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
William Fletcher is a gentleman’s son in Suffolk, England, destined to inherit the fortune of his wealthy uncle, Sir William Fletcher. Sir William is also determined that the younger William will marry his only daughter, Alice Fletcher. He urges his brother, William’s father, to make sure that William remains loyal to what is established and ignores the “mischief” of the Puritans, or of those who agitate for “liberty.” Young William must be carefully watched so that he does not fall under the sway of local men like Winthrop or Eliot.
William Fletcher’s uncle is loyal to England’s established Anglican Church and to the King, and he doesn’t want his fortune going to someone who favors disruptive movements like Puritanism, which sought to reform the Church of England and rejected the government’s mandates for religious practice. Real characters from history, John Winthrop founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 and served as its governor for the next 12 years, while John Eliot was a well-known Congregationalist (Puritan) missionary who became known as the “Apostle to the Indians.”
Themes
Young William’s father does not comply with these requests, and William accordingly befriends both Winthrop and Eliot. He also begins to fall in love with his cousin Alice Fletcher. Sir William tells his nephew that if he wants Alice and the family fortune, he must pledge himself to the king and the established church.
In the early 1600s, many with Puritan religious and political sympathies faced social and familial pressure to conform to the traditional establishment, hence the migration to “New England” by a subset seeking greater liberties.
Themes
Heartbroken, William leaves a letter for Alice Fletcher and goes to Winthrop for advice. Winthrop urges William to sail for New England, and William agrees. William’s decision is not romantic. In that day, many sacrificed earthly rewards in pursuit of what they saw as “the cause of liberty and religion.”
William sees fleeing England as the only alternative to this stalemate. Like other Puritans of his day, he wasn’t emigrating for adventure’s sake, but for the sake of certain principles, even at personal cost.
Themes
Before leaving, William must tell Alice Fletcher the truth. He sends letters to her and to Sir William. A few days later, as he is preparing to leave his inn at Southampton to board the ship, Alice appears and runs into his arms—she intends to come to America with him. He goes to the ship and finds a clergyman who agrees to marry them as soon they embark. But as he is returning to shore to get Alice, he sees Sir William’s carriage approaching her, surrounded by an armed guard. He rows as fast as he can, but he reaches shore just in time to see Alice forced into the carriage and driven out of sight.
Sir William’s steadfast establishment principles disrupt his nephew’s hopes for a new life and elopement. William’s and Alice’s forced separation lays the groundwork for the rest of the story by determining the course of their descendants’ lives—setting a tone for the story in which adherence to principle creates conflict (and, to a lesser degree, where women’s desires are often subject to the desires of more powerful men).
Themes
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William lets the boat return to the ship without him. He returns to London and meets with his uncle, but he never speaks of what occurs in that meeting. Two weeks later, Alice Fletcher is married to a man named Charles Leslie. She lives in retirement from that time forward, and though some claim she is insane, she is said to have “an angelic spirit.” Not long thereafter, William is talked into marrying a ward of Winthrop’s, a godly orphan girl. In 1630, he and his family join Governor Winthrop in embarking for New England aboard the Arabella.
Sedgwick suggests that, given the political pressures of his day, William is forced to choose between love and principle. He sails for American after all, aboard the Arabella, which was the flagship of John Winthrop’s New England-bound fleet. Upon the fleet’s arrival, the Massachusetts colony was founded. Sedgwick, therefore, grounds her story in the heart of America’s founding history.
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