# XV explained — The Uncalled

> Chapter companion for The Uncalled by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

## What happens

Fred Brent struggles with the lingering effects of his repressive upbringing, feeling trapped by the very discipline he thought he had escaped. He goes out with Perkins to a beer-garden but is intercepted by a temperance advocate. Later, at a temperance meeting, he discovers the speaker is his estranged father, Tom Brent, causing him profound shame and anger.

## Themes in this chapter

### Repression and Authenticity

Fred finds that his rebellion against his strict upbringing is futile; his ingrained Puritan sensibilities prevent him from embracing the pleasures he thought he desired.

### Parental Legacy and Identity

Fred's discovery that the temperance speaker is his father Tom Brent forces him to confront the shame of his parentage and the inescapable burden of his father's past.

### Hypocrisy and Religion

Fred bitterly reflects on the religious system that would grant his father salvation through a deathbed repentance, while he himself has suffered from his father's sins.

## Character check-ins

### Fred Brent

Fred grapples with the iron grip of his Puritan upbringing, feels humiliated by his own inhibitions, and is horrified to discover his father is the temperance speaker.

### Tom Brent

Tom Brent appears as the repentant temperance speaker, coughing and frail, seeking to return home before dying.

### Mr. Perkins

Perkins is Fred's worldly city guide, who teases him about his black tie and takes him to Meyer's Beer-Garden.

### Mrs. Hester Hodges

Referenced as the internalized voice of restraint that Fred cannot escape, even in her absence.

### Mrs. Jones

Mrs. Jones observes Fred's distressed return and assumes he has been drinking with Perkins.

## Key lines

> He had hated the severe discipline of his youth, and had finally rebelled against it and renounced its results as far as they went materially. This he had thought to mean his emancipation. But when the hour to assert his freedom had come, he found that the long years of rigid training had bound his volition with iron bands.

Fred believed he had freed himself from his strict upbringing, but when he tried to act freely, he discovered that his habits were too deeply ingrained to break.

_Illustrates the theme of repression and authenticity._

> It was Frederick Brent who looked on sin abstractly, but its presence in the concrete was seen through the eyes of Mrs. Hester Hodges.

Fred could think about sin in theory, but when faced with actual temptation, he reacted with the same moral judgment his aunt had taught him.

_Shows the internalized influence of Mrs. Hester Hodges._

> My God! my God! It was my father, going back home. What shall I do?

Fred realizes the temperance speaker is his father and is overwhelmed with horror and despair.

_Climactic moment of parental legacy and identity._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_uncalled_se/chapters/xv
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_uncalled_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_uncalled_se/chapters