The Blithedale Romance · Chapter
Fauntleroy explained
This chapter reveals the backstory of Old Moodie, formerly the wealthy and ostentatious Fauntleroy.
What happens
This chapter reveals the backstory of Old Moodie, formerly the wealthy and ostentatious Fauntleroy. After a life of superficial splendor, he commits a crime to stave off financial ruin, loses his wife, and flees in disgrace to a squalid existence in a New England city. He remarries a meek seamstress, who bears him a second daughter, Priscilla. After his second wife's death, Fauntleroy raises Priscilla in poverty, telling her tales of his former life and her beautiful half-sister. Priscilla develops a deep, almost worshipful love for this unseen sister, which sustains her otherwise bleak existence. The chapter also describes Priscilla's ethereal, ghost-like nature and the rumors of her supernatural abilities, which attract the attention of a mysterious, handsome gentleman (implied to be Professor Westervelt).
Themes in this chapter
Secrecy and Identity
Fauntleroy's hidden past and assumed identity as Old Moodie, and Priscilla's secret love for her unknown sister, highlight the theme of concealed selves.
Class and Wealth
The contrast between Fauntleroy's former opulence and his later poverty underscores the instability of wealth and social standing.
Love and Sacrifice
Priscilla's selfless, almost worshipful love for her unseen sister sustains her life, reflecting the theme of love as a redemptive force.
Nature vs. Society
Priscilla's ethereal, ghost-like nature is contrasted with the coarse, gossipy society around her, emphasizing the tension between the natural and the social.
Characters to notice
- Old Moodie
Revealed to be the former Fauntleroy, a ruined man of wealth living in squalor after a crime and disgrace.
- Priscilla
Fauntleroy's younger daughter, a pale, nervous child with a deep love for her unseen half-sister and rumored supernatural abilities.
- Zenobia
Referred to as the beautiful elder daughter of Fauntleroy, the object of Priscilla's devoted affection.
- Professor Westervelt
The handsome gentleman who visits Priscilla, rumored to be a wizard exploiting her ethereal nature.
- Fauntleroy
The former identity of Old Moodie, a wealthy man whose superficial life ended in crime and ruin.
Key passages
“As with worship, too, it gave her soul the refreshment of a purer atmosphere.”
Her love for her sister was like a religious practice that cleansed and revived her spirit.
Describes the spiritual quality of Priscilla's devotion to her unseen sister.
“The sun at midday would shine through her; in the first gray of the twilight, she lost all the distinctness of her outline; and, if you followed the dim thing into a dark corner, behold! she was not there.”
Priscilla seemed so insubstantial that sunlight could pass through her, and she would disappear in shadows.
Illustrates the ghostly, ethereal nature attributed to Priscilla by the neighbors.
“He had married a lovely woman, whose nature was deeper than his own. But his affection for her, though it showed largely, was superficial, like all his other manifestations and developments; he did not so truly keep this noble creature in his heart, as wear her beauty for the most brilliant ornament of his outward state.”
Fauntleroy's love for his first wife was shallow, treating her more as a decorative accessory than a true partner.
Reveals the superficiality of Fauntleroy's character in his first marriage.
“It was just the sort of crime, growing out of its artificial state, which society (unless it should change its entire constitution for this man's unworthy sake) neither could nor ought to pardon. More safely might it pardon murder.”
Fauntleroy's crime was so tied to his artificial lifestyle that society could not forgive it, even more than murder.
Emphasizes the severity and social context of Fauntleroy's crime.
