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Chapter 17
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
The same evening, the three Carson sisters are lazing around their drawing room discussing Harry’s attentions to a girl named Jane Richardson. One sister, Sophy, condemns Harry’s flirtations—poor Jane doesn’t know he isn’t serious, and he’ll break her heart. Then their nurse enters, sobbing, and announces that Harry has been carried home dead—he was shot walking home. She begs Sophy to bring the news to Mr. Carson. Sophy, stunned, enters the dining room where her father has drifted off to sleep. She wakes him and, attempting to explain what has happened, bursts into tears. The nurse, following, says that Harry has been harmed. When Mr. Carson asks whether they’ve sent for the doctor, Sophy says it’s “no use.”
When Sophy condemns Harry’s romantic behavior toward Jane Richardson, it suggests that Harry’s romantic exploits are harmful to more girls than just Mary—while also revealing that members of Harry’s own class and even his own family dislike his behavior. Thus, contrary to John’s tendency to paint the employer class as universally callous, Sophy serves as an example of an employer’s daughter who is sensitive and sensible. The novel uses the sympathetic Sophy as a vehicle to drive home how tragic a brother and a son’s murder would be to a family—even if that brother and son is the unlikable character Harry Carson.
Themes
Mr. Carson, utterly devastated, asks where Harry is. The nurse explains that two policemen and a helper have brought his body into the servants’ hall and would like to speak with Mr. Carson. Mr. Carson and the nurse walk to the servants’ hall. There, Mr. Carson kisses dead Harry’s face and asks the policemen how Harry died. One policeman explains that he (the policeman) heard a gunshot on Turner Street, ran toward the noise, and heard a man running away but didn’t see him. Then he found Harry, who seemed to have died very quickly.
When Mr. Carson tenderly kisses the face of his dead son, it illustrates his paternal love and his emotional devastation. In a way, Mr. Carson is experiencing the same grief and trauma at Harry’s murder that John Barton experienced at his baby son Tom’s starvation.
Themes
Mrs. Carson, drawn by the noise, walks into the servants’ hall to investigate. Mr. Carson tells the nurse to take her away, but soon enough the whole house can hear Mrs. Carson breaking down. After a doctor comes and examines Harry’s body, the police superintendent asks Mr. Carson for a private conference. In the dining room, Mr. Carson says he will offer any reward to have his son’s murderer caught and executed. The superintendent says that they’ve already found a gun near the crime scene and that, a few days ago, the same policeman who found Harry’s body broke up a fight between Harry and a working-class young man on Turner Street.
Previously, the novel has suggested that John’s vengefulness results from the employer class’s lack of empathy for the workers but that this vengefulness is nevertheless condemnably unchristian. Now, in the aftermath of his son’s murder, Mr. Carson displays the same kind of vengefulness, wanting his son’s murderer executed. Given the policeman’s reference to a fight between Harry and a working-class young man, readers may guess that the police suspect Jem of the murder. This suspicion shows how the romantic intrigue involving Mary, Jem, and Harry endangers not only Mary but also Jem, who as a working-class young man is also socially vulnerable.
Themes
Sophy knocks on the dining-room door and asks Mr. Carson to speak with Mrs. Carson, who is acting bizarrely. Sophy and Mr. Carson walk to Harry’s room, where his corpse has been laid out on the bed. The two other Carson sisters are there with Mrs. Carson, who is holding Harry’s hand. Mrs. Carson announces that he’s such a joker—he’s faking sleep from which she can’t wake him. Once Mr. and Mrs. Carson leave, the sisters break down crying. Sophy gets control of herself first and tells the others they should go attend to their mother.
By showing Mrs. Carson’s desperate denial that Harry is dead, the novel solicits empathy from readers for the Carson family. Thus, it implicitly encourages readers to see the employer class as consisting of real human beings, not cartoon villains, despite the exploitative and callous way in which the employers treat the workers for much of the novel.
Themes
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The superintendent is waiting in the dining room when Mr. Carson returns. The two men talk for the rest of the night. When the superintendent is leaving in the early morning, Mr. Carson announces that his sole life goal now is to see Harry’s murderer caught and executed and that he wants to offer a reward of a thousand pounds. Once the superintendent leaves, Mr. Carson cries out Harry’s name and promises him that he’ll have vengeance. The narrator rhetorically asks whether legal vengeance is any less vengeance and whether “ye are worshippers of Christ? Or Alecto?”
Alecto is an ancient Greek goddess, one of the three Furies, whose function is to punish mortal crimes. By asking readers whether they are worshippers of Christ or Alecto, the narrator is asking them whether they believe in pagan vengefulness of Christian injunctions to forgiveness and mercy. Thus, the novel condemns Mr. Carson’s attitude toward his son’s murder as unchristian—and suggests that any reader who thinks Mr. Carson is acting rightly is unchristian as well.
Themes
