A bad poet and amateur botanist, and a long-term guest at Sidley Park. Chater is a blundering, foolish figure, but he has a warm heart. He’s blinded by his desire to believe the best of his wife and his poetry. He meets his death from a monkey bite on an expedition to Martinique, where he discovers a new type of dahlia.
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Mr. Ezra Chater Character Timeline in Arcadia
The timeline below shows where the character Mr. Ezra Chater appears in Arcadia. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 1, Scene 1
...is, sex), but says instead that “carnal embrace” means hugging meat, and mentions that Mr. Chater has written a bad poem, “The Couch of Eros.” Thomasina comments that she overheard Jellaby,...
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...Septimus the gossip chain—Mr. Noakes, the gardener, witnessed the carnal embrace from afar, then told Chater, Mrs. Chater’s husband. A groom overheard this and told Jellaby, and now many others in...
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Jellaby enters with a letter for Septimus from Chater. Mr. Chater wants to meet with Septimus in the gunroom—a detail which suggests (along with...
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Chater enters angrily. Septimus sends Thomasina away. She guesses that Fermat’s note about having a proof...
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Chater is pleased with the compliment, and forgets momentarily that he’s supposed to be angry at...
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Noakes enters, distressed to find Septimus and Chater together. Chater reads out his friendly inscription to Septimus, surely the opposite of the scene...
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...her of being too clever for her age. Thomasina hands Septimus a letter from Mrs. Chater, and exits. Septimus reads the letter and slips it into his copy of “The Couch...
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Act 1, Scene 2
Bernard finally gets to the point. He’s looking for information on Ezra Chater, and takes out a copy of “The Couch of Eros,” which turns out to be...
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Bernard explains he’s giving a talk possibly about Chater next week, and is looking for leads about Chater. Hannah says she’s not used to...
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...is dedicated—he was a tutor, educated in science at Cambridge—but she doesn’t know anything about Chater.
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...asks Hannah about some details relating to Lord Byron, and she realizes that Byron, not Chater, may be Bernard’s ultimate goal in coming to Sidley Park. Chloë bustles through, moving the...
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...definitely Septimus, but Bernard thinks Hannah’s idea doesn’t make sense—the inscription suggests that Septimus and Chater were friends, but the Piccadilly review, as well as a review by the same author...
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...the book. We, the audience, recognize the first two from the first scene—one is from Chater challenging an unnamed person (we, though not Bernard, know it’s Septimus) to a duel, the...
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Act 1, Scene 3
...on Byron. Thomasina recounts hearing Byron laugh about a terrible review of “The Maid of Turkey”—Chater’s first book—that Septimus had written. So now Chater must know that Septimus was faking his...
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Brice and Chater enter. Chater asks Septimus to speak only to Brice. Septimus has some fun with this...
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Chater wants Septimus to duel him. Septimus consents, saying he’s tired of Chater. Septimus mentions that...
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Act 1, Scene 4
...(which Lady Croom mentioned in Scene 3). Bernard sees this as proof of his hypothesized Byron-Chater connection. Hannah mentions that she’s discovered a letter that notes that Brice and Mrs. Chater...
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Act 2, Scene 5
Bernard reads his paper about the Chater-Byron duel to the Coverly siblings. Partway through, Hannah enters with a copy of a letter...
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Act 2, Scene 6
...Jellaby tells Septimus that while he was off sleeping in the boat house, Brice, Mr. Chater, and Mrs. Chater all left, followed by Byron. Septimus bribes Jellaby to get the gossip....
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...in a duel this morning, but, it’s now clear, the duel never took place because Chater left after the previous night’s drama.
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...she no longer considers a friend, so Septimus burns it. Lady Croom explains that Brice, Chater and Mrs. Chater are sailing for the West Indies. Brice is funding Chater to be...
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...that Septimus’s passionate love letter to her rings false because of Septimus’s fling with Mrs. Chater. Septimus explains that he only got with Mrs. Chater because of his unquenched passion for...
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Act 2, Scene 7
...while Hannah reads from Lady Croom’s garden books, which function as journals. The journal mentions Chater’s death by monkey bite. The dahlia he described had never been in England before.
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...a dahlia.” Hannah reads a passage from the garden book, which clearly connects the botanist Chater, who died after describing a dahlia in Martinique, to the Ezra Chater of “The Couch...
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