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Chapter 21
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
On their way home Dr. Primrose reassures Olivia that Mrs. Primrose will also forgive her and praises the kindness of God. He decides to leave her at an inn nearby and return for her in the morning, heading home alone at night. As he arrives, however, he finds the house aflame and cries out before fainting. This wakes up Moses, who brings his mother and Sophia outside. Dr. Primrose wakes up and rushes in to save Dick and Bill, injuring his arm in the process.
Dr. Primrose, firmly holding to his faith, thanks God for returning Olivia to him rather than cursing God for having taken her away. Attempting to lead by example, he encourages her to accept her mother’s forgiveness, which he is confident will be forthcoming; the anger Mrs. Primrose felt is one based in love, and Dr. Primrose most firmly believes that love conquers all. His thanks to Gpd strikes a darkly ironic note in light of the next disaster to strike the already beleaguered family as the house burns down. Unlike the end of George’s engagement or Olivia’s abduction, nobody can blame this tragedy on Dr. Primrose’s pride or Squire Thornhill’s villainy. Instead, it is an unlucky stroke of fate—or act of God.
Themes
Literary Devices
Neighbors also come to help but it is too late to save the house; the Primroses spend the night in one of their outbuildings, and Dr. Primrose explains why he has been gone to so long. Moses and Sophia go to fetch Olivia, and while her welcome is cold at first, Dr. Primrose insists on his wife’s forgiving their daughter, telling her that a sinner’s return to virtue is worth far more than the virtue of someone who has never sinned.
The kindness and support the Primroses receive from their neighbors is all the more striking in light of the family’s previous feelings of superiority to those neighbors; though they may look down upon the Flamboroughs and hope to marry lords, in the family’s hour of need it is the Flamboroughs and not the lords who come to help them, an irony of fate that does not escape Dr. Primrose. Mrs. Primrose, while initially hesitant to accept Olivia back into the family, allows her husband to persuade her otherwise. Once more, Dr. Primrose stresses the central role of redemption in Christian morality.
Themes
