Can You Forgive Her? · Chapter
Mr. Vavasor and His Daughter explained
This chapter introduces Alice Vavasor, her father John Vavasor, and their unconventional domestic arrangement.
What happens
This chapter introduces Alice Vavasor, her father John Vavasor, and their unconventional domestic arrangement. Alice, the daughter of a failed barrister and an heiress who died young, has been raised largely by her cousin Lady Macleod. At twenty-four, she lives with her father in a small house in Queen Anne Street, but their lives are quite separate; Mr. Vavasor never dines at home. Alice has a modest fortune of her own and has chosen to avoid both the high society of her noble relatives and the Low Church tendencies of Lady Macleod. The chapter concludes by revealing that Alice is already engaged to be married.
Themes in this chapter
Social Class and Ambition
Alice's position in society is ambiguous; she is connected to big people but lives modestly, and her father's failed career contrasts with the ambitions of the upper classes.
Wealth and Financial Dependence
Alice's fortune of four hundred a year from her mother provides her independence, while her father's income is tied to a government sinecure, highlighting financial constraints.
Female Autonomy and Identity
Alice chooses her own living arrangements and social circles, rejecting both her noble relatives and Lady Macleod's religious pressures, asserting her independence.
Characters to notice
- Alice Vavasor
The protagonist, a tall, handsome, high-spirited young woman of twenty-four, who lives apart from her father and is already engaged to be married.
- Mr. John Vavasor
Alice's father, a failed barrister turned assistant commissioner, who lives a separate life from his daughter and never dines at home.
- Lady Macleod
Alice's elderly cousin who raised her, a devout Calvinistic Sabbatarian and believer in noble rank, who loves Alice deeply despite their differences.
- Squire Vavasor
Alice's grandfather, a hotheaded, honest old gentleman who lives at Vavasor Hall in Westmoreland and decries the state of the country.
Key passages
“Whether or no, she, whom you are to forgive, if you can, did or did not belong to the Upper Ten Thousand of this our English world, I am not prepared to say with any strength of affirmation.”
The narrator is uncertain whether Alice Vavasor truly belongs to the highest social class in England.
The opening line establishes the theme of social class and the narrator's ambiguous stance on Alice's status.
“Her grandfather, Squire Vavasor of Vavasor Hall, in Westmoreland, was a country gentleman, possessing some thousand a year at the outside, and he therefore never came up to London, and had no ambition to have himself numbered as one in any exclusive set.”
Alice's grandfather is a modest country squire who avoids London society.
This introduces the Vavasor family background and their distance from fashionable London life.
“John Vavasor had come up to London early in life as a barrister, and had failed. He had failed at least in attaining either much wealth or much repute, though he had succeeded in earning, or perhaps I might better say, in obtaining, a livelihood.”
Alice's father, John Vavasor, moved to London to become a barrister but did not achieve great success or wealth, only a modest living.
This explains Mr. Vavasor's professional mediocrity and sets up his character as a man of limited ambition.
“She could sympathize neither with her relative's faults or virtues. She made an arrangement, therefore, with her father, that they two would keep house together in London, and so they had lived for the last five years;—for Alice Vavasor when she will be introduced to the reader had already passed her twenty-fourth birthday.”
Alice could not share Lady Macleod's beliefs or habits, so she chose to live with her father in London, where they have resided for five years.
This highlights Alice's independence and the strained relationship with her cousin.
