Written for Keri Holt's class on American literature, April 2018.
Both of the Things Wrong with Charlotte Temple
By C. Randall Nicholson
In her essay “What's Wrong with Charlotte Temple?”, Marion Rust argues that the point of Susanna Rowson's novel has long been entirely misconstrued. She points out that “most scholars take the centrality of the sex act – and with it, Charlotte's presumed lust – for granted”, but claims that “[a] close look calls this emphasis on Charlotte's passion, and its ill-effects on her virtue, into question.” (Rust 493) She claims that Charlotte's true fatal character flaw is meant to be her indecisiveness, with her seduction being merely the form it takes in the story. In the final act she makes one monumental decision before perishing. I believe that Rust is onto something, but that she overstates her case in trying to assert it as the entire point of the novel. The moral against indecision is certainly a crucial element of the work, but it comes intertwined with the moral against seduction, not in place of it.
Rust points out that Rowson puts a lot of emphasis on lust in her other works, and that this emphasis is lacking in Charlotte Temple, concluding that “Rowson is capable of alluding to hetero-erotic attraction – it is just not what she is after in Charlotte's case.” (Rust 494) She fails to take into account, however, that novels were a recent and controversial art form compared to plays and songs. Because novels were such a new art form, many of Rowson's contemporaries considered them to be scandalous and immoral and were looking for excuses to denounce it as such. (Theater also experienced some controversy, but it was much better established in society, being thousands of years old.) Rowson would have needed to be far more careful about how she approached sexual topics in a novel than in any other art form. Hence she follows a “less is more” approach. They are present enough to grab the readers' attention, but subdued enough to not be too scandalous, and roundly condemned in any case. This enabled the novel to be a bestseller while still being interpreted far and wide as a seduction narrative. Belcour and Montraville do not talk of an obsession with sex, or indeed even mention it at all, but what else can they really be after? Montraville wants to marry her, but not because of her personality, and Belcour does not even want that much. “Alas! when once a woman has forgot the respect due to herself, by yielding to the solicitations of illicit love, they lose all their consequence, even in the eyes of the man whose art has betrayed them, and for whose sake they have sacrificed every valuable consideration.” (Rowson 46)
Rust misses some of the significance of Mademoiselle La Rue, a character who both corroborates and challenges her thesis. In the novel Rowson describes La Rue as “designing, artful, and selfish... but her plan she flattered herself was now better formed: she resolved to put herself under the protection of no man till she had first secured a settlement” (Rowson 44). La Rue is an ambitious, cunning go-getter who provides a foil and contrast to Charlotte's indecisiveness, and Rust correctly points out that this indecisiveness is Charlotte's downfall when La Rue manipulates her. “With every moment of indecision, La Rue steps in to direct Charlotte's path... and it is thus and not through any overwhelming desire of her own that Charlotte is impregnated.” (Rust 495) Yet La Rue also falls into poverty and dies at the end. No amount of decisiveness is able to save her from the same fate as Charlotte. Her end falls more in line with the more commonly accepted thrust of the story against immorality, in this case not just sexual but also deceitful. Rowson tells her readers that the weak and the wicked both receive the same comeuppance, whether deserved or not. La Rue's end competes with and perhaps overshadows what Rust claims is the main theme of the story. Rowson could have written the story differently to avoid confusion if that were her only objective – for example, by having a righteous character who makes good choices and has a happy and successful life.
Rust's thesis about Charlotte's indecisiveness still remains correct, however. At the beginning of Chapter XXVII, for example, we see what Charlotte does when left to her own devices with no parents, no Belcour, no Montraville, and no La Rue to influence her. “Charlotte had now been left almost three months a prey to her own melancholy reflections – sad companions indeed; nor did anyone break in upon her solitude but Belcour...” (Rowson 71) Charlotte writes letters to Montraville, but never goes after him in person or takes any other initiative to better her situation. This is not merely because of her ill health, for she explains herself that “the pains and infirmities of the body I could easily bear, nay, submit to them with patience, were they not aggravated by the most insupportable anguish of mind... I have made myself a poor despised creature, an outcast from society, an object only of contempt and pity.” (Rowson 72) Charlotte has moped and fainted and allowed herself to be pushed around and now when her situation is at its darkest and action is most imperative, she still does nothing but chooses instead to wallow in self-pity. There are many junctures where Charlotte has the opportunity to escape from or reverse or at least halt her situation, but she does not take advantage of them, and a final one appears before her death but she has not learned her lesson. It is true that women of the era were taught to be passive and dependent on a man, and she must be terrified of strangers in the terrifying new country she finds herself in. Yet she has nothing to lose at this point and would be unlikely to do worse with strangers than with the people she knew who put her in this situation. Of course it is possible that no one would help her and her efforts would fail, but she is too emotionally weak to even make these efforts to begin with. Her fatal flaw has become fatal in a very literal sense.
Charlotte Temple is a warning both against immorality and against being manipulated by those who would lead one into it. It tells young ladies that allowing suave and handsome men to seduce them, or charismatic and untrustworthy older women to coerce them into breaking the rules and fleeing from their parents, will bring disaster upon them. It tells them that they must be assertive and make their own wise decisions instead of letting those people control them. Specifically, they should not elope and should only have sex within marriages sanctioned by their parents. This context is inseparable from the warning, because this is what Rowson considers the most pressing danger for young ladies to know about. The traditional seduction interpretation of the novel that Marion Rust attempts to displace is still essential to it, but she has pointed out another equally essential aspect of it that modern readers and critics have long overlooked.
Rust, Marion. “What's Wrong with Charlotte Temple?” Charlotte Temple: Norton Critical Edition, edited by Marion Rust, W.W. Norton & Co., 2011, pp. 493-509.
Read more of my essays here.
Rust points out that Rowson puts a lot of emphasis on lust in her other works, and that this emphasis is lacking in Charlotte Temple, concluding that “Rowson is capable of alluding to hetero-erotic attraction – it is just not what she is after in Charlotte's case.” (Rust 494) She fails to take into account, however, that novels were a recent and controversial art form compared to plays and songs. Because novels were such a new art form, many of Rowson's contemporaries considered them to be scandalous and immoral and were looking for excuses to denounce it as such. (Theater also experienced some controversy, but it was much better established in society, being thousands of years old.) Rowson would have needed to be far more careful about how she approached sexual topics in a novel than in any other art form. Hence she follows a “less is more” approach. They are present enough to grab the readers' attention, but subdued enough to not be too scandalous, and roundly condemned in any case. This enabled the novel to be a bestseller while still being interpreted far and wide as a seduction narrative. Belcour and Montraville do not talk of an obsession with sex, or indeed even mention it at all, but what else can they really be after? Montraville wants to marry her, but not because of her personality, and Belcour does not even want that much. “Alas! when once a woman has forgot the respect due to herself, by yielding to the solicitations of illicit love, they lose all their consequence, even in the eyes of the man whose art has betrayed them, and for whose sake they have sacrificed every valuable consideration.” (Rowson 46)
Rust misses some of the significance of Mademoiselle La Rue, a character who both corroborates and challenges her thesis. In the novel Rowson describes La Rue as “designing, artful, and selfish... but her plan she flattered herself was now better formed: she resolved to put herself under the protection of no man till she had first secured a settlement” (Rowson 44). La Rue is an ambitious, cunning go-getter who provides a foil and contrast to Charlotte's indecisiveness, and Rust correctly points out that this indecisiveness is Charlotte's downfall when La Rue manipulates her. “With every moment of indecision, La Rue steps in to direct Charlotte's path... and it is thus and not through any overwhelming desire of her own that Charlotte is impregnated.” (Rust 495) Yet La Rue also falls into poverty and dies at the end. No amount of decisiveness is able to save her from the same fate as Charlotte. Her end falls more in line with the more commonly accepted thrust of the story against immorality, in this case not just sexual but also deceitful. Rowson tells her readers that the weak and the wicked both receive the same comeuppance, whether deserved or not. La Rue's end competes with and perhaps overshadows what Rust claims is the main theme of the story. Rowson could have written the story differently to avoid confusion if that were her only objective – for example, by having a righteous character who makes good choices and has a happy and successful life.
Rust's thesis about Charlotte's indecisiveness still remains correct, however. At the beginning of Chapter XXVII, for example, we see what Charlotte does when left to her own devices with no parents, no Belcour, no Montraville, and no La Rue to influence her. “Charlotte had now been left almost three months a prey to her own melancholy reflections – sad companions indeed; nor did anyone break in upon her solitude but Belcour...” (Rowson 71) Charlotte writes letters to Montraville, but never goes after him in person or takes any other initiative to better her situation. This is not merely because of her ill health, for she explains herself that “the pains and infirmities of the body I could easily bear, nay, submit to them with patience, were they not aggravated by the most insupportable anguish of mind... I have made myself a poor despised creature, an outcast from society, an object only of contempt and pity.” (Rowson 72) Charlotte has moped and fainted and allowed herself to be pushed around and now when her situation is at its darkest and action is most imperative, she still does nothing but chooses instead to wallow in self-pity. There are many junctures where Charlotte has the opportunity to escape from or reverse or at least halt her situation, but she does not take advantage of them, and a final one appears before her death but she has not learned her lesson. It is true that women of the era were taught to be passive and dependent on a man, and she must be terrified of strangers in the terrifying new country she finds herself in. Yet she has nothing to lose at this point and would be unlikely to do worse with strangers than with the people she knew who put her in this situation. Of course it is possible that no one would help her and her efforts would fail, but she is too emotionally weak to even make these efforts to begin with. Her fatal flaw has become fatal in a very literal sense.
Charlotte Temple is a warning both against immorality and against being manipulated by those who would lead one into it. It tells young ladies that allowing suave and handsome men to seduce them, or charismatic and untrustworthy older women to coerce them into breaking the rules and fleeing from their parents, will bring disaster upon them. It tells them that they must be assertive and make their own wise decisions instead of letting those people control them. Specifically, they should not elope and should only have sex within marriages sanctioned by their parents. This context is inseparable from the warning, because this is what Rowson considers the most pressing danger for young ladies to know about. The traditional seduction interpretation of the novel that Marion Rust attempts to displace is still essential to it, but she has pointed out another equally essential aspect of it that modern readers and critics have long overlooked.
Rust, Marion. “What's Wrong with Charlotte Temple?” Charlotte Temple: Norton Critical Edition, edited by Marion Rust, W.W. Norton & Co., 2011, pp. 493-509.
Read more of my essays here.
