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Volume 1, Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hope Leslie, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Religious Conflict and Tolerance
Interracial Relationships
Violence and Historical Memory
Women’s Roles
The Puritan Heritage
Summary
Analysis
After a sleepless night, Magawisca joins the family for morning prayers. Seeing Magawisca’s apprehensive face, Mrs. Fletcher feels foreboding. She is about to send Digby to the fort for advice when a messenger brings news that Mr. Fletcher is just a few hours’ journey away. She sends servants to meet her husband, and because Mrs. Grafton is restless to intercept some packages he is bringing, Mrs. Fletcher allows Digby to accompany Mrs. Grafton to town. Digby protests, arguing that Mr. Fletcher has forbidden that the women and children be left alone, but Mrs. Fletcher insists.
Mrs. Fletcher intuits that something bad is soon to happen, but Mr. Fletcher’s approach (finally making the journey from Boston after several months away) gives her an illusory sense of safety, and she asserts her authority as housewife to short-circuit Digby’s well-meaning precautions.
Themes
The household is in a joyful bustle. Everell gathers the family on the porch to watch for Mr. Fletcher’s and Hope Leslie’s approach, placing Faith on an elevated spot so that she can catch the first glimpse. It is a beautiful day at the end of May; the grain in the meadows is beginning to sprout, the birds are singing, and Everell remarks that his mother looks lovelier than ever. But Magawisca starts to cry.
The joy of the scene—including the burgeoning life of nature all around them—creates an expectation of a happy homecoming. However, Magawisca’s tears, which are a sign of what she knows that nobody else knows, undercut this.
Themes
Thinking the girl feels like an orphan, Mrs. Fletcher reminds Magawisca that she is neither a stranger nor a servant in this household—doesn’t she love them? “Love you!” Magawisca replies, “I would give my life for you.” Mrs. Fletcher says that they’re not asking for her life—only her cheerfulness on this happy day.
Mrs. Fletcher’s words, intended to comfort Magawisca, only serve to cruelly highlight her position of being caught between the Fletchers’ welfare and that of her own people.
Themes
Literary Devices
Just then, yells fill the air as three warriors burst out of the forest. Magawisca and Oneco cry, “My father! My father!” Magawisca falls at Mononotto’s feet and begs him to spare the Fletchers—“I bleed when they are struck.” Mononotto is silent. Magawisca then jumps in front of another warrior who is approaching Mrs. Fletcher with raised hatchet. The warrior smiles at her courage but doesn’t stop. Just as the warrior is about to strike at Mrs. Fletcher, Everell fires his musket into the man’s arm.
The raid begins. Magawisca bravely tries to intercept the violence, foreshadowing a scene to come later (indeed, her words “I bleed when they are struck” suggest that her intermediate position between her Pequot roots and the Fletcher family can’t help but tear her apart).
Themes
Literary Devices
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The warrior briefly tussles with Everell, and Mononotto stops him from striking the boy down. Everell seizes the chance to blow an alarm on the bugle hanging beside the door. The blast is heard in the village, and Digby is soon spurring his horse toward Bethel. Mr. Pynchon, the village magistrate, soon follows with armed men. At Bethel, meanwhile, Mononotto urges his men to finish their job. The bleeding warrior grabs Mrs. Fletcher’s infant from her arms, and before being stabbed through the heart, she swoons. Everell and Magawisca, clinging to her in a futile defense, fall down with her.
Mononotto displays restraint and mercy by not allowing Everell to be killed. Other warriors, however, are unrestrained in the horrifying attack.
Themes
In the scuffle, the Fletcher infant falls to the ground at Mononotto’s feet. The baby reaches toward the warrior with a pitiful look, causing Mononotto’s heart to melt. He picks up the baby. But then one of the other warriors grabs the baby from his arms and dashes him against the doorway, killing him. At this, Mononotto declares that he is avenged, and that there has been enough death.
This scene has been noted for its restraint compared to equivalent scenes in novels like Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans, in which native characters display no merciful instincts and force mothers to witness the destruction of their children.
Themes
Literary Devices
Oneco, holding Faith, and Everell are taken into the forest. Magawisca, in despair, follows them. As they enter the forest, Mononotto tears off Oneco’s English clothing—the mark of his “captivity.” He wraps a skin around his son, “the badge of [his] people.”
The Pequot characters enter the forest with their captives, crossing the boundary from settler civilization into the implicitly dangerous native American realm.
Themes
