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Chapter 30
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
Meanwhile, the old boatman takes Mary back to his house, where she abruptly faints. The boatman and his wife anxiously attempt to rouse Mary, but she doesn’t wake until the boatman pours spirits into her mouth. As soon as she wakes, the boatman leaves her alone with his wife, who speculates that Mary is a “bad one” because she’s so pretty, but she insists that Mary stay the night because sinners need the most help. Mary says she’s not a “bad one” and explains how she met the old boatman and how her friend Will, who needs to provide an alibi, is returning in a pilot-boat. She starts crying. The boatman’s wife, whose name is Mrs. Sturgis, comforts her, makes her tea, and puts her to bed. Yet Mary stays up all night watching a weathercock outside the window to check the wind.
Mrs. Sturgis immediately assumes that Mary is a “bad one”—that is, a fallen woman, a sex worker—simply because she is alone in the city and good-looking. This assumption shows how restrictive Victorian sexual mores were for women and girls, placing them in danger of social blame and ostracism even when they weren’t engaging in sex work or premarital sexual activity (as Mary is not). Yet Mrs. Sturgis resolves to help Mary, despite her doubts about Mary’s sexual virtue, implicitly because Christianity upholds that Christians should help sinners. Mrs. Sturgis’s resolution shows once again the practical, altruistic morality of the working class in the novel—and, perhaps, suggests how (in the novel’s view) real Christians ought to treat sex workers.
Themes
