Barnaby Rudge · Chapter
Chapter 62 explained
The prisoner, left alone in his cell, sinks into a state of vague reflection and guilt.
What happens
The prisoner, left alone in his cell, sinks into a state of vague reflection and guilt. The blind man, Stagg, visits him and learns how he was captured at Chigwell, where he had gone to join the mob and was confronted by the man who has haunted him for twenty-eight years. Stagg proposes a scheme to the prisoner: he will approach the prisoner's wife and offer to secure her son Barnaby's safety in exchange for her sworn testimony that the prisoner is not her husband, thus saving him from the murder charge. The prisoner clings to this gleam of hope, and after Stagg leaves, he is allowed to walk in the prison yard, where he hears a voice singing and sees a shadow, suggesting the presence of another prisoner.
Themes in this chapter
Guilt and Retribution
The prisoner is haunted by his past crime, with vivid recollections of the murder and the constant presence of his victim, illustrating the inescapable nature of guilt.
Manipulation and Exploitation
The blind man's scheme to use the prisoner's wife and son as leverage demonstrates the exploitation of vulnerable individuals for personal gain.
Freedom and Imprisonment
The prisoner's longing for liberty, contrasted with the cold, oppressive walls of his cell, highlights the theme of physical and psychological confinement.
Characters to notice
- The Blind Man
Visits the prisoner in his cell, learns the details of his capture, and proposes a manipulative scheme to save him by bargaining with his wife.
- Barnaby Rudge
Mentioned as having been lured away from his mother by a companion and now among the rioters, becoming a pawn in the blind man's scheme.
- Mrs. Rudge
The prisoner's wife, who is the target of the blind man's plan; she is to provide false testimony to save her husband, with the safety of her son as leverage.
- Grip
Not directly present, but the prisoner's thoughts of freedom and nature contrast with his imprisonment, and the raven's earlier presence is implied in the narrative.
Key passages
“The prisoner, left to himself, sat down upon his bedstead: and resting his elbows on his knees, and his chin upon his hands, remained in that attitude for hours.”
Alone in his cell, the prisoner sat on his bed for hours, his mind lost in a haze of vague thoughts and guilt.
The opening establishes the prisoner's mental state and the oppressive atmosphere of his confinement.
“Eight-and-twenty years! Eight-and-twenty years! He has never changed in all that time, never grown older, nor altered in the least degree.”
For twenty-eight years, the ghost of his victim has remained unchanged, a constant reminder of his crime.
The prisoner's obsession with the passage of time and the unrelenting nature of his guilt.
“There is a gleam of hope in this!" cried the prisoner. "A gleam!" returned his friend, "a noon-blaze; a full and glorious daylight.”
The prisoner sees a ray of hope in the blind man's plan, which the blind man exaggerates as a brilliant opportunity.
The prisoner's desperate clinging to any possibility of escape, and the blind man's manipulative encouragement.