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Chapter 27
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 watermen row hard, but the boat moves slowly, and Mary becomes terrified that they won’t reach Will’s ship in time. As the boat gets close, Will’s ship starts pulling up its anchor. Mary explains what she needs to communicate to the watermen, and they yell to the ship’s sailors that they need “William Wilson” to testify in court in Liverpool to provide an alibi for Jem, accused of murder. The captain yells back that he won’t pause his ship’s journey or let any of his sailors leave. Mary is despairing when Will runs up beside the captain and yells that he’ll return to Liverpool even if he has to use the pilot-boat.
The captain’s ungenerous reply to a genuinely serious situation—one of his sailors could exculpate an innocent man who will otherwise be executed for murder—underlines the point, made in the previous passage, that while many of the working-class characters display solidarity, practical morality, and mutual aid, the novel does not portray the working class as uniformly moral and altruistic.
Themes
Mary asks the watermen what a pilot-boat is. When the watermen explain, she asks how long it will take the pilot-boat to return to Liverpool. As the watermen argue over the answer, Mary feels disoriented—and suddenly despairs. She falls into an exhausted sleep as her boat makes its way back to the pier. When the boat arrives at sundown, the watermen shake her awake. She tries to offer one old boatman her shawl, but he refuses it, saying they only asked for it to make sure she wasn’t hiding any additional money. He asks where she’s staying. She looks for the card with the address in her pocket but can’t find it (unbeknownst to her, she dropped it while pulling out her purse on the pier earlier). The old boatman, annoyed and worried, insists that she come with him.
Though the watermen initially exploited Mary’s desperation to make money, the old boatman ultimately refuses to take her shawl and gives her a place to sleep; thus, in this passage, the novel returns to representing its working-class characters as—for the most part—practically moral, helpful, altruistic, and responsive to the needs and sufferings of others.
Themes
