Previous
Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Vicar of Wakefield, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Humility in the Face of Adversity
The Possibility of Redemption
Family and Society
Equality, Justice, and the Law
Travel, Home, and Belonging
Summary
Analysis
Dr. Primrose, unconcerned with worldly affairs, donates his salary to the needy and subsists off an inherited fortune, focusing on his preaching. He has strong views on marriage, taking a strict stance against priests remarrying after the deaths of their wives. Dr. Primrose even writes an epitaph for his wife in advance. Influenced by his father’s words, George courts the daughter of another priest, Miss Arabella Wilmot. The Wilmots receive the courtship well, as the Primroses can afford a generous dowry. The families carouse together, Olivia and Sophia giving concerts. Dr. Primrose, however, cannot help himself and shows Mr. Wilmot his tract on monogamy, not realizing Wilmot hopes to remarry himself. Both of them refuse to back down, and then Dr. Primrose learns that the merchant who was holding his fortune has stolen it form him. Despite this, he sticks to his pride, and soon Mr. Wilmot decides to break the marriage off.
Dr. Primrose, though he prides himself on his humility, is often a victim of that very pride—as is, by extension, his family. In his striving to live up to a religious ideal, he neglects to take concrete steps to benefit his family, putting “goodness” before “worldliness” or “practicality.” His rigid views of remarriage reflect this, as they are inapplicable to his own marriage, which he has had comically written in stone on his wife’s premade gravestone. While his well-intentioned moral rigidity is harmless within the Primrose family, by provoking a fight with Mr. Wilmot, Dr. Primrose inadvertently spoils his own son’s marriage, a faux pas to which he seems to hardly give any thought. On the other hand, Dr. Primrose’s stoical response to the loss of his fortune casts his firm morals in a better light. showing that if he is excessively moralistic at times, he is at the very least consistent.
Themes
