62 pages • 2 hours read
Tracy ChevalierA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Content Warning: This section references slavery, racism and racist slurs, dubious sexual consent, deaths of family members, and violence (including racist violence and gun violence).
Despite her assertion otherwise, emigre Honor Bright knows that her life will be forever altered by her decision to accompany her sister, Grace, to America from England. She reassures herself with the false notion that she can return to England as she prepares to immigrate to Ohio. She focuses on details about Faithwell (a small town near Oberlin, Ohio) as relayed by her future brother-in-law, Adam Cox, though she frets about living in a wooden house, which seems more susceptible to damage than a brick home. She further worries about the transatlantic voyage, as her only experience in boats was an unpleasant childhood excursion in a rowboat.
On the Adventurer, Honor struggles with seasickness, which persists throughout the monthlong voyage. Grace, whose own seasickness is fleeting, works to distract Honor with chatter about the wonder of America that awaits them. Honor reflects that Grace’s adventurousness led to her connection with Adam, who is staid and lives in America, which excites Grace. Honor questions the wisdom of accompanying her sister, who asked Honor to come in hopes of distracting her from the heartbreak of being jilted. Honor attempts to quilt, a favorite hobby, but becomes disgusted by the scent of vomit that permeates the cloth. She drops the cloth overboard, despite knowing that this is a waste.
A sailor (the first Black man Honor has ever spoken to, she notes) recommends that she gaze upon the horizon, but this doesn’t help. When she arrives in New York, the captain pronounces the journey “the smoothest, quickest crossing the ship ha[s] ever made” (19-20), which cements, in Honor’s mind, that she can never return to England.
Honor writes to her family from Hudson, Ohio, informing them that Grace died of yellow fever before ever reaching her destination. She frets that Grace grew ill because Honor requested that they travel overland to Ohio, instead of by river boat. She relays how they stayed with other Quakers (whom she refers to as “Friends”) in between bouts of Grace’s illness. She relays her intent to continue to Faithwell.
After a lifetime in her insular community in England, Honor struggles with relying on strangers for aid. An elderly man named Thomas offers her transport to Wellington, a town seven miles from Faithwell. Honor agrees, lamenting that she must leave behind the quilt she made for her sister’s marriage, which will be burned to prevent spreading yellow fever. She and Thomas make the long day’s journey in near silence, with Honor watching the landscape. She is astonished at unfamiliar elements, such as covered bridges, which she assumed to be universal. Even so, she feels the inner peace she associates with Meetings for Worship, the Quaker spiritual assemblies. When they pause to relieve themselves, Honor thinks she hears Thomas speaking to someone (she will later learn that this is because Thomas is helping people escape enslavement via the Underground Railroad).
She hears someone approaching on the road from behind them. When she mentions this, Thomas urges her to discuss Grace. He asks pointed questions until Honor begins to cry; Thomas apologizes, claiming that they “may need those tears” (32). The rider approaches, peering into Honor’s bonnet to ensure that she is a white Quaker woman and not a Black person in Quaker clothing. The rider, Donovan, insists on looking in Honor’s trunk, as it is large enough to hide a person, but grows distracted over her “signature quilt,” which members of her community made as a memento. This thaws Donovan’s suspicion, and he departs. Honor belatedly realizes that he failed to return her trunk key.
A short letter from a Wellington woman named Belle Mills requests that Adam come retrieve Honor, informs him of Grace’s death, and expresses her regrets for his loss.
Though Honor’s constantly changing location leaves her disoriented when she wakes in Wellington, she is struck by a clearly American quality to her atmosphere. She dresses, realizing that she is missing her bonnet. She observes the various hats and bonnets for sale in the milliner’s shop where she stayed the night. Donovan enters the shop, commenting on the oddity of leaving a Quaker in a hat shop, as Quakers wear only simple caps. The milliner, Belle Mills, cautions Donovan against rudeness and produces Honor’s bonnet, which she has repaired. She asks after Honor’s sewing skills and requests help trimming bonnets, causing Donovan to protest; he finds the conversation boring.
Belle urges him to leave, and he does, though not before reporting that he lost Honor’s trunk key—an obvious lie. Belle helps Honor break the lock on her trunk (cursing Donovan as she does) so that Honor can help with sewing. Honor then observes a plate of food mysteriously vanish (she will later learn that this is because Belle is also part of the Underground Railroad, helping formerly enslaved people to freedom).
Honor opens her sewing box, which she inherited from her grandmother and which contains an impressive array of items (per Belle’s commentary). She hides at the bottom a thimble from her former fiancé, Samuel, which she can neither use nor bear to throw away. Belle initially supervises as Honor sews cloth hats and then straw hats, eventually trusting her to work on her own. Honor enjoys the quiet privacy and the ritual of sewing. She begins to cry over her recent hardships until she senses that she is not alone. Inside a nearby woodshed, she sees a Black man, whose expression she cannot read. Honor does not speak to him, instead hurrying back inside.
Honor generates interest in Wellington, with many women entering the shop to ask Belle about her. Belle uses their interest to drum up bonnet sales. After the shop closes, Belle and Honor tour Wellington, which will soon have a train running through it. Honor finds the town hastily constructed and worries about how it will stand up against the “extreme American weather” she’s heard reported (54). Belle proudly reports herself responsible for all the hats they see worn about town. She also says that she will not patronize the Wadsworth Hotel, despite it being the only place in town that serves alcohol, as it is frequently patronized by Donovan. Honor sees a sign advertising a reward for an escaped enslaved person named Jonas. The detailed description reminds Honor of the man she saw in the woodshed.
Honor asks if Donovan is responsible for the sign. Belle confirms this, identifying the man as a “slave hunter” who arrests those who have escaped slavery and pass through Ohio on the way to freedom in Canada. Honor, who knows that Ohio has outlawed slavery, needs clarification that even though Ohio is a “free” state, Canada is where freedom is “guaranteed,” as men like Donovan have no power there. Belle admits that she and Donovan are siblings (sharing a mother but not fathers) and warns Honor against his attentions, which she predicts will be persistent, despite Donovan’s usual dislike of Quakers. She warns Honor against asking questions about anything she observes at Belle’s house, as she knows that Quakers are not supposed to lie.
Honor spends the next two days sewing, quietly stitching flowers. The townswomen find this funny due to the Quakers’ disregard for personal adornment. She is unnerved by the ferocious haggling between Belle and her customers, which Belle finds entertaining. Nevertheless, Honor likes the work, and when she senses a presence in the woodshed, she no longer feels alarmed, knowing that Jonas has more reason to fear Honor than she to fear him. The reality of slavery is shocking to Honor, which she had only ever encountered as abstract discussions about “the shame of American slavery” from Bridport Friends (62).
Honor asks Belle about her origins in Kentucky, a state that permits slavery. Belle reports that her family did not enslave anyone—due to poverty rather than moral objection. She says that this is why Donovan hates enslaved people, whom he sees as stealing work that should go to poor white men.
Honor writes a letter to a friend in England, Biddy, reporting Grace’s death and Belle’s kindness. She conveys her suspicions about Jonas’s proximity and her intent to not learn anything definite, lest she be asked for the truth by a searcher. She laments the difficulty of this tension between her morals: She does not wish to lie but is unwilling to report Jonas. She confesses nerves about Adam Cox’s arrival, scheduled for the following day.
The next morning, Honor and Belle have breakfast. When Belle shows no indication that she intends to go to church, Honor retrieves her own Bible and reads it quietly. Belle asks about Quakers’ silent religious gatherings, and Honor explains that the silence allows “one truly to listen to what is deep inside” (69), though she smilingly admits that she sometimes thinks of more practical matters, like her in-progress quilting project. Honor admits how, at the one meeting she and Grace attended in Philadelphia, there was a separate bench for Black Quakers. She disliked this; Belle thinks that it is naïve to assume that Quakers will practice the equality they preach. As they wait for Adam in the afternoon, Belle invites Honor to visit and gifts her a gray and yellow bonnet.
The reunion between Adam and Honor is uncomfortable. On the road to Faithwell, Adam reports that his brother, Matthew, died of consumption several weeks prior. He reveals that he never received Grace’s letter that reported that Honor would accompany her to Ohio. He describes how the long timeline of transatlantic communication can be difficult, both practically and emotionally; Honor will still receive letters asking about Grace as if she were alive, as their parents will not yet have received news of her death.
Donovan rides up behind them and speaks to Honor in an inappropriately familiar manner. He makes innuendos about Adam’s plan to live with two sisters-in-law while being himself unmarried. Both Honor and Adam are surprised at how sharply Honor speaks to Donovan. Donovan insists on searching their wagon; when Adam refuses, Donovan punches him. He asks about Jonas, referring to him by a racist epithet rather than his name. He believes Honor’s claim that she doesn’t know Jonas’s whereabouts and leaves. Adam, whose wrist is sprained, comments that Honor is “quickly learning the ways of Americans” (77).
Honor responds to a letter from her parents that awaited her at Faithwell. She reports the awkwardness between her, Adam, and Abigail (Matthew Cox’s widow) but hopes for improvement with time. She describes Abigail’s house and her (evidently temporary) lodgings in what would have been a nursery. She feels, however, that all the houses and furniture in America have a sense of the temporary. Abigail’s housekeeping is untidy, and Honor hopes to help teach the other woman better ways of maintaining her home.
Faithwell is populated by approximately 15 families, many of whom moved from North Carolina, objecting to that state’s legal slavery. She finds the inhabitants friendly but far blunter than the English. When provisions are unavailable in Faithwell’s limited shop, they must travel to Oberlin, three miles away. Honor finds the importance of self-sufficiency daunting but remains hopeful that she will find her place in the community.
The first section of the novel explores the gap between the idea of America and the reality of America. Honor has a vision of her future that is vague, mediated through letters from her would-be future brother-in-law, Adam Cox. Honor’s aim in leaving her home is not dependent on any idea of America; rather, she seeks merely to flee the humiliation of being jilted by her former fiancé, Samuel. It is Grace who looks forward to making a new life in a new land. Grace’s death not long after the sisters’ arrival in the United States removes the one element of certainty that Honor had about her future.
Honor’s understanding of her new homeland thus becomes one that is based on difference and ignorance. She insistently notes all the things, small and large, that are different from their English counterparts. She rarely finds the American side of these parallels to be flattering, as discussed in The Differences Between America and England. Honor, as a narrator, thus fulfills the “fish out of water” archetype; because she is new to the United States, she may have a clearer view, in certain cases, of aspects of American life and culture. This clear-eyed vision on the immorality of slavery, for example, is less compromised by circumstance than it is for other Faithwell Quakers, who have lived in Ohio longer and are viewing abolition through the lens of familiarity and legality.
The novel does not present Honor as being without her biases, however. Though a staunch abolitionist, Honor still holds considerable racist prejudice. Unlike Donovan’s racism, the novel suggests that Honor’s views are born out of ignorance rather than active malice. This is not presented as an excuse, as Honor’s ignorance generates real harm, yet it is still framed as materially less dangerous than Donovan’s intentional cruelty. The novel thus offers that while racist ideologies permeate all aspects of a society structured around racism, the effects of this pervasive racism can vary in their violence. Honor’s ignorance, knowledge, and resulting political commitments continue to evolve as she faces the reality of living in a society with chattel slavery as opposed to facing it only in the abstract.
The early chapters additionally invite readers to use their own knowledge to understand things that Honor does not. For example, the cryptic references to Oberlin and abolition, as made by various Ohio residents whom Honor encounters, depend on the reader’s understanding of the Ohio city’s famous abolitionist politics. Thomas’s murmuring while Honor is relieving herself in the woods, moreover, is evident to readers (who know that they are reading a novel about the Underground Railroad) as directed to someone escaping slavery, rather than his horse, as Honor assumes. Honor will not come to understand the relevance of what she heard until the novel’s final chapters, far after she also begins aiding escapees seeking freedom.
This portion of the novel, moreover, indicates how actions and conversations framed as feminine can be used as a tool in abolitionism. In Chapter 2, Thomas intentionally makes Honor cry over Grace’s recent death to discomfit Donovan, which causes the “slave catcher” to hurry his search. Belle deploys a similar tactic against her brother when he loiters in her millinery shop, discussing sewing until he grows bored and departs. Donovan’s disdain for feminine matters thus serves to keep him far away from the enslaved person who Thomas and Belle are helping. Thus, in thematic support of Having Principles Versus Taking Action, many of the women in the novel are able to use feminine attributes and interests to manipulate those around them and make moves against an unjust system that many fear to cross.
By Tracy Chevalier
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