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Chapter 10
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mary Barton, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Employers vs. Workers
Sexuality and Danger
Christianity
Poverty and Morality
Empathy vs. Ignorance
Summary
Analysis
Though John has acted as he planned to act if he ever saw Esther again, he regrets his behavior upon returning home, recalling how wretched she looked when he shoved her down. He wonders whether religion could redeem Esther and whether he could find her again—but though he looks for her for many nights, he never finds her and at last gives up. Due to Esther and Mary’s resemblance, he begins worrying about Mary’s fate and quizzing her about her whereabouts. Mary, annoyed, refuses to answer.
John’s second thoughts about his cruelty to Esther, which he explicitly connects to the possibility of religion “redeeming” Esther from sex work, emphasize that his first reaction to her was “unchristian”—as well as counter to the mutual aid that characterizes working-class morality elsewhere in the novel. His fears about Mary’s resemblance to Esther suggest that female beauty is inherently perilous—another way the novel links sexuality, especially female sexuality, to danger.
Themes
Wishing Mary were married, John starts asking her about Jem. When Mary replies that Jem may marry Molly Gibson, John snaps that Mary must have erred: Jem used to love her, and he was “better than [she] deservedst.” Mary recalls how Harry was fawning over her that morning and tells her father, rather tartly, that perhaps some people think Jem is better than she deserves. Her father continues to scold her about Jem until, finally, he leaves and she bursts into tears.
The novel continues to suggest that Mary’s attachment to Harry is primarily a matter of pride rather than love: she believes he represents an opportunity to improve her class status from worker to employer and that his attention might be able to bolster her ego when the people around her tell her that Jem, whom she may subconsciously love, is too good for her.
Themes
Meanwhile, Jem has decided to roll the dice and propose to Mary—he has enough money to support a wife, and though their home would have to include Mrs. Wilson and Alice, such arrangements are common among the poor. He knocks on the Bartons’ door, and Mary calls on him to enter. When she realizes why he’s come, she decides to refuse him: she’ll show everyone who does or doesn’t deserve whom. Yet she can’t meet his intensely loving look. He gives a speech declaring his lifelong love and asks her to be his wife. When she can’t reply for a second, he asks whether her silence means consent. Finding her voice, she says no: they can be friends, but not spouses.
Jem’s consideration that he will have to support Mrs. Wilson and Alice as well as his future wife emphasizes yet again the community-oriented practical morality of the working-class characters in the novel. Mary’s piqued decision to reject Jem, motivated by John having told her that Jem is too good for her, illustrates how Mary’s ego and class aspirations rather than her heart are guiding her romantic choices vis-à-vis Jem and Harry.
Themes
Jem begs Mary to reconsider, saying he cannot be content as her friend. When she refuses, he tells her that her “cruelty” may turn him into an alcoholic or even a murderer. When she won’t look at him, he rushes from the house. Though she abruptly calls after him, he’s already gone.
Jem’s manipulative claim that Mary’s rejection will turn him into an alcoholic or murderer—a claim that narrator does not critique—illustrates how the novel not only represents sexuality as dangerous but also how it places the responsibility for men’s sexuality and romantic behavior on female characters.
Themes
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Mary begins sobbing. She feels split between her past and present opinions: she had planned to marry Harry, but she suddenly realizes that she loves Jem. Harry’s wealth and handsomeness only temporarily concealed from her her own hidden desires. She goes to her bedroom to think, resolves to end her flirtation with Harry immediately, and decides to wait for Jem to propose again. Only “maidenly modesty” prevents her from pursuing Jem herself.
At this point, Mary’s revelation that she loves Jem and only desired Harry for economic and egotistical motivations should come as no great surprise to readers. Victorian sexual mores—in the form of “maidenly modesty”—prohibit Mary from simply telling Jem that she returns his feelings after all. This prohibition shows how extremely limited the romantic options of “good” Victorian girls were: rather than directly communicate their own romantic interests, they had to wait for men to show interest and then simply accept or reject them.
Themes
For two days, Mary skips meetings with Harry and avoids Sally at work. On the third day, Sally comes to the Bartons’ house after work and enters without knocking. When Sally finds Mary alone, John having gone out, she tells her that Harry is waiting at the end of the road and wants to come visit Mary at home because Mary has been avoiding him. Immediately frantic, Mary tells Sally that John will kill her if he learns a man has visited her alone at home. She also reveals that she doesn’t love Harry. She begs Sally to make Harry go away. Instead, Sally says that Mary should come with her to speak to Harry in the street—or Harry will break the Bartons’ door down. Mary agrees to come.
Here, flirtation and sexuality become not only a moral and social danger to Mary but also a physical one. Given that John has already beaten Mary once for talking back to him, readers should not assume that Mary is speaking figuratively when she says John would kill her for letting a young man into their house unchaperoned. In addition, Harry implicitly threatens physical intimidation—forcing his way into the Bartons’ house—to get Mary to see him again. Men, the novel insists, are a potential danger to women.
Themes
Mary decides she should apologize to Harry for leading him on, as she naively believes he wants to marry her—a notion of which he has never disabused her, though he wants to “obtain her as cheaply as” possible. She, Sally, and Harry meet in the street and walk to a neighborhood of unfinished construction. There, Harry wraps his arm around Mary’s waist, despite her angry struggles, and demands to know why she’s avoiding him. Mary apologizes for leading him on, explains that she didn’t understand her own mind, and tells him she no longer wants to see him.
The phrase “obtain her as cheaply as” possible suggests that Harry sees Mary as sexual consumer item rather than a true love: even if he won’t literally offer her money for sex, he sees her as a potential sexual possession for which he wants to pay as low a price as he can. Thus, the novel again emphasizes the sordid economic dimension to Harry and Mary’s flirtation: he sees her as an exploitable object, while she sees him as an escape from the working class.
Themes
Harry arrogantly assumes that Mary is “coquetting,” but when she firmly repeats herself, he asks how he offended her. She says she doesn’t want to explain and tries to leave. When he physically prevents her and demands an explanation, she bursts out that she can’t love him. Refusing to believe her and wondering how to change her mind, Harry claims that he loves her so much he’ll even marry her—though Mr. Carson and Mrs. Carson would hate the idea so much that he’s “never thought of it till now.” He promises to marry her that very night and shower her with riches. Mary—relieved—tells him that she felt guilty when she thought he was honest, but now that she realizes he meant to “ruin” her, she holds him in contempt.
To “coquette” is to flirt—with a connotation of coyness or insincerity. Harry, in his arrogance, has difficulty believing that Mary sincerely no longer wants to see him. Perhaps not realizing the depths of Mary’s naivete and conventional Victorian sexual morality, Harry admits that he “never thought of [marriage]” before this conversation—thus revealing that he wanted premarital sex, allowed for him but socially ruinous for a girl like Mary. Mary’s contempt for Harry after this admission shows that in the conservative sexual view of the novel, she is a “good” girl despite her former flirtatiousness.
Themes
Mary breaks Harry’s grip and runs away. Sally bursts out laughing. When Harry, annoyed, asks why, Sally says it’s comical how Mary has “outwitted us”—really meaning how she has outwitted Harry. She asks why Harry outright stated that he had no intention of marrying Mary until that day. Harry says that he implied to Mary that he didn’t intend to marry her and had no idea she didn’t understand: Mr. Carson would sooner forgive a “temporary connection” than a bad marriage. When Sally points out that Mrs. Carson once worked in a factory, Harry snaps that there’s a larger social distance between him and Mary than there was between his parents. Yet when Sally asks whether Harry will stop pursuing Mary, he says no, though he won’t offer to marry her again.
Sally shows deference to higher-class Harry by saying that Mary has outwitted “us”—when, really, Sally was laughing at Harry’s sexual defeat. Harry’s casual claim that his father would forgive a “temporary connection”—that is, premarital sex—before an economically disadvantageous marriage shows Victorian England’s sexual double standard: men who have premarital sex aren’t “ruined,” but women who do are. Harry’s claim also shows the thorough interpenetration of economics and romance in the novel: his father wouldn’t want him to marry a poor girl despite his father and mother’s own working-class background.
Themes
