Mr. Macartney Character Analysis

Mr. Macartney is a Scottish poet; he’s Sir John Belmont’s son, Evelina’s brother, and Miss Belmont’s fiancé. Evelina meets Mr. Macartney while he is a destitute lodger in Mr. Branghton’s shop. Macartney is in a dire situation, having fallen in love with Miss Belmont in Paris and fought and injured her father, Sir John (who is also Evelina’s father) when Sir John discovered the affair. After his fight with Sir John, Macartney returned home, where his mother revealed that Sir John is his father too—meaning that he and Miss Belmont are siblings. Macartney then fled to Paris, only to learn that his mother had died, leaving him penniless in London. When Evelina meets Macartney, he is on the brink of suicide, and she saves him from harming himself. Macartney, who’s kind and honorable, insists on paying Evelina back for the help she gave him. After she saves him, he works hard to put his pride aside and ask for financial help from his mother’s family, which saves him from ruin. Macartney eventually discovers that Sir John is his father as well, and that Miss Belmont is not Sir John’s real daughter—she and Evelina were switched at birth. Sir John raised Miss Belmont as his own, believing that she was his and his deceased wife, Caroline’s, child. Macartney marries Miss Belmont at the end of the novel, after it is revealed that she is not his sister, and he inherits his share of Sir John’s wealth.