition, of salvation.”
March felt increasingly implicated in the city's life, unable to remain detached, as he became aware of the complex social forces of compassion, ruin, and redemption at play.
Reveals March's growing moral engagement with urban social issues, a key theme in the novel.
“She knew that this was merely the Puritan mask, the cast of a dead civilization, which people of very amiable and tolerant minds were doomed to wear, and she sighed to think that less than a year of the heterogeneous gayety of New York should have made her afraid of it.”
Mrs. March recognized the stern Boston faces as a relic of Puritanism, and was dismayed that New York's diverse liveliness had made her feel intimidated by that old severity.
Illustrates the cultural contrast between Boston's traditionalism and New York's modernity, and Mrs. March's shifting identity.
