49 pages • 1 hour read
Frank J. WebbThe Garies and Their Friends
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1857A 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 7-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Mrs. Thomas and Her Troubles”
Mrs. Thomas only sees visitors one day a week. In his campaign to sabotage his position as her servant, Charlie welcomes in a Lord Cutanrun one afternoon when Mrs. Thomas is unprepared to see visitors and unpresentable. In her shock, she drops a bowl of dirty wash water on the lord. At dinner the next night, Charlie “accidentally” catches his sleeve on Mrs. Thomas’s wig and pulls it off in front of the guests. Next, he hides the cook’s cat, Tom, in a jar. The cat springs out when Mrs. Thomas opens the jar, causing her to drop her lamp, setting the cat and the carpet on fire. After this string of incidents, Charlie is dismissed from his service at the Thomas residence, much to his relief.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Trouble in the Ellis Family”
Mrs. Ellis and her daughter Caddy have been working to prepare the house for the Garies. One day, Charlie is tasked with bringing Caddy her supper at the house that she is preparing. Along the way, he stops and plays marbles with some of the boys. When he gives Caddy the kettle, she is angry to see that it is full of kitchen scraps, not her favorite dish. Charlie realizes that one of the boys must have swapped the kettles when he wasn’t paying attention. Caddy chases Charlie with a broom, and he falls down the stairs and badly breaks his arm. A white woman from Charlie’s school, Mrs. Bird, brings Charlie a copy of Robinson Crusoe while he recovers. When Mrs. Bird learns from Mrs. Ellis that the doctor recommends that Charlie go to the countryside to finish his recovery, Mrs. Bird offers to have Charlie stay at her country house that summer.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Breaking Up”
The Garies are preparing for their departure from Savannah to move to Philadelphia. One day, Mr. Garie’s uncle John arrives. Uncle John warns Mr. Garie that it is a bad idea to move to Philadelphia because they are not as accepting of multiracial cohabitation there. Mr. Garie says that he is determined to make the move so that his children can be emancipated and educated. Uncle John says that he will support Mr. Garie whatever he decides. A few days later, the family leaves for Philadelphia. The enslaved people in their care are very sorry to see them go.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Another Parting”
Mrs. Ellis has a new suit made for Charlie to wear in the countryside, but it is far too large for him, which makes Kinch laugh. Shortly afterward, Charlie leaves for the countryside. Kinch tries to give him a pig, but the family won’t let Charlie take it. Instead, Kinch gives him a crossbow. Charlie gives Kinch some of his marbles. They are very sad to say goodbye to one another. Mrs. Bird and Charlie take a steamer to the train. On the train, the conductor says that Charlie, despite being ill, is not allowed in the white-only car. After some argument, Mrs. Bird reluctantly agrees that both Charlie and she will go to the car for Black people and poor white people. They take another steamer and then arrive at the fictional country town of Warmouth, New York. When they arrive, Mrs. Bird receives a letter and has to leave immediately to care for a sick friend in another town.
Chapter 11 Summary: “The New Home”
Mrs. Garie is very seasick on the voyage to New York harbor, from whence they get a train to Philadelphia. Mrs. Garie is very happy with the new house. Caddy welcomes them upon their arrival. The next morning, Mrs. Ellis arrives, and Mr. Garie thanks her for her assistance in the preparations. Then, Mrs. Ellis and Mrs. Garie, who is ill in bed, spend a long afternoon catching up. Meanwhile, Mr. Garie goes to see Mr. Walters. Mr. Garie is impressed with the tasteful luxury of Mr. Walters’s home and his striking appearance. Upon leaving, Mr. Garie comments on the interesting portrait of a Black man in a general’s uniform hanging in Mr. Walters’s front room. Mr. Walters tells Mr. Garie that it is an accurate portrait of the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint l’Ouverture.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Mr. Garie’s Neighbor”
Mr. George Stevens, a racist and a lawyer of dubious ethics known as “Slippery George,” lives next door to the Garies’ new home. While watching the Garies’ children, Clarence and Emily, play in the neighboring garden, he complains to his wife about their landlord, Mr. Walters. In his own garden, his son, George, is killing flies while his younger sister, Elizabeth, or “Lizzy,” complains. Over time, Mr. Stevens and Mr. Garie become friendly, and the four children play together. Mrs. Garie has been sick in bed, so the Stevens have not seen much of her. One day, Mr. Garie shows Mrs. Stevens to Mrs. Garie’s darkened room. Mrs. Stevens tells Mrs. Garie that she is glad that Mr. Walters did not rent out the house to a Black family. Mr. Garie brings in another lamp, and Mrs. Stevens realizes that Mrs. Garie is Black. Outraged, Mrs. Garie asks Mrs. Stevens to leave her home. Mrs. Stevens returns to her house and tells her husband about the “outrageous” situation: that Mr. Garie is white and Mrs. Garie is Black. Clarence, who had been in the Stevens home playing with George, overhears Mrs. Stevens call his mother the n-word, objects to her language, and is told to leave.
Chapters 7-12 Analysis
The core theme of this section of The Garies and Their Friends is Racism and Discrimination in the Antebellum North. This problem is foreshadowed in Chapter 9. The narrator notes that Mr. Garie “knew enough of the North to feel convinced that he could not expect to live there openly with Emily, without being exposed to ill-natured comments, and closing upon himself the doors of many friends who had formerly received him with open arms” (96). This concern is echoed by Uncle John, who says to him, “[T]he prejudice against persons of colour is much stronger in some of the Northern cities than it is amongst us Southerners” (100). The issue of prejudice becomes reality when the antagonistic Stevens family is introduced after the Garies move to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens are open about their racist attitudes, as shown in their discussion of Mr. Walters, the Black real-estate developer. Mr. Stevens remarks to his wife, “I hate that n- Walters, with his grand airs” (125). Upon their discovery that the Garies are an interracial couple, any fondness they had for the Garie family quickly dissolves. Mrs. Stevens remarks, “[I]t’s completely sickening […] to see them together” (131), and describes Mrs. Garie using a racial slur.
The racism and discrimination faced by Black characters in the narrative are not limited to this form of interpersonal interactions; systematic discrimination is also highlighted. In Chapter 10, Mrs. Bird and Charlie board a train on their way to Mrs. Bird’s country home, where he is to finish recovering from a badly broken arm. When the conductor discovers that Charlie, a Black boy, is riding in a car designated for white people, he insists that they have to leave even though Charlie is ill and sleeping. The conductor baldly states, “We don’t allow n- to ride in this car, no matter how you can fix it” (110). When Mrs. Bird objects, the other white passengers agree with the conductor and insist that they go to the train car for Black passengers. Mrs. Bird is shocked by the experience and the unsuitable conditions in the Black train car. She remarks, “I declare […] it’s enough to make any one an abolitionist, or anything else of the kind, to see how inoffensive coloured people are treated!” (112). Mrs. Bird is exemplary of the kind of naivete white people sympathetic to Black Americans have about the discrimination they face. While the Black people in the narrative are accustomed to it, white people consistently underestimate the degree of anti-Black discrimination.
This section of the novel also highlights the theme of The Impact of Race and Racism on Personal Identity, which is most clearly shown in the development of the character of Clarence Garie. At the end of Chapter 12, Clarence is devastated to hear a racial slur directed at his mother. The narrator remarks, “It was the first blow the child received from the prejudice whose relentless hand was destined to crush him in after-years” (132). This is explicit foreshadowing of future Clarence’s downfall after he struggles with anti-Black prejudice without the support of a community.
