Caleb Williams

The attack on Emily illustrates society’s control over women at this time. Barnabas locks up Emily with the intention of keeping her hidden long enough to wreck her reputation; his goal is to make the town see her as an unmarriable woman. 18th-century society highly valued (and expected) sexual purity in women. Initially, Emily conforms to the feminine ideal, or what the Victorian era would call the “angel in the house”: the sensible, quiet woman who played instruments and learned other ornamental skills while keeping herself pure and her home peaceful. Barnabas’s intervention turns her into a “fallen” woman in the eyes of society—one who strayed from the ideal, usually by having sex outside of marriage. This reputation would both “justify” and culminate in Emily’s sexual assault; with her reputation already ruined, no one would see the incident as anything other than her own doing, even as it fully stripped her of her status in society.

The dialogue during the attempted assault further illustrates this point. Grimes does not view what he is doing as wrong because he plans to “make an honest woman” of her afterwards (97); if rape is wrong at all in his eyes, it is wrong because it robs a woman of a valuable commodity—her chastity—and not because it is any sort of violation. Emily, meanwhile, asks how Grimes could justify “ruin[ing] a poor creature who has put herself under [his] protection” (97). Emily knows that she does not hold as much power as the men in her life, which is why she entrusted herself to Grimes despite her worries about her sexual purity.

One prominent motif also emerges in this section, as Emily chooses to flee from her cousin’s estate at night. Darkness repeatedly helps characters conceal events from others, while also serving as a plot device that furthers conflict.