The Financier · Chapter
XLV explained
Aileen Butler, defying her father's wishes, leaves home to assert her independence and her love for Frank Cowperwood, who is in jail awaiting a certificate of reasonable doubt.
What happens
Aileen Butler, defying her father's wishes, leaves home to assert her independence and her love for Frank Cowperwood, who is in jail awaiting a certificate of reasonable doubt. She moves in with the Calligans, while Cowperwood, though imprisoned, arranges his affairs and awaits release.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Betrayal
Aileen's defiance of her father for Cowperwood, and Cowperwood's willingness to use her to strike at Butler, intertwine love with familial betrayal.
Individualism vs. Society
Aileen asserts her individual will against her family's and society's expectations, while Cowperwood reflects on how money and status subvert the ideal of equality before the law.
Class and Social Mobility
Cowperwood's privileged jail conditions highlight class disparities in the justice system, and Aileen's naivete about supporting herself reveals her sheltered upper-class background.
Characters to notice
- Aileen Butler
Leaves her father's house, moves to the Calligans, and sends word to Cowperwood of her decision.
- Frank Algernon Cowperwood
In jail, receives Aileen's message, arranges his business affairs, and awaits his release on a certificate of reasonable doubt.
- Edward Malia Butler
Aileen's father, whose opposition to her relationship with Cowperwood drives her to leave home.
- Harper Steger
Cowperwood's lawyer, who arranges for him to see business visitors and handles legal proceedings.
- Mamie Calligan
Hosts Aileen at her home after she leaves her family.
Key passages
“Say what one will about prison life in general, modify it ever so much by special chambers, obsequious turnkeys, a general tendency to make one as comfortable as possible, a jail is a jail, and there is no getting away from that.”
No matter how comfortable a prison is made, it remains a prison.
Cowperwood's reflection on the inescapable nature of incarceration despite his privileged conditions.
“So much for the alleged equality of man, he thought, which gave to one man, even within the grim confines of the machinery of justice, such personal liberty as he himself was now enjoying, and to another, because he chanced to lack wit or presence or friends or wealth, denied the more comfortable things which money would buy.”
Cowperwood muses that the ideal of equality is a sham, since wealth and influence buy comfort even in prison.
A critique of class inequality within the justice system.
“Little she knew of the steely face the world presents to those who have not been practically trained and are not economically efficient. She did not understand the bitter reaches of life at all.”
Aileen is naive about the harsh realities faced by those without practical skills or financial independence.
Narrator's commentary on Aileen's sheltered upbringing and ignorance of economic struggle.