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Anna
Charles is the son of a wealthy family who lives in Sweetwater and spends his days whittling away his fortune by gambling. He meets Lucy not long after she arrives in Sweetwater and immediately feels captivated by what he considers her exotic beauty. When she spurns his romantic advances, this only makes him more interested in her. Eventually, Charles becomes engaged to Lucy’s friend Anna, thus reentering Lucy’s life. He continues to flirt with Lucy and to take advantage of her sexually, relying on her silence and Anna’s disbelief that Charles could be interested in her penniless friend.
Charles Quotes in How Much of These Hills Is Gold
The How Much of These Hills Is Gold quotes below are all either spoken by Charles or refer to Charles. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 26 Quotes
“Besides,” Anna says, laughing her rippling, carefree laugh. “What would Charles want with you?”
Lucy tastes metal. Her teeth haven’t let go her tongue.
Anna smiles at her.
Lucy could speak and she could scream and she could spit her bloody tongue to the rug and still Anna would see what Anna wants to see. Anna who thinks tigers are pets, or decorations to mount beautiful and glassy-eyed on her walls beside a deed that diminishes the land even as it claims it. Anna wants Lucy docile beside her, the third seat in their train car, wearing their clothes, lapping their cocoa, sleeping near their bed and maybe even allowing the scratch of Charles’s fingers at night. Anna wants a domestic thing, a harmless thing—Anna’s tigers are as different from Lucy’s tigers as Anna’s Charles is different from Lucy’s Charles.
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Charles Character Timeline in How Much of These Hills Is Gold
The timeline below shows where the character Charles appears in How Much of These Hills Is Gold. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 22
...that Lucy and her friend Anna are set to meet Anna’s fiancée (later identified as Charles) at the train station, they stop first at the home of a local woman who...
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At the train station, Lucy faces the event she’s dreaded all week: Charles’s arrival. She wishes Anna would say that she’s changed her mind. She feels overwhelmed by...
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Although Charles has light hair and Anna’s hair is as dark as Lucy’s, Charles and Anna are...
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Chapter 23
...it once was. And it’s a future which Anna sees them sharing with her fiancée, Charles. Anna doesn’t notice the attention Charles pays to Lucy, the way he’s always trying to...
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Chapter 24
...informs her that she has a male visitor waiting in the parlor. Lucy assumes it’s Charles, whom she met years earlier, long before she met Anna. At the time, Lucy haunted...
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But it isn’t Charles. It’s Sam. Sam looks more like Ba than ever. Lucy hasn’t seen Sam in five...
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Anna and Charles have just emerged from a gambling den to which Anna persuaded Charles to take her....
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Chapter 25
At Anna’s house, Sam shovels extra sugar into a glass of chilled cocoa while Charles pours slugs of whiskey into everyone’s glass except Lucy’s. Lucy refuses adamantly, watching Sam for...
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...excessive amounts of water to thrive in the harsh western climate. Belligerent and slightly drunk, Charles complains to Lucy about her rebuffs of his affection and what he believes is her...
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...back inside with a plan forming in her head. She plans to separate Anna and Charles by telling Anna about Charles’s actions. It will clear the way so that she and...
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Chapter 26
...but she knows Anna only means it as a joke. Then, when Anna asks where Charles went, Lucy shows the bruises on her arm and tells Anna some of her history...
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Chapter 27
Sam stops by the town pump to wash Charles’s blood off a hand—Charles evidently said some terrible things about Lucy, and Sam defended her...
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A man—one of Anna’s or Charles’s hired guards, Lucy assumes—is pacing on the porch of Lucy’s boarding house. Lucy has grown...
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Chapter 32
...learns to look at them not as individuals but as types. There are the lustful Charleses who want a pet, the pedantic Teacher Leighs who want a worshipful student, the ship...
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