# Chapter 73 explained — Barnaby Rudge

> Chapter companion for Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens.

## What happens

In the prison, Barnaby and his mother share a tender but sorrowful conversation. Barnaby, unaware of the full truth, speaks of his father with hope, but his mother reveals that his father has shed blood and that she has tried to keep them apart. She urges Barnaby to deny any knowledge of his father if questioned. Later, Mrs. Rudge confronts her husband in his cell, pleading with him to confess his crime and seek penitence, but he rejects her with anger and curses. The chapter closes with the aftermath of the riots: the city begins to recover, more rioters are captured, and Lord George Gordon is arrested and taken to the Tower, abandoned by his followers.

## Themes in this chapter

### Guilt and Retribution

Mrs. Rudge reveals her husband's guilt, and he faces the retribution of the law, while Barnaby suffers for his father's crime.

### Parental Love and Sacrifice

Mrs. Rudge's love for Barnaby leads her to keep him from his father, and she sacrifices her own peace to plead for her husband's repentance.

## Character check-ins

### Barnaby Rudge

In prison, he shows a strange pleasure in his own supposed sagacity, believes he is marked for death, and is heartbroken when his mother reveals his father's guilt.

### Mrs. Rudge

Visits Barnaby in prison, reveals the truth about his father's crime, and later confronts her husband, pleading for his repentance.

### Lord George Gordon

Arrested for High Treason and taken to the Tower, desolate and alone, abandoned by his followers and betrayed by his secretary.

## Key lines

> They have marked me from the first. I heard them say so to each other when they brought me to this place last night; and I believe them.

Barnaby believes the authorities have singled him out for punishment, as he overheard them discussing him when he was brought to prison.

_Barnaby's delusion and sense of doom._

> He has shed the blood of one who loved him well, and trusted him, and never did him wrong in word or deed.

Mrs. Rudge reveals that her husband murdered someone who was loyal and innocent.

_The revelation of the father's crime._

> On that warm, balmy night in June, there were glad faces and light hearts in all quarters of the town, and sleep, banished by the late horrors, was doubly welcomed.

The city rejoices in the aftermath of the riots, finding relief and rest after the terror.

_The contrast between the city's recovery and the prisoners' suffering._

## Links

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