100 pages • 3 hours read
Hannah Webster FosterThe Coquette
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1797A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Letters 19-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Letter 19 Summary: “To Miss Lucy Freeman”
Major Sanford visits Eliza, interrupting her “ideas of sobriety and domestic solitude” (35). Sanford expresses his passionate feelings for Eliza, as well as his doubts concerning her relationship with Mr. Boyer. Though Eliza does not approve of these sentiments, her “ear was charmed with his rhetoric” (36). Sanford wishes, at least, that they could be friends. To this, Eliza says that she is already a “prisoner of friendship” to people who are “extremely refined in their notions of propriety” and that she has “no rights to receive visitants independent of them” (36).
Sanford readily admits that he has faults that some would take exception to. However, he positions them as the innocent outcome of a life of means and an affluent upbringing. He implores Eliza to judge him by her own heart, rather than her friends’ prejudices against him.
Mr. Richman enters the garden just as Major Sanford kisses Eliza’s hand. Sandford, in his characteristic way, explains away the potential impropriety of the scene, and he, Eliza, and the Richmans pass the afternoon together. After the major leaves, Mrs. Richman again warns Eliza that Sanford is attempting to seduce her.
Letter 20 Summary: “To Mrs. Wharton”
Agitated by the conflict between her feelings and the opinions of her social circle, Eliza writes to her mother for advice. Mr. Boyer’s career path concerns her; she laments, “My disposition is not calculated for that sphere” (39). She worries about the social drawbacks of becoming the wife of a priest.
Due to the confusion in her life, Eliza has at last begun to long for home and parental guidance.
Letter 21 Summary: “To Miss Eliza Wharton”
Mrs. Wharton responds to Eliza, glad to hear from her daughter after so long. She explains that when Eliza’s father died, Mrs. Wharton found solace in the upbringing of her children. Because the late Mr. Wharton was a clergyman, like Boyer, Mrs. Wharton is able to offer a credible vision of what Eliza’s potential union with him would be like. She contends that “no class of society has domestic enjoyment more at hand, than clergymen (41). Mrs. Wharton makes the argument that each person has a role to play in society at-large and that happiness is a state that is largely self-chosen.
She refuses to expound more upon the topic until they meet face to face, and ends her letter imploring Eliza to come home soon.
Letter 22 Summary: “To Miss Eliza Wharton”
During Mr. Boyer’s absence, the thought of Eliza is what sustains him. Boyer recalls the hope that she has given him and anticipates eagerly the possibility of a wholesome, married life with her.
Mr. Selby has promised to deliver this letter. Through him, Boyer asks Eliza to respond with “a line” to “relieve, in some measure, the tediousness of this separation” (42). Boyer plans to return for a visit in two weeks' time.
Letters 19-22 Analysis
If Eliza, as Mrs. Richman suggests, has incorrect notions of matrimony, her ideas of friendship may also be flawed. The way she leads on Mr. Boyer, along with her halfhearted attempts to dismiss Major Sanford, highlight her immaturity. However, in Eliza’s defense, she is worried about entering a life that may not be suitable to her nature. Her friends have all thrown her support behind Boyer; her petition to her mother for advice seems to be a final attempt to allow herself to be convinced against engagement with Boyer.
The late Mr. Wharton was a reverend like Mr. Boyer, so Eliza is quite right to ask her about what to expect from domestic life with a clergyman. A reverend in Early American society enjoyed a position of esteem, credibility, and comfort. While they may not enjoy the degree of opulence afforded by riches and high society, Eliza could expect stability and a position of moral authority in her new life. But this would come with responsibilities. Just as a reverend is expected to be the moral backbone of his community, so, too, is his wife expected to be a paragon of adherence to traditional female gender roles. It is likely that Eliza would be expected to become a matriarchal role model for the women in her husband’s parish. This would mean giving up the social events that she cherishes for a more insular life that exhibits the ideals of marital chastity.
