Wieland

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1798

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-20

Chapters 21-23

Chapters 24-26

Chapter 27

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 4 Summary

The narrative picks up again six years after Theodore’s marriage to Catherine. Catherine and Theodore have four children and one adoptive daughter, Louisa Conway, whose mother died and who was subsequently raised by Clara and Theodore’s aunt. Theodore, Catherine and Clara all adore Louisa, and she goes to live with Catherine and Theodore after their marriage.

Clara summarizes Louisa’s background: Her mother (also named Louisa Conway) fled from London with her infant daughter. Neither her parents nor her husband, Major Stuart, knew what happened to her or why she had gone. Many years later, Clara would learn that Miss Conway’s lost her affection toward her husband thanks to one of his enemies, and she had fled rather than stay with a man she no longer loved. While Clara and Louisa are visiting Mrs. Baynton, a family friend in Philadelphia, they encounter Major Stuart, who recognizes his long-lost daughter. Major Stuart is traveling the country, and the Wielands persuade him to leave Louisa with them until he finishes his business.

Major Stuart writes frequently, and one of his letters is the catalyst for the incident that marks the beginning of the characters’ troubles. The Wielands are passing an evening in their father’s old sanctuary with Catherine’s brother Henry Pleyel. They have been reading one of Major Stuart’s letters. A rain squall sends them back to the main house only to realize they have left the letter behind. Wieland goes to fetch it but returns without it. He is surprised to see his wife still in the sitting room. He explains that he was on his way to the temple and saw a faint light there. Then he heard Catherine’s voice telling him to stop and warning him of danger ahead.

Pleyel easily dismisses the incident as “a deception of the senses” (19). Clara is fascinated by the episode. The light in the temple reminds her of the circumstances of their father’s death, which has always remained in her mind as possibly supernatural. Clara is also reluctant to believe that her brother may have imagined Catherine’s voice because it suggests the possibility of “a diseased condition of his frame” (19)—her euphemism for mental illness. In reality, the voice was that of Carwin, who was in the temple at the time and didn’t want to be seen, so he used his skill as a ventriloquist to imitate Catherine’s voice and make Wieland think he was hearing it from the bottom of the hill.

While Clara has always been in doubt as to whether their father’s death was natural or supernatural, Theodore has always regarded it as an act of God. After this incident, he becomes quiet and preoccupied. When Clara asked him what he thinks is the explanation, he says that there is no way of knowing; the only thing they can be sure of is that it wasn’t a deception.

Chapter 5 Summary

The next inexplicable episode is observed by both Pleyel and Theodore. While living in central Europe, Pleyel became attached to a young woman, the Baroness Theresa de Stolberg, who was engaged to someone else. Theresa has since been widowed, and Henry wants to return to her in Germany. He is trying to persuade Theodore to relocate with him. Henry realizes that Clara and Catherine would both be opposed to leaving America, and he hopes that if Theodore is invested, it will be easier to persuade the women. Theodore tells Henry that it is not his role as a husband and father to dominate and bully his family but to guard and care for them and tend to their happiness.

Henry argues that Catherine will be happy to relocate to Germany if Theodore asks it. Unbeknownst to them, Carwin is hidden in a bushy hollow nearby listening to the conversation. Struck with an impulse to mischief, Carwin mimics Catherine’s voice and causes it to sound as if it comes from somewhere overhead saying, “no.”

Searching the temple and finding no one there, the young men go back to their discussion. Henry says that even if no one will go with him, he is returning to Germany. Carwin says in Catherine’s voice, “You shall not go. The seal of death is on [Theresa’s] lips.” (24) When questioned, Carwin—in Catherine’s voice—claims to have an infallible source of information and that the girl’s death is absolutely certain. Carwin will later tell Clara that he reasoned he was benefiting everyone by putting an end to the question of relocation. In fact, he simply has an irresistible impulse to mischief

Clara is deeply impressed by this story. Although she claims that she has never been particularly superstitious, she takes the incident as evidence of supernatural intervention. In her view, the disembodied voice has already saved her brother from danger and possibly a death like that of their father, and it saved Henry the dangers and inconveniences of a long voyage. It might, she thinks, even have caused Theresa’s death, thus ensuring that Henry will stay nearby. She reasons that any distress this causes Henry will be mitigated by the fact that Clara would willingly take Theresa’s place in his heart.

For weeks, Henry is distracted by grief and anxiety. Finally, a ship arrives with news that Theresa has in fact died, proving the apparent truth of the mysterious speaker’s words. Clara is pleased with the news that Henry is free to love her. Theodore reacts to this evidence of the voice’s apparent supernatural knowledge by becoming obsessed with the daemon of Socrates, a benevolent spirit which followed the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates around invisibly, giving him warnings and advice.

Chapters 4-5 Analysis

These chapters introduce the change that disrupts the homeostasis of the characters’ lives. Although they continue to be haunted by the inexplicable, possibly supernatural death of Wieland Sr., the characters have turned his temple into a place of rational discourse rather than superstition or religion, effectively banishing the supernatural from their awareness.

The supernatural reenters their lives with the light that Theodore sees in the summerhouse—in fact a lantern carried by Carwin. The glow is reminiscent of the light seen at the time of Wieland Sr.’s death. It seems even more believable to the family, then, that there might be an unknown and possibly supernatural danger that Theodore has escaped, thanks to the warning of the voice that sounds like Catherine’s.

The characters’ explanations vacillate between the rational and the supernatural. Henry dismisses what Theodore claims to have heard as a deception born of disordered senses. Theodore insists that the one thing he is sure of is that it was not a deception. He means to say that his senses were in perfect order. This is ironic: Theodore did in fact literally hear a voice identical to that of his wife. Thus, his senses were not deceived. The voice, however, was entirely a deception on the part of Carwin. Later, however, Theodore’s senses will be deceived by voices he hears in his own head which he is unable to distinguish from external reality. The overlap between inexplicable voices in reality and inexplicable voices in his head make it doubly difficult for him to employ critical reasoning, especially when some of the “supernatural” events are witnessed by other people.

The Wielands have yet to meet Carwin, so they are unaware that there is someone else in their pastoral paradise—a serpent speaking to them, conveying false knowledge. Even after they meet him and begin to wonder whether he is good or evil, they know nothing about ventriloquism and therefore wouldn’t have reason to suspect him of being the author of the voices.

Clara and Theodore are naïvely quick to accept supernatural explanations when it suits them. They don’t question that the disembodied voice heard by both Henry and Theodore sounds like that of Catherine, even when they know that Catherine is not present and certainly not a spirit. Later, Carwin will tell them that it is quite possible for a good mimic to reproduce another person’s voice so accurately as to be indistinguishable from the original. Even if that admission did not lead their attention directly to Carwin, it should have pointed them immediately toward the conclusion that the voice was created by human mimicry.

As it happens, each of the characters has a self-interested motive for preferring the supernatural explanation. Clara’s reasoning is narcissistically childlike. She wants to believe in the supernatural nature of the voice because she wants Henry to be free to love her. First, the supernatural nature of the voice makes it more believable that it would have some more-than-human knowledge, thus discouraging Henry from leaving Mettingen. Second, if Clara can convince herself that the supernatural entity is benevolent, then she can minimize to herself Henry’s pain and grief at the death of his beloved—although the depth of his love may be a matter of debate. She can even tell herself that the spirit might have killed Theresa for Henry’s own good because he should be with Clara.

Theodore Wieland, like his father, has always longed for an intimate relationship with God. For him, the apparently supernatural voice calls to mind the Daemon of Socrates. This divine entity followed the philosopher, offering advice and guidance. The connection of the disembodied voice with a divine spirit sets Wieland up to be deceived by the voices in his head. However, the daemon of Socrates never gave explicit advice or instruction, whereas the voices in Wieland’s head instruct him to do something utterly against his nature: kill the people he loves.