65 pages • 2 hours read
Edith WhartonSummer
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1917A 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.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The book opens with a description of a young woman, later identified as Charity Royall, surveying the neglected landscape of North Dormer, the New England town where she resides. The area appears to be lacking in the charm normally associated with these villages; the wind is described as shaking the “[…] doleful fringes” (3) of the spruces on the neighboring Hatchard property, and the environment is empty and lifeless.
Charity observes an intriguing young man, who is dressed in “city clothes” and “[…] laughing with all his teeth” (3) as he retrieves his straw hat from a nearby pond. She feels unsettled by his easy cheerfulness and experiences a familiar sense of shrinking away from levity. Glancing at her reflection in a hallway mirror, Charity observes her “small, swarthy face” (3) with displeasure and softly exclaims, “‘How I hate everything!’” (4). She recalls one childhood trip sponsored by the local minister to the neighboring, more vital town of Nettleton; however, her world has since diminished in size to encompass only her current community.
Charity was “[…] brought down from the Mountain” (5), an impoverished area, as a very young child and taken in by Lawyer Royall and his now-deceased wife. Miss Hatchard, the great-niece of a well-to-do man for whom the local library is named, often reminds Charity that she should be grateful for her rescue. Charity is currently the sole part-time employee and custodian of the moldering collection of books in the library; she detests this position as much as she does the town. She is pleasantly surprised when the attractive young man she observed earlier enters the library and questions her about the collection of volumes. He pauses, and she realizes that he finds her attractive when he states that it is preferable to search the books “[…] with the help of the librarian” (7). The young man is eventually identified as Lucius Harney, a young architect who is Miss Hatchard’s cousin. Charity, although attracted to the handsome patron, is characteristically disinterested in the book collection. She is unable to find the volume that Harney requests and searches for it laconically. The young man notes that one book related to local history is valuable, and that air and sunshine might save it from mold.
Chapter 2 Summary
Charity closes the library early, as is her habit, in order to lie in a sunny meadow and contemplate her meeting with Lucius Harney. Accustomed to having a sense of superiority in the Royall household, Charity has the sense that Harney feels intellectually superior to her. The author notes that “[…] she liked the feeling; for it was new to her” (11). For the first time in her young life, she imagines what it might be like to be voluntarily dependent upon a man.
Her musings indicate that she finds Lawyer Royall’s efforts to please her pathetic; for example, he brought up a “[…] fan shaped support” (11) for a rose bush in an effort to ingratiate himself. Shrewd by nature, Charity realized early in her stay in the household that “[…] Mrs. Royall was sad and timid and weak…Lawyer Royall was harsh and violent, and still weaker” (12).
When Charity previously advised Miss Hatchard that she would not be attending boarding school, the older woman intimated that it may become awkward for Charity to reside alone with Mr. Royall and indicated that she would always be willing to help the girl if she is in distress. Several years later, when Charity is 17, Mr. Royall returns from a trip to Nettleton, elated from winning a case. Despite the fact that Charity hides the key to the liquor cabinet before retiring, he comes to her bedroom and makes a sexual overture toward her, reminding the girl that “I’m a lonesome man” (14). She refuses him and requests Miss Hatchard give her work at the Hatchard-funded local library, stating, “‘I want to earn enough money to get away’” (15) and that she wants the presence of another female in the house. Feigning ignorance, the older woman pretends that Charity needs help with domestic chores, leading to the girl’s epiphany that “[…] she must fight her way out of her difficulty alone” (15).
Upon her return home, Charity advises Royall that she has accepted the library job and that he must pay for household help, as she wishes to save her money “[…] to get away when I want to” (16). Chastened, Royall proposes marriage; however, Charity scorns this idea. He is deflated by her refusal and states, “‘People ain’t been fair to me—from the first they ain’t been fair to me’” (17).
Chapter 3 Summary
Although Royall enjoys a bit of prestige in North Dormer as the only lawyer, his actual schedule is rather empty. For the sake of keeping up appearances, he makes goes to his office daily but does not want others to see him “[…] sitting, clerkless and unoccupied, in his dusty office” (18). He spends time chatting with others in the local store, and his hours are comparable to the scant ones Charity works in the library.
Lawyer Royall exerted considerable social pressure in order to secure the job for Charity as opposed to other local candidates. He also hired the deaf woman, Verena Marsh, “[…] a poor widow, doddering and shiftless” (19), to reside in the attic and perform housework. Charity comes to realize the extent of the emotional power that she now holds over Royall as a result of his ill-fated overture toward her.
Charity spends the evening after her meeting with Lucius Harney fantasizing about him; she plans to be more helpful to him in his search for books related to antique houses in the area upon his next visit. Her scant education haunts her as she contemplates this prospect. In a fit of self-defeating rationalization, she notes that “[i]t’s no use trying to be anything in this place” (19) but then recalls the moment in her exchange with the young architect when it became obvious that he was attracted to her. She fantasizes about their wedding, only to be repulsed by the sound of Royall climbing the stairs toward his bedroom.
The following day, Royall complains to Charity that Miss Hatchard visited the library and found it to have been closed early. Harney advised the older woman that “[…] the books were in bad shape and needed tending to” (21); Charity immediately interprets this as an intentional slight against her and feels betrayed by Harney. Charity announces her intention to resign from the job and visits the library, weeping, in order to retrieve her key and register to return to Miss Hatchard; however, as she does so, Harney enters the building, whistling.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
Edith Wharton uses the opening chapters to critique the idea of class structure in New England. While the time period is not specifically defined, the book was initially published in 1917; the social commentary innate to the text would have been applicable to some time in recent history at this point.
Charity Royall is both the recipient and the victim of her adoptive parents’ largesse. Constantly reminded of the good fortune that allowed her to be removed from her familial roots on “the Mountain”—generally understood to be a lawless, underprivileged area—Charity holds a simmering resentment of the insular nature of the village in which she resides. Possessed of an essentially victimized mentality and a cynical worldview, Charity consistently places the blame for all of her unhappiness upon others and/or events outside her own control. While lacking in formal education, the young woman is shrewd and manipulative and comes to realize the degree of power afforded her by her sexual attractiveness to men. Far from the story of an archetypal “noble peasant” being seduced by an urban environment, the saga of this young woman is characterized both by her victimization by society and her own manipulation of those around her.
Lawyer Royall, who represents a bourgeoisie sort of underachieving professional, is depicted as both overly assertive and poignant. Pathetic in his need to overcome loneliness, he forbids Charity to enroll in a boarding school yet seeks to win her favor by providing her with superficial gifts such as garden trellises. Apparently enamored of Charity, Royall swerves between attempts to appear paternal and efforts to seduce her. Charity, repulsed by his sexual attraction to her, is all too aware of his attentions; she uses the man’s guilty feelings against him in order to achieve her own ends. Conversely, she fantasizes about a romance with Lucius Harney, the handsome young architect who frequents the library. Nonetheless, her inherent sense of embitterment rises to the fore when she mistakenly suspects that he has critiqued her work to his relative, Miss Hatchard. Her immediate instinct is to resign from the job, as she has from all areas of life that might require actual effort on her own behalf.
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