Charlotte Temple · Chapter
Reasons Why and Wherefore explained
This chapter explains Mrs.
What happens
This chapter explains Mrs. Crayton's refusal to help Charlotte, driven by fear that her own role in Charlotte's elopement would be exposed to her husband. Meanwhile, Charlotte, now delirious and near death, is cared for by a poor family. A humane surgeon, seeing her need, resolves to seek aid from Mrs. Beauchamp, who immediately agrees to visit the dying girl.
Themes in this chapter
Female Virtue and Fall
Charlotte's ruined state and Mrs. Crayton's fear of exposure underscore the social condemnation and double standards faced by women who stray from virtue.
Repentance and Forgiveness
Mrs. Crayton's refusal to help contrasts with Mrs. Beauchamp's compassionate response, highlighting the possibility of redemption through charitable action.
Characters to notice
- Mrs. Crayton
Refuses to acknowledge Charlotte out of fear that her past complicity in the elopement will be revealed to Colonel Crayton, exposing her own hypocrisy and vice.
- Charlotte Temple
Lies insensible and delirious, raving about Montraville and her mother, unaware of her newborn child, and rapidly sinking under her illness.
- Mrs. Beauchamp
Moved by the surgeon's account, she immediately agrees to visit and help the dying Charlotte, demonstrating her humanity.
Key passages
“She had ever been fully sensible of the superiority of Charlotte’s sense and virtue; she was conscious that she had never swerved from rectitude had it not been for her bad precepts and worse example.”
Mrs. Crayton knew that Charlotte was morally superior and that Charlotte's fall was due to her own corrupting influence.
Reveals Mrs. Crayton's guilty awareness of her role in Charlotte's ruin.
“vice in general blinds its votaries, and they discover their real characters to the world when they are most studious to preserve appearances.”
Vice makes its followers blind, and they reveal their true nature precisely when they try hardest to seem virtuous.
Moral commentary on hypocrisy and self-deception.
“Such were the dreadful images that haunted her distracted mind, and nature was sinking fast under the dreadful malady which medicine had no power to remove.”
Charlotte's mind was tormented by terrible visions, and her body was rapidly failing from an illness beyond medical help.
Describes Charlotte's delirium and approaching death.