Previous
Letters 31–41
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lady Susan, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gender, Power, and Manipulation
Public Appearance vs. Private Reality
Love and Transaction
Summary
Analysis
An unnamed narrator says that the letters couldn’t continue; no one could benefit from reading the correspondence between the Vernons and De Courcys, because Catherine soon realized that Frederica’s letters were being monitored by Lady Susan. Instead of writing, Catherine decided to visit Frederica after hearing everything about Lady Susan’s affair from Reginald. Catherine managed to convince the easygoing Charles to take them to London, where they saw Lady Susan; Catherine was disgusted by her good cheer and lack of guilt. Frederica remained unchanged, and her meekness convinced Catherine she needed to get her away from her mother.
Over the course of the novella, letters have been outlets for truth. There were a few exceptions—Lady Susan’s letters to Charles and Reginald, for instance—but for the most part, characters were able to say things in writing that they couldn’t or wouldn’t say out loud. Often, this only made it easier for Lady Susan to spread lies. But in this case, Lady Susan prevents Frederica from telling the truth at all, meaning that Frederica’s letters have no value anymore—they would just be spaces for Lady Susan to lie through her daughter. Instead, Austen’s narrator takes over, since letters can no longer reveal useful truths. Lady Susan, meanwhile, is still lying to people in person, acting like everything is fine—even though, by this point, Catherine knows that Lady Susan in the middle of a breakup with Reginald and that she likely still wants to force Frederica to marry Sir James. Frederica’s obvious weakness is what convinces Catherine that she needs to take action. When Frederica wrote to Reginald about her engagement, her powerlessness made him feel powerful—and it seems that the same thing is happening again, except that Catherine has no real power to speak of.
Themes
Literary Devices
Lady Susan never mentioned Sir James except to say that he was no longer in London; instead, she went on and on about Frederica’s newfound accomplishments. Catherine worried that this would make it harder to get Frederica away, but Lady Susan instead wondered whether Frederica might be happier in the country. After at first declining Catherine’s invitation to return Frederica to Churchill, she eventually relented after an influenza outbreak in London—she worried about Frederica’s health.
Lady Susan’s behavior is suspicious; it’s unlikely that Frederica could have become so accomplished in such a short amount of time. It’s also strange that Frederica isn’t yet married to Sir James—Lady Susan only wanted Frederica’s education to continue until she got married. And Lady Susan has certainly never cared about Frederica’s happiness before, nor about her health. It’s also not like Lady Susan to relent to Catherine without wanting something in return.
Themes
Three weeks after the Vernons returned to Churchill with Frederica, Lady Susan announced that she had married Sir James. Catherine realized that Lady Susan had wanted Frederica gone all along, and she hadn’t really needed to convince her. Frederica remained with the Vernons—though Lady Susan invited her back to London in a few letters—and eventually lost touch with her mother. She’d stay with the Vernons until Reginald could be “talked, flattered, and finessed” into loving her, which would probably take a year, given his current heartbreak over Lady Susan and distrust of women. Ordinarily, it might only take three months, but Reginald’s feelings were strong.
The narrator doesn’t know whether Lady Susan was happy with her “second choice” of Sir James—and no one will ever know, since they can’t trust anything she says. But the only negative circumstances in Lady Susan’s life were her husband and her “conscience,” which might one day work against her. In fact, Sir James is probably the real loser, since he was just a foolish pawn—the reader should pity him instead. The narrator, meanwhile, can only pity Miss Manwaring, who came all the way to London only to lose Sir James to a much older woman.
Get the entire Lady Susan LitChart as a printable PDF.
