Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hope Leslie, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Religious Conflict and Tolerance
Interracial Relationships
Violence and Historical Memory
Women’s Roles
The Puritan Heritage
Summary
Analysis
The author explains that the following book is not a historical account, though it does allude to real people and events. Her intention is “to illustrate not the history, but the character of the times.” In particular, she has taken liberties with the accounts of Sir Philip Gardiner and with the chronology of the Pequot War.
Hope Leslie is a fictional interpretation of real historical events and personalities. For example, Sir Philip Gardiner, who appears in the second half of the novel, is based on the historical figure of Sir Christopher Gardiner, who is described in William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation as being a secret Catholic who brought a concubine into the colony. He was deported but did not meet the fate depicted in Volume 2, Chapter 12.
Themes
The author has investigated all written records which the highly literate settlers of the Massachusetts colony left behind them. She has also attempted to portray the American Indians in a different light than her ancestors did. Older historians portrayed them as foolish and stubborn, whereas they are more justly viewed as brave and devoted to their people.
From the beginning, Sedgwick signals that her interpretation of history will depart from that of her predecessors—both authors of historical narratives like William Bradford, and other novelists like Sedgwick’s contemporary James Fenimore Cooper, with his less sympathetic characterizations of American Indians.
Themes
The character of Magawisca is not based on a historical character, but such a figure might certainly have existed, since all branches of humanity can boast virtue and intelligence. In fact, differences among races are not inherent, but a matter of external conditions.
Sedgwick further signals that her treatment of racial differences will differ from that of other authors, some of whom would view American Indians, for example, as being inherently inferior to white characters. Sedgwick stresses that human beings are fundamentally the same, even if their external circumstances differ vastly.
Themes
Finally, the author’s greatest ambition for this work is not to accurately convey history, but to inspire young people in her own day to study the early history of the United States.
Again, Sedgwick does not aspire to present an accurate historical account but, through the medium of fiction, to get readers thinking critically about their own history and heritage.
Themes
Literary Devices
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