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
Seven years later, Hope Leslie, at Bethel, writes a letter to Everell, who is in England. It is the fifth anniversary of the day Everell left, and also his birthday. That morning, Hope says, she surprised Mr. Fletcher with a painting of Everell, sleeping under a tree on the edge of the forest, a wolf about to spring on him, a man in the background aiming a musket. Though Mr. Fletcher says nothing about the painting during morning devotions, Hope notices him wiping away tears. A seat is left open for Everell at morning devotions, even though he has been gone for years.
The story jumps ahead several years and switches to the perspective of Hope Leslie. Everell has made it back home. Sedgwick provides background by means of the painting Hope has made of the story of Everell’s rescue. In the painting, Everell’s position on the edge of the forest suggests that he could go either way—either be destroyed by the wilderness (the wolf) or rescued and reincorporated into his own society.
Themes
After devotions are over, Hope writes, Digby praises the painting, saying it looks just like himself and Everell at the moment Digby discovered him. Both Master Cradock and Aunt Grafton take credit for Hope’s proficiency in painting, and the painting is enough to distract them briefly from their recent squabbling over matters of church and state. Jennet, meanwhile, has not changed, “the same untired and tiresome railer.”
Life at Bethel has settled into a new norm over the years, even after the tragic losses of the raid, and after Everell has, in accordance with his mother’s wishes, moved to England for his education. Aunt Grafton remains stubbornly Anglican, and Jennet continues to gripe about everything.
Themes
Tomorrow, Hope will be joining her father and Master Cradock on an expedition to a new settlement called Northampton. Aunt Grafton protests that this plan is “unladylike,” but Hope argues that America develops faculties that English ladies don’t realize they possess.
Hope is an adventurous young woman with a mind of her own, eager to explore the world around her. Her retort to Aunt Grafton suggests that, in Sedgwick’s view, the frontier draws previously untapped capacities out of American women.
Themes
Hope resumes the letter by describing their journey to Northampton. Upon arriving, Mr. Holioke takes their party up a mountain for a view of the surrounding country. After lingering on the summit for a while, Digby and Master Cradock help Hope descend. In the process, Cradock startles a rattlesnake and is bitten. Hope offers to suck the venom from the wound, explaining that she read of this treatment in one of Aunt Grafton’s books, but Cradock does not believe the method will work without killing Hope.
Holyoke is a historical figure, an English settler and surveyor who originally helped govern Springfield, and the namesake of Massachusetts’ Mount Holyoke. Hope shows her characteristic courage and resourcefulness in her readiness to save Cradock’s life.
Themes
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They make the six-hour journey back to Springfield; in the meantime, Cradock’s wound becomes inflamed, and his death is believed to be imminent. As soon as they get home, Hope goes to Nelema’s hut in the forest and persuades her to help. At Bethel, Nelema orders everyone except for Hope to leave the room. She utters incantations, pours a concoction down Cradock’s throat, and waves a wand wrapped in a snakeskin, which she says is her tribal symbol. She also writhes in violent contortions, frightening Hope.
To save Cradock, Hope ventures from the familiarity of Springfield into the relatively dangerous realm of the forest (thereby suggesting that the forest isn’t a place of uniform danger after all). Even for the brave and resourceful Hope, however, Nelema’s healing methods are unnerving.
Themes
After a while, Cradock begins to breathe more freely and regains normal color. As she returns to her own room, Hope finds Jennet peeping in the key-hole. Jennet scolds Hope for aiding an “emissary of Satan” and says she always knew that Mrs. Fletcher’s former kindnesses to Nelema would lead to this. Then Jennet tells Mr. Fletcher what she saw, and Mr. Fletcher summons Hope.
Jennet represents a caricature of the Puritan attitude toward figures like Nelema. Milder attitudes like Mrs. Fletcher’s seem to be more the norm, at least in Sedgwick’s portrayal. However, Sedgwick suggests that it’s people like Jennet who stir up the most trouble, as events bear out.
Themes
Hope resolves to say whatever she can in Nelema’s defense. Mr. Fletcher asks Hope to describe what she saw in her own words. She does so, adding that she does not believe Nelema used any “witchcraft.” Mr. Fletcher points out that even some American Indians who are Christians have repudiated their former devotion to “demons.” Hope replies that it isn’t right to “take the confession of these poor children of ignorance […] against themselves.” Magawisca believed that good people can converse with the spirits of nature. Shouldn’t she be believed as well? Mr. Fletcher sternly shows Hope the biblical proofs against witchcraft and dismisses her, blaming himself for not better instructing her in religious matters.
Mr. Fletcher is open to hearing Hope’s perspective on what she’s seen, even though he ultimately reprimands her; he respects Hope’s right to speak for herself. Hope’s response is that she thinks Mr. Fletcher is reading too much into Christian American Indians’ interpretations of their experience, using one perspective to undermine Nelema’s—an approach she finds unfair. She argues that other American Indian spiritual ideas are benevolent, so Nelema’s shouldn’t be offhandedly dismissed as “demonic.”
Themes
As Hope expects, Nelema is soon sent to the town magistrates on suspicion of witchcraft. Jennet also accuses her for various misfortunes that have occurred over the past seven years. Hope, too, is forced to testify, but she maintains Nelema’s innocence. Mr. Pynchon rebukes her, calling her “forward” for giving her opinion. Nelema is pronounced worthy of death, but since the local magistrate cannot carry out that sentence, the case will be referred to Boston. For the time being, Nelema is imprisoned in a cell in the Pynchons’ cellar.
Jennet’s denunciation of Nelema gets her in trouble, confirming Sedgwick’s suggestion that voices like Jennet’s cause the most trouble, even if not everyone thinks like she does. Because Hope has been accustomed to having her thoughts solicited and weighed at home, she speaks more openly in public than many women of the time would have and is accordingly reprimanded for it.
Themes
Literary Devices
In the letter, Hope tells Everell she wishes he were here—if only Mrs. Fletcher’s last request (that Everell be educated in England) had not been so persuasive! She longs to find some way of rescuing Nelema—after Nelema is gone, she will never have the opportunity to hear more about either Magawisca or Faith. (Nelema claims that both girls continue to live with Mononotto, among the Mohawks.) Meanwhile, Master Cradock, now recovered, writes a lengthy Latin address in praise of his “ministering angel,” Hope.
Nelema is Hope’s last link to her sister, an additional motivation to speak up on the woman’s behalf besides Hope’s characteristic inclination to justice and fairness. Among the Mohawks, Magawisca and Faith are basically in a foreign realm that’s inaccessible to Hope. Master Cradock gives Hope full credit for his recovery, not Nelema, who actually administered the remedy.
Themes
One day, Hope writes, she gets caught in a storm after a church meeting, so she stays at the Pynchons’ house. During supper, she notices Mr. Pynchon filling a bountiful plate and sending it downstairs with a servant, along with a key. Hope notices where the key is replaced. When she is invited to stay for the night, she accepts. The following morning, she is awakened by the news that a message had arrived from Boston, confirming Nelema’s sentence of death—but when Mr. Pynchon went to inform the prisoner, she had disappeared! Hope joins the household in speculating over this improbable escape, which most attribute to Nelema’s “satanic” connections.
Despite his harsh standards for discipline, Mr. Pynchon is humane to his prisoners. Evidently, too, he doesn’t watch them as vigilantly as one might guess. This scene is an instance of Sedgwick’s narrative method of switching back and forth in her chronology, leading to greater narrative suspense and mystery (albeit sometimes confusion as well).
Themes
Hope tells Everell about a dream she just had. She dreamed of Nelema promising her that she will never forget who delivered her from death, and that Hope will one day see her sister Faith again. Hope also learns that Digby is rumored to have been missing from his bed on the night Nelema escaped.
Hope’s “dream” is a way of communicating to Everell what really happened with Nelema without admitting to guilt (and thereby also implicating him in her actions).
Themes
Town magistrates have secret meetings with Mr. Fletcher. One day, he sends for Hope and emotionally informs her that she is being sent to live with the Winthrops in Boston; Aunt Grafton will accompany her there. He has indulged himself too long in keeping Hope by his side and must send her to people better equipped to guide her—such as Madam Winthrop and her “godly” niece, Esther Downing. Hope, fond of Bethel and also of getting her own way, refuses to go, but Mr. Fletcher says she must.
Hope’s actions do, after all, have consequences, although—given her stature within the community—they are far less harsh than they would be for someone of lower social standing, like Nelema. Hope’s removal to Boston also allows Sedgwick to switch to a different setting, one closer to the political center of the colony.
Themes
Aunt Grafton adds a postscript to Hope’s letter, enclosing a medicinal recipe for Everell’s cold, even though both Hope and Everell have always mocked her for her reliance on such remedies. She then goes on at great length describing the precise colors of silks she wants Everell to procure for her in London.
Aunt Grafton, more inclined to domestic and material matters than loftier ones, fulfills her role of providing comic relief within the Fletcher household.
Themes
