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Chapter 8
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
Returning home, the Primroses find the Squire is already there, along with two elaborately dressed young women. Soon, the ball soon kicks off; Thornhill and Olivia lead the dancing. Afterward, eating dinner, the two ladies impress the Primrose daughters with their talk of city life, discussing painting, Shakespeare, and musical glasses. The ladies suggest that Olivia spend a winter in town, which Mrs. Primrose strongly approves of. Dr. Primrose believes that becoming more cultured would be ridiculous given his family’s poverty. The Squire replies that he would give Olivia half of his fortune, implying that she should reward him with sexual favors in return. Dr. Primrose loudly objects, and the Squire assures him he has no such plan in mind. The party then discusses virtue more generally, and Dr. Primrose leads them in prayers. After dinner, the ladies ask Olivia and Sophia to come back to the Squire’s with them, which Dr. Primrose curtly refuses.
The Primroses feel their desire to be accepted by society all the more sharply in the presence of the town ladies, who make them feel ridiculous and provincial. Even Dr. Primrose is not immune to this; though he is offput by the town ladies’ behavior, through a combination of moral generosity and personal insecurity he chalks this up to his own ignorance of high-class life. He is willing to give such members of the upper class the benefit of the doubt, in part because he seems their life and his family’s as irreconcilably different. Nevertheless, Dr. Primrose is not so ignorant as to miss the Squire’s innuendo, which greatly offends him, leading to his refusal to send his daughters to Thornhill castle.
Themes
Literary Devices
