Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lady Susan, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gender, Power, and Manipulation
Public Appearance vs. Private Reality
Love and Transaction
Summary
Analysis
Letter I. Lady Susan writes to her brother-in-law Charles, asking if she can take him up on a previous invitation to stay at his estate, Churchill. While the friends she’s currently visiting are delightful and want her to stay, they’re a little too social for her taste. Besides, she’s excited to meet Charles’s wife and grow close with his children, especially since she’s about to be separated from her own daughter, whom she’s sending to boarding school. Lady Susan hopes that Charles will let her come—it would be incredibly painful to her if he refused.
Lady Susan seems to be a constant visitor to other people’s estates. If she actually wanted to avoid socializing, she would presumably just return to her own home—but it’s possible that she doesn’t have a home of her own. This would explain why she’s accepting an old invitation that she’d presumably already refused, and why she seems so desperate, claiming that Charles’ refusal would hurt her. This could also be why Lady Susan is sending Frederica to boarding school instead of allowing her to remain home. Lady Susan probably isn’t very close to her brother-in-law’s family if she’s never met his wife or children, which makes it even stranger that she’s coming to visit them now.
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Literary Devices
Letter II. Lady Susan tells her friend Alicia that, despite how lovely the past few months have been, she must leave the estate where she’s currently staying—unfortunately, the women there have taken issue with her. Recently widowed, Lady Susan tried to keep her affair with the estate’s owner, Mr. Manwaring, discreet. She hasn’t been involved with anyone but him, except that she flirted “a little” with Sir James Martin in order to estrange him from his fiancée. But her motives were good: in spite of those who call her a bad mother, she was only trying to set Sir James up with her daughter, Frederica. This would have worked, if Frederica wasn’t so stupid.
This letter reveals that everything Lady Susan told Charles was a lie: she was actually forced to leave her friends’ home because she seduced two men who should have been off-limits, which explains why she’s fleeing to Churchill now. The humor of this passage comes from both its sharp contrast to Lady Susan’s previous letter, and from the way Lady Susan understates her own dastardly deeds: clearly, she thinks the women in the Manwaring household are overreacting. After all, she tried to keep her affair with Mr. Manwaring hush-hush, and she only flirted slightly with Sir James. Lady Susan also doesn’t seem to care that her husband recently died—she’s not exactly grieving the loss, since she’s already flirting with multiple men. In fact, family seems to matter very little to Lady Susan: she has an odd idea of motherly love, as she was trying to seduce Sir James on behalf of her daughter. This is an uncomfortable and manipulative dynamic, and what’s more, Lady Susan doesn’t even seem to care about her daughter. Though she was acting in Frederica’s name, she probably didn’t have her best interests at heart.
Themes
Sir James did propose to marry Frederica, but the girl was vehemently opposed. And Lady Susan would have married this wealthy man herself were he not “contemptibly weak.” Now, Sir James has left the estate, and the women of the house are furious with Lady Susan—so furious that Mrs. Manwaring might have tried writing to her guardian, Mr. Johnson (who happens to be Alicia’s husband). It was smart of Mr. Johnson to break with Mrs. Manwaring when she got married, and Lady Susan asks Alicia to stoke that resentment. But now that the whole estate is in chaos, Lady Susan must leave.
Although Sir James proposed to Frederica, it doesn’t seem like the marriage would be a love match—after all, Lady Susan was the one flirting with him, so he’s probably interested in her, not Frederica. But Lady Susan doesn’t seem to think love is important in a marriage; she dislikes Sir James but would still like to see her daughter married to him for financial reasons, even though Frederica is against it. This plan failed miserably, but Lady Susan got lucky—her reputation is safe only because Mrs. Manwaring can’t tell Mr. Johnson the truth about her. Everyone in the Manwaring household knows how cruel and manipulative Lady Susan is, but the conventions of polite society forbid them to effectively spread that information. Meanwhile, Lady Susan’s friendship with Alicia is quite beneficial: Alicia is able to ensure that Lady Susan’s bad behavior stays under wraps, just by supporting her husband’s grudges. It helps that Mr. Manwaring seemingly has a bad reputation of his own, since Mr. Johnson stopped speaking to Mrs. Manwaring after she married him.
Themes
Lady Susan hopes that Mr. Johnson isn’t still mad at her, since (despite his flaws) other people find him respectable. It’s awkward that he refuses to see her given how close she and Alicia are. Lady Susan is coming to Charles’s estate in London, which is her last resort—she doesn’t like Charles and she’s scared of his wife, but she has nowhere else to go.
Lady Susan is openly conniving and chaotic, as proven by her narrow escape from the Manwarings’—but this passage reveals that she also cares what people think about her. The fact that Mr. Johnson dislikes her makes her look bad in the eyes of polite society, which matters to her; clearly, there’s a difference between how she acts in private, or with close friends, and the face she puts on in public. Lady Susan also confirms that she has no home to return to, and she explains why she’s never visited Charles before: for some reason, she doesn’t want to meet Catherine. It’s possible, then, that she and Catherine have a negative history.
Themes
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Letter III. Catherine tells her mother, Lady De Courcy, that they unfortunately won’t be able to spend Christmas together, because Lady Susan plans to visit. Catherine is surprised, since she assumed that Lady Susan was happy staying with the Manwarings. While Catherine knew they’d eventually have to host her, she didn’t expect it to happen so soon. She has a grudge against Lady Susan because of her bad behavior when Catherine and Charles were first engaged; unfortunately, Charles is always overly kind to Lady Susan and accepted her profuse apologies. They had to help her out financially after her husband died, but Charles didn’t need to encourage Lady Susan to visit.
Not only is Lady Susan dropping by unexpectedly, but she’s disrupting the plans that Charles’s family already had, suggesting that the visit came totally out of the blue. Catherine already thinks it’s odd that Lady Susan is leaving the Manwarings’ household, which implies that she alone might be onto Lady Susan’s lies. She has a grudge against her already, since Lady Susan did something bad before Catherine married Charles—Charles, on the other hand, seems willing to let bygones be bygones, and to believe whatever Lady Susan tells him. The fact that he even encouraged her to visit suggests that she’s quite a skilled liar. She’s also poor—after her husband died, the family had to give her money, since as a woman she can’t make money of her own. Charles probably sees her as someone in need of pity, while Catherine remains suspicious.
Themes
Unlike Charles, Catherine isn’t looking forward to Lady Susan’s visit. While Charles believes Lady Susan’s apologies, Catherine thinks that there might be more to the story. After all, Lady Susan is known to be attractive but manipulative, and she’s even unkind to her own daughter.
Lady Susan’s reputation precedes her: Catherine already knows that she lies frequently, and that she’s unkind to Frederica. Readers are privy to both of these facts, so it’s strange that Charles (the only one who’s actually met Lady Susan) still thinks well of her. Obviously, Lady Susan can charm people when she’s face to face with them, which may have something to do with how beautiful she is. Readers don’t know whether or not Catherine has confided in Charles about her suspicions, but since he’s still supportive of Lady Susan, it seems unlikely. Instead, Catherine can only vent her feelings in a letter to her mother.
Themes
Letter IV. Catherine’s brother, Reginald, is amused that Lady Susan will be visiting. He’s heard nasty rumors about her: she flirted with both Mr. Manwaring and Sir James while staying with them, proving that she was trying to disrupt the entire Manwaring family. Reginald is excited: he plans to visit in order to meet the woman who could seduce two attached men simultaneously. He’s glad, however, that Lady Susan’s daughter won’t be joining them—according to his sources, Frederica is boring and proud, a sharp contrast to Lady Susan.
The fact that Reginald knows the truth about what happened at the Manwarings’ and is merely amused by Lady Susan’s actions suggests that, in some way, he’s sympathetic to her—he clearly doesn’t care about the feelings of the women in the Manwaring household. Because he now wants to meet Lady Susan, he might even be impressed by how destructive she is. Reginald doesn’t know the real reason why Lady Susan seduced Sir James—or at least what Lady Susan claims is the real reason. But his observation that Lady Susan caused chaos, negatively impacting everyone in the Manwaring household, seems to excite him rather than put him off. Lady Susan probably didn’t need to seduce the engaged Sir James to secure a wealthy husband for Frederica, and she definitely didn’t need to do it while staying with the Manwaring family. Her motives, then, are unclear—it’s possible that she did just want to prove that she could disrupt everyone’s lives, and thus that she had power over them. However, while Reginald’s gossip seems to be pretty solid, he may unknowingly be repeating Lady Susan’s lies himself—Lady Susan doesn’t like her daughter and could have told others that she’s boring and prideful. Meanwhile, it’s significant that stories of Lady Susan’s misbehavior are spreading, even though readers know that she cares about her reputation. It’s possible that she believes she can do damage control, even when everyone knows exactly what happened.
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Literary Devices
Letter V. Lady Susan writes to Alicia that she has arrived at Charles’s estate, called Churchill. While Charles has treated her well so far, she’s miffed by Catherine’s coldness. Lady Susan wanted Catherine to be happy to see her, but Catherine still seems upset about Lady Susan’s attempts to prevent her marriage—even though this happened six years ago. At the time, Lady Susan also stopped Charles from buying her husband’s old estate when they were forced to sell it.
Lady Susan might be manipulative, but her understanding of human nature isn’t flawless—she seems confused about why Catherine would be upset about a years-old incident. But because readers now know what that incident was, Catherine’s rudeness makes perfect sense: Lady Susan tried to break up Catherine and Charles before they got married. Lady Susan seemingly cares very little for anyone, so she probably doesn’t understand that Catherine loves Charles and would have been upset to part with him. In fact, Lady Susan only seems concerned with how people and events can benefit her. Catherine and Charles would have been happy to own Lady Susan’s estate—even better, the estate would have remained in the family. Lady Susan claims that she was concerned about her husband’s dignity, but her current flirtations prove that she didn’t care much about her late husband at all.
Themes
Lady Susan sometimes regrets this, but she was worried about her husband’s dignity at the time, since he would have been selling the estate to his younger brother. Besides, Charles was about to get married and have children, so Lady Susan wouldn’t have benefitted from the sale—if Charles had remained unmarried, Lady Susan and her husband could have lived with him.
Lady Susan’s second reason for why she prevented the sale seems more likely: she wanted to live there with Charles, but he was getting married, so that wouldn’t have been possible. This also explains why she would have tried to break Catherine and Charles up; if Charles was unmarried, she could have accessed his money as part of his household. Crucially, this passage reveals what the dynamic between Lady Susan and her late husband must have been: if she was able to convince him not to sell the estate to his younger brother, she must have been dominant over him, even though (as a woman in 18th-century society) she couldn’t handle their affairs herself. The fact that they ended up broke therefore implies that Lady Susan was the one recklessly spending money.
Themes
Lady Susan’s interference must have put a sour taste in Catherine’s mouth. But she was never going to like Lady Susan, anyway, and at least Catherine’s feelings haven’t kept Charles from giving Lady Susan money. Charles is gullible and rich, but he has no idea where to spend his money. For this reason alone, Lady Susan is glad to be staying with him—and while she’s here, she plans to change Catherine’s negative opinion of her by befriending her children. In the meantime, she’ll continue writing to Mr. Manwaring (in front of the Vernons, she pretends that his letters are from Mrs. Manwaring).
It’s possible that Lady Susan is right, and that Catherine would always have disliked her—Catherine is clearly a thoughtful person, whereas Lady Susan is shallow by comparison. Her friendship with Alicia, for instance, seems to be based on the fact that Lady Susan can use Alicia’s marriage to Mr. Johnson as a strategic advantage. This perhaps suggests that Lady Susan doesn’t form close relationships with other women unless they benefit her. Similarly, Lady Susan seems to primarily value Charles for his money: if he wasn’t rich or easily manipulated, she probably wouldn’t want to spend time with him. Meanwhile, her planned manipulation of Catherine feels particularly cruel—Lady Susan that the way to Catherine’s heart is through her children, so she plans to ingratiate them with the love she doesn’t show her own daughter. While she’s being careful with Catherine, Lady Susan seems to be throwing caution to the wind in other ways—people like Reginald have heard the rumors about what happened at the Manwarings’, but Lady Susan is still pretending to be on good terms with Mrs. Manwaring.
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Letter VI. Catherine writes to Reginald with a full account of Lady Susan: she’s beautiful, even more beautiful than they predicted she would be. Beyond that, she’s also intelligent and graceful—she was so polite to Catherine, in fact, that Catherine almost forgot all their history. She was expecting Lady Susan to behave like a flirt, but she’s just the opposite. Still, Catherine knows it’s all fake, and that Lady Susan’s good manners must be what allow her to lie effectively. She even came close to convincing Catherine that she cares about Frederica, although Catherine knows that’s not true.
Everyone knew Lady Susan would be beautiful, but what’s surprising is that she isn’t the open flirt that Catherine expected her to be. Instead, she behaves like a proper lady, to the point that even Catherine almost forgets everything Lady Susan has done. As Catherine observes, this makes Lady Susan an even more dangerous liar—her ladylike demeanor makes people more willing to listen to her lies. Clearly, the society of the novella focuses on women’s surface-level appearances, which gives Lady Susan an advantage, because her authentic self is the exact opposite of what others perceive her to be. Her lie about loving Frederica is especially egregious, and it’s surprising that Catherine believes it. However, it’s possible that, because Catherine is a mother, she also wants Lady Susan to genuinely care about her daughter—it’s a lie she’d be predisposed to believe.
Themes
Since even Catherine nearly believes Lady Susan’s act, it makes sense that Charles has bought into it completely: he believes that Lady Susan left the Manwarings’ voluntarily, still grieving for her late husband. But Catherine knows that Lady Susan stayed at the Manwarings’ far too long for that to be true, and she assumes that Lady Susan had to leave to save face. However, she also thinks that Reginald’s gossip must have been wrong—Lady Susan couldn’t have seduced Mr. Manwaring in addition to Sir James, since she regularly writes to Mrs. Manwaring.
Catherine is clearly a discerning character, able to logically separate lies from truth. The fact that she’s a woman probably helps—Charles is likely swept up by Lady Susan’s beauty and ladylike demeanor. Catherine, on the other hand, can put two and two together: if Lady Susan was still in mourning and wanted to avoid scandal, she wouldn’t have stayed with the Manwaring family for so long in the first place. But even Catherine isn’t immune to Lady Susan’s manipulation: readers know that Lady Susan is lying about writing to Mrs. Manwaring, but Catherine believes her and therefore believes that she never had an affair with Mr. Manwaring. Worse, Catherine is spreading that lie to Reginald in her letter, even when she thinks she’s telling him the whole truth about Lady Susan.
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Letter VII. Lady Susan tells Alicia that, while her friend’s offer to spend time with Frederica is kind, she shouldn’t bother—Frederica is stupid and has nothing of value to offer. Besides, any time they spent together would mean less time spent on Frederica’s education, and because Lady Susan has no accomplishments, she wants Frederica to have at least a few. Still, Frederica shouldn’t spend too much time on that, either—Lady Susan plans for her to marry Sir James within a year. She only sent Frederica to school to humiliate her, since she’ll be one of the oldest students there.
Lady Susan doesn’t value Frederica at all, but she still wants her daughter to represent her well, for Lady Susan’s own benefit. If Frederica had accomplishments (whether education or a talent of some kind), it would make Lady Susan look good by extension. But Lady Susan still hasn’t given up on the plan to force Frederica to marry Sir James, even though she said earlier that Frederica was against it. Sending Frederica to boarding school was just a means for Lady Susan to get what she wants—if Frederica is embarrassed to be at school, she’ll probably want to leave, even if that means marrying a man she hates.
Themes
In the meantime, Alicia just has to stop Sir James from marrying anyone else—this shouldn’t be a problem, because Lady Susan is sure that he’ll propose again. Overall, she’s proud of how she’s handled this situation: she didn’t want to cruelly force Frederica into an unhappy marriage, so she’s instead tricking her into believing it’s her own idea, given how miserable she’ll be at school.
The fact that Sir James would still be willing to marry Frederica, even after all the chaos at the Manwarings’ house, proves that he is very gullible. Lady Susan and Alicia can easily control him together—though their power only comes from his obvious weakness. Furthermore, even though Lady Susan is cruel to her daughter and only values Frederica when she can benefit her, she still thinks that she’s doing the right thing—instead of forcing a marriage between Frederica and Sir James, she’ll just make Frederica think that it’s her idea.
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Literary Devices
Staying at Churchill is still pretty dull, but now Lady Susan has some amusement: Catherine’s brother Reginald has arrived. He’s handsome and clever, but overly flirty—still, Lady Susan hopes that once she gets him on her side, he’ll be fun to talk to. The main goal of this exercise will be to “subdue” Reginald, since he currently has a negative opinion of her—and when he changes his mind about her, it will have the added bonus of humbling his proud family and annoying Catherine. At the very least, Lady Susan will have a good time.
Reginald came to Churchill specifically to meet Lady Susan, and he’s apparently also decided to flirt with her. He’s probably doing this because he knows her bad reputation and thinks it would be funny—Lady Susan is, after all, known for her many affairs. Meanwhile, Lady Susan tells Alicia that she’ll “subdue” Reginald mostly for fun, but this probably isn’t the whole truth: her reference to Reginald’s family, and to his flirtation, hints that she wants power over them because they’ve made her feel disrespected and powerless. It’s worth noting that, socially and financially, Lady Susan is rather powerless: she’s a widow and is seemingly broke with no source of income. Forcing Reginald to like her would be a way to channel her frustration about her own situation, especially because he thinks he has the upper hand.
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Letter VIII. Catherine writes to her mother, Lady De Courcy, letting her know that Reginald won’t be coming home because he plans to stay at Churchill to hunt with Charles. Catherine’s mother shouldn’t tell Catherine’s father, Sir Reginald, but here’s what actually happened: Lady Susan has changed Reginald’s mind about her, which made him extend his stay.
Lady Susan’s plan is working: she’s managed to completely change Reginald’s mind about her. This is particularly shocking because Reginald was the one who told Catherine about what happened at the Manwarings’ estate—clearly, Lady Susan was able to spin all of those rumors to her advantage when talking to Reginald in person.
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This manipulation disturbs Catherine. Reginald initially disliked Lady Susan and believed horrible rumors about her, so he thought he’d flirt with her for fun. But instead of reciprocating, she acted gracefully. Admittedly, if they didn’t all know the truth about her, Catherine might have understood his enchantment. As it stands, though, Reginald now claims that all of Lady Susan’s prior evils must have been youthful mistakes. Catherine thinks that Lady Susan is just toying with Reginald—and she’s horrified that the normally sensible Reginald is falling for it.
Even Catherine, who believes the rumors, sees why Reginald is so obsessed with Lady Susan: she’s an expert manipulator, acting like a proper lady when everyone expects her to be flirty and uncouth. Catherine claims that Lady Susan is just having fun—in other words, that she’s not making a ploy to marry Reginald—but Catherine’s desire to keep all this information a secret from her father suggests that she might be a little worried. After all, if she genuinely believes that this is all a joke to Lady Susan, she wouldn’t care if her father knew—perhaps she knows that there’s cause for concern.
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Letter IX. Alicia writes to Lady Susan, enthusiastic about Reginald’s arrival at Churchill; in fact, she thinks her friend should marry him. His father, Sir Reginald, is ill and will probably die soon. And although no man is in Lady Susan’s league, Reginald is well-liked and might come close. Mr. Manwaring would obviously be jealous, but Lady Susan can’t be expected to wait until he’s free to remarry. In other news, Alicia has recently seen Sir James, whom she believes would marry either Frederica or Lady Susan in an instant. He even claimed that his engagement to Mr. Manwaring’s sister was just a joke, and they both laughed at her expense.
This is the first time anyone has outwardly stated that Lady Susan has a chance of marrying Reginald. Lady Susan told Alicia that she was befriending him to mess with his family, and even Catherine thinks it’s all just a game. But Alicia seems to think there would be value in a marriage—if Sir Reginald dies, Reginald would inherit all the family’s money, since Catherine is a married woman and has no claim to it. Alicia also seems to think that Lady Susan could come to care about Reginald genuinely—but this demonstrates a misunderstanding of her friend’s nature, since Lady Susan doesn’t seem to be capable of genuine affection (the fact that she’s left Mr. Manwaring hanging all this time is further proof of this). Meanwhile, Sir James’s eagerness to marry either Frederica or Lady Susan indicates that he’s really enamored with Lady Susan, who’s calling all the shots—if he married Frederica, it would only be because Lady Susan wanted him to do so. He’s so obsessed with her, in fact, that he’s dismissive of Miss Manwaring, who was recently his fiancée. Lady Susan obviously holds power over him, though it doesn’t seem like he’s particularly difficult to influence.
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Letter X. In response to Alicia, Lady Susan claims that she has no plans to marry Reginald. She doesn’t need the money right now, and until Sir Reginald is dead, the marriage wouldn’t benefit her. However, she thinks that she could marry him if she wanted—she’s “triumph[ed]” over him completely, which even Catherine has noticed. Catherine is probably going to try to change Reginald’s mind about her, but Lady Susan will block her attempts—she’s having too much fun watching Reginald warm to her.
This passage proves that, while Lady Susan generally reveals her true nature in letters to Alicia, she doesn’t always reveal her real motives—it’s likely that Lady Susan is lying here about her financial situation. Catherine believes that Lady Susan broke—she and Charles had to give her money not too long ago—and even when her husband was alive, he and Lady Susan needed to sell their estate. Thus, Lady Susan is obviously faking an independence that she doesn’t have—the fact that she’s at Churchill at all proves that she does need to marry a rich man, since she literally has nowhere to go. But admitting that she needs Reginald would certainly diminish her “triumph”—in Lady Susan’s mind, she’s the one with all the power in their relationship. She even has power over Catherine, who has noticed their flirtation and is going to try to stop it. But because readers know that Lady Susan is lying, this game of cat-and-mouse feels hollow: Lady Susan is actually in a pretty dependent and vulnerable position, but she’s pretending otherwise to save face.
Themes
Ironically, Lady Susan made Reginald like her by not flirting with him. Instead, she engaged him in serious conversation, and now she believes he’s very much in love. Lady Susan’s seduction was flawless; in fact, the only reason that Catherine sees through her is because of their prior history. But even if Lady Susan didn’t care about Mr. Manwaring, she wouldn’t want to marry Reginald, who could never compare—Reginald is nice enough, but the fact that he ever thought badly of Lady Susan is a mark against him. For now, she’s just amusing herself; soon, she’ll hint to Frederica that Sir James plans to propose again.
Lady Susan confirms here what Catherine has already observed: that she manipulated Reginald by acting contrary to what he expected of her. However, she’s probably wrong that Catherine only sees through her because of their prior history—Lady Susan doesn’t have a good track record with manipulating women, since Mrs. Manwaring and Miss Manwaring chased her out of their estate. Instead, her power seems to come from acting like the lady that men expect her to be, and then turning the tables on them. This passage also demonstrates that Lady Susan expects absolute devotion from the men who love her: even though Reginald has changed his mind about her, the fact that he disrespected her initially has diminished him in her eyes. It’s possible that Lady Susan is obsessed with her plan to marry Frederica off because, if she doesn’t marry rich, Lady Susan will have to marry someone like Reginald herself. This would force her to admit that she doesn’t have as much power as she thinks she does.
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