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
Not long after Hope and Magawisca have escaped the jail, Everell joins them. Magawisca expresses her gratitude to Everell, admitting that, when he didn’t rescue her right away, she briefly thought him faithless like most white people. But now she knows that, someday, in the Great Spirit’s realm, she will be able to greet Everell as her brother.
Sedgwick circles back to the thread of the story involving Magawisca’s escape. Much as Magawisca is viewed by some characters as being an exception to her race, Magawisca sees Everell’s goodness in the same way.
Themes
Everell and Hope both beg Magawisca to remain friends with them now. Conflict between English and Indians is passing away, and in a short time, people will be prepared to welcome Magawisca and give her due honor. But Magawisca replies that this cannot be. “The law of vengeance” is written on her people’s hearts, she argues, and it isn’t possible for white and Indian people to mingle. She will hear no further arguments. She will rejoice, instead, in Everell’s and Hope’s union, which Nelema always said was fated.
The white characters see present interracial conflict as something that is in the process of decline. From her perspective almost two centuries later, Sedgwick hints that this is a naïve outlook. Magawisca, in contrast, believes that the friendship Everell and Hope desire isn’t attainable within existing social realities. Partly, this is because her own people—exemplified by her father—are set on vengeance.
Themes
Literary Devices
Hope asks Magawisca if she can give her some token that might help her gain her pining sister’s affections. Magawisca says that Faith loves Oneco too much for that. She is both devoted to her adoptive people and a convinced Catholic, so she cannot be happy while separated from Oneco. She must be allowed to fly to the forest.
Hope has not fully accepted the reality of her sister’s separation from her; she doesn’t see Faith’s marriage as something genuine. Magawisca clearly sees that Faith belongs among her own people, a “child of the forest” like herself—suggesting that, in rare cases, it is possible to assimilate to another culture, but perhaps only when this occurs in early childhood.
Themes
They reach their designated meeting place, where Digby is waiting to take Magawisca anywhere she wishes by canoe. She plans to go in search of Mononotto and to find happiness in the wilderness. Hope, repelled by the thought of such solitude, acknowledges that Magawisca will be happy there, though she wishes that Magawisca were receptive to the “brighter light of Christian revelation.” Hope gives Magawisca her cherished miniature of Everell, which she has always worn around her neck, and the three tearfully bid one another goodbye.
Magawisca finally returns to her people and her home in the forest for good, suggesting that this is, after all, the only place where she can fully belong. Hope contrasts nature with revelation, meaning that the teachings of Christianity (as revealed in the Bible) are superior to the true but insufficient realities conveyed through nature—again reflecting Sedgwick’s Unitarian outlook.
Themes
Literary Devices
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Everell and Hope watch as the canoe disappears into the distance. Then they begin walking silently, reluctantly homeward, feeling deep grief mingled with love for one another. When they reach the Winthrop mansion, there’s light and bustle even though it’s eleven o’clock at night. Before Hope hurries inside, Everell kisses her hand, then goes to the jail to take poor Master Cradock’s place under Barnaby Tuttle’s supervision.
At this point, it’s assumed that Everell and Esther are still slated to marry one another, as their guardians wish; Everell and Hope are not free, therefore, to express their love for one another, making a happy ending out of reach.
Themes
