45 pages • 1 hour read
Charles Brockden BrownEdgar Huntly: Or, Memoirs of a Sleepwalker
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1799A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 25-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
Sarsefield continues his dialogue-bound narrative of events—he describes the conflict between the whites and the “marauders” (228) where Edgar’s uncle was killed, and his musket taken by the Native Americans. Sarsefield’s party, while searching for “savages” and Edgar, heard shots at Queen Mab’s hut. This led to the first time Sarsefield presumed Edgar was dead thirty miles from home.
While tending to the captive girl’s health, Sarsefield questions her and some of her story seems to corroborate Edgar’s narrative in the cave, but her recollection of events in the hut are “incoherent” (230). Sarsefield thinks the same man killed both Edgar and his uncle but realizes he didn’t check Edgar for a pulse or other signs of life and returns to the hut. There, he discovers that Edgar had “risen from the dead” and wandering the wilderness. The search is reinvigorated by signs of Edgar from the “good woman” (mentioned in Chapter 20), and Sarsefield extinguishes the fire that Edgar finds in the Selby house.
Their next crossing is when Sarsefield mistakes Edgar for a “foe” by the river, and Edgar’s shot left a hole in his sleeve. Sarsefield believes the foe is dead but finds Edgar’s gun and then concludes it was not a foe after all. He feels guilty for this presumed accidental manslaughter. He came to America, in part, to offer Edgar financial support.
Sarsefield concludes his side of the story by backtracking slightly to mention that he recovered Waldegrave’s letters after Edgar hid them “in a freak of noctambulation” (235).
Chapter 26 Summary
Edgar asks about Clithero’s story. Sarsefield confirms that he is married to Euphemia Lorimer and claims that Clithero is telling “falsehoods” (236) about her death. They debate over Clithero’s character, and Edgar reveals he knows of the attempted murder. Edgar also believes Clithero has starved to death in the caverns and asks Sarsefield if he can sleep for a while. After Sarsefield goes to a neighbor’s house for medical supplies to treat Edgar’s wounds, Edgar weeps and thinks telling Clithero that Mrs. Lorimer is alive might have cured his suicidal tendencies and madness.
Sounds from below grab Edgar’s attention; he stands and grabs his gun. A Native American enters the guest room, Edgar hesitates to fire, and the man leaps out of a window. Shots are fired outside, and Sarsefield returns with signs of “trouble and dismay” on his face (240). He thinks Edgar has lied to him because Clithero is alive, but badly wounded by the Native Americans.
After refusing to treat Clithero, Sarsefield tries to escort Edgar out of the house, but Edgar—seeing Clithero in the common room—refuses to leave. Sarsefield disappears outside.
Chapter 27 Summary
Edgar sits on the floor and puts Clithero’s head on his knees; the latter believes he is near death and thanks Edgar for helping him. Clithero details his activities since he confessed: he ate the food Edgar left, searched for the memoirs of Euphemia Lorimer, discovered them gone, and returned, suicidal, to the cave.
Upon discovering the manuscript near his hiding spot, Clithero found a renewed desire to live and found a new job in Chetasco. Then, that night, Native Americans attacked him, and the white settlers rescued him. The settlers arrive and relay the chase that led them forth: following one escaped prisoner while the other escaped through Edgar’s window.
After putting Clithero in bed, Edgar goes to the Walton’s to find Sarsefield and convince him to treat Clithero. He recites Clithero’s “confession” to Sarsefield, which convinces Sarsefield that Clithero’s character is “spotless and fair” (246-47). He had previously thought Clithero was possessed. He asks Edgar what he can do, and emphatically asserts that knowledge of Clithero would distress Clarice and his wife. They agree to tell Clithero that his benefactor lives.
Edgar reflects on the similarities between his and Clithero’s sleepwalking while Sarsefield treats Clithero. The prognosis is encouraging, but Sarsefield can only see him as “a maniac,” and his care is given over to “aged women” (250-51). Edgar goes to Inglefield’s house to recover.
Sarsefield heads to Virginia on business and offers to take Edgar with him to New York in a month. Edgar tries to visit Clithero and tell him about Mrs. Lorimer, but he has disappeared. Directly addressing Mary, Edgar reveals that one of Queen Mab’s tribe killed Waldegrave, and Queen Mab is prosecuted for various crimes. Edgar closes his letter to Mary by remarking on the surprising length of his narrative and promises to visit her after seeing Sarsefield.
Chapters 25-27 Analysis
The narrative move of retelling events from different perspectives is often referred to as a Rashomon effect, named after Kurosawa’s 1950 film. This modern term helps us understand how an antebellum text retraces events that have occurred—the narratives of Edgar, Sarsefield, and Clithero overlap in this section. Rashomon effects are used to reveal the unreliability of eyewitnesses.
Sarsefield’s narrative includes presuming Edgar is dead (on multiple occasions) and seeing him as “risen from the dead” (232), which mirrors how the surgeon once thought Arthur Wiatte was dead and afterwards saw him alive. Edgar’s rebirth in the pit is another moment of coming back to life; even the act of waking from sleep is a small resurrection.
The end of Edgar’s narrative includes siding with Clithero over his long-time friend and teacher, Sarsefield. Sarsefield perceives Clithero as an incurable “maniac,” but thinks his friend Edgar is not permanently mad, only temporarily possessed. Edgar believes Clithero can be cured, and it is his “duty” to try, if only to prove the curability of madness and retain hope for his own recovery.
This section includes more missing letters; the correspondence between Edgar and Sarsefield is fractured not by lack of writing, but by Edgar’s wanderings from his mailbox (and, again, possibly issues with the post office). Clithero’s recovery of Mrs. Lorimer’s manuscript occurs in the same section as the unveiling of her first name, Euphemia, by Sarsefield. He presumably uses her first name because she is now Mrs. Sarsefield, but Edgar continues to use Mrs. Lorimer while Clithero now switches between using her first name and “Mrs. Lorimer.”
Waldegrave’s death—the impetus for Edgar’s initial investigation—is only given a brief, anti-climactic resolution at the end of Mary’s letter. Rather than perpetuated by a major character, the murder is committed by an unnamed Native American. Waldegrave, like Edgar’s parents and uncle, is a casualty in the conflicts between indigenous people and recently independent colonists.
