Dear Alexander explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Suffering, Humiliation, and Redemption

  Rachel's physical and mental anguish is a direct result of her perceived humiliation and the shattering of her intellectual pride. Alick's presence offers a path toward peace, suggesting a redemption through acceptance and care.

• Masculine Influence and the Shaping of Women's Minds

  Alick's calming and authoritative presence is portrayed as the only effective remedy for Rachel's feverish state, contrasting with the ineffective female nursing. His guidance is seen as essential to her recovery.

• Family Duty and Self-Sacrifice

  Ermine's distress over her brother Edward's refusal of help highlights her sense of duty. Colin's willingness to risk his health to bring Edward back exemplifies self-sacrifice for family.

Characters to notice

• Rachel Curtis

  Lies ill, depressed and feverish, feeling humiliated by Alick's proposal and her own confused faith. She insists on seeing him to explain herself.

• Alick Keith

  Visits Rachel, bringing her calm and comfort. He is determined to take her away from the house to aid her recovery and plans to get leave from his duties.

• Ermine Williams

  Receives a painful letter from her brother Edward, who refuses her efforts to help him, leaving her in tears and despair.

• Colin Keith

  Despite his illness, visits Ermine to comfort her after Edward's letter. He resolves to travel to bring Edward back himself.

• Grace Curtis

  Nurses Rachel and is scolded by Alick for her ineffective care. She is caught between her mother's anxiety and Rachel's needs.

• Mrs. Curtis

  Her anxious and fluttering attentions aggravate Rachel's condition. She has elevated Alick to a pedestal of infallibility.

Key passages

• “Surface work, said Alick, some of the effects of the literature that paints contradiction as truth. It is only skin deep, and makes me wish all the more to have her with my uncle for a time.”

  Alick believes Rachel's troubled faith is a superficial result of reading contradictory literature, and he thinks time with his uncle will help her.

  Alick dismisses the depth of Rachel's intellectual crisis, attributing it to external influences.

• “I know you cannot overlook it! My faith—it is all confusion, she said in a low awestruck voice. I do believe—I do wish to believe; but my grasp seems gone.”

  Rachel confesses to Alick that her faith is in turmoil; she wants to believe but feels she has lost her hold on it.

  Rachel reveals the core of her distress, her spiritual crisis, to Alick.

• “You seem to nurse her on the principle of old Morris, the biggest officer among us, who kindly insisted on sitting up with me, and began by taking his seat upon my hand as it was lying spread out upon a pillow.”

  Alick scolds Grace, comparing her clumsy nursing to an officer who accidentally sat on his hand while trying to care for him.

  Alick uses a humorous military anecdote to criticize the ineffective care Rachel is receiving.

• “I am sorry you have stirred up Keith to the renewal of this painful subject. You know I considered that page in my life as closed forever, and I see nothing that would compensate for what it costs me even to think of it.”

  Edward writes to Ermine that he is sorry she has prompted Keith to bring up his painful past, which he had considered permanently closed.

  Edward's letter reveals his unwillingness to revisit the events that led to his disgrace.

• “It will be July when I come back. I do not think you ought to go. Nor I, if Edward deigns to read the account of Rose's examination.”

  Colin states he will return in July. Ermine objects, but Colin implies he will only stay if Edward responds to the news of Rose's exam.

  Colin is resolute in his plan to go to Edward, despite Ermine's concerns for his health.