Agnes in the Palace explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Vanity and Self-Conceit

  Agnes's conceit grows worse under harsh treatment; she attributes kindness to her own impression and becomes more odious.

• Social Class and Inequality

  Agnes is treated harshly by the palace servants and dismissed by the king and queen due to her appearance and lowly status.

Characters to notice

• Agnes

  Agnes arrives in the city and is taken to the palace as a lost child. She is rejected by the king and queen, sent to work in the scullery, and grows more conceited under harsh treatment. She later hints that she knows where the lost princess Rosamond is, leading to a search for her parents.

• Rosamond

  The lost princess, whose picture Agnes recognizes from the wise woman's house. The king and queen are searching for her, and Agnes claims to know her whereabouts.

• The Princess

  Referred to as the lost princess (Rosamond); the king and queen are desperate to find her.

Key passages

• “Every civil answer given her, she attributed to the impression she made, not to the desire to get rid of her; and every kindness, to approbation of her looks and speech, instead of friendliness to a lonely child.”

  Agnes misinterpreted polite responses and kindness as admiration for her appearance and cleverness, rather than as attempts to avoid her or as simple friendliness.

  Highlights Agnes's growing conceit and self-centeredness.

• “There is but one true way, however, of getting out of any position we may be in, and that is, to do the work of it so well that we grow fit for a better: I need not say this was not the plan upon which Agnes was cunning enough to fix.”

  The only real way to improve one's situation is to do the current work so well that one becomes worthy of a better position, but Agnes did not choose this approach.

  Narrator's moral commentary on Agnes's flawed strategy.