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Chapter 17
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in What Maisie Knew, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Innocence and Corruption
Money and Society
Hypocrisy
Perspective and Understanding
Summary
Analysis
After a light dinner—the kitchen is poorly stocked while Beale is traveling, which he usually is these days—Maisie and Mrs. Beale go to the Exhibition. Mrs. Beale doesn’t offer to pay for any of the sideshows, and Maisie hopes Sir Claude will arrive to treat her. Suddenly, in front of a group of foreign women, Mrs. Beale sees none other than Beale and cries out, but he moves away before she can confront him. Mrs. Beale comments that Beale’s women are always ugly, before quickly correcting herself and explaining she wasn’t talking about his wives. They see Beale and the woman again. In the course of a sudden confrontation, the woman leaves, Maisie sees Sir Claude, and Beale grabs Maisie and takes her into a cab away from the Exhibition.
Beale’s nearly empty kitchen indicates how little he cares about his wife and daughter, and how much he lives on others’ wealth. Maisie’s growing understanding of the world is also a growing awareness of the role of money in her life. Mrs. Beale’s comments reveal a self-serving hypocrisy—she does not consider herself ugly, or Ida either, apparently—and the fact that their marriage has soured too.
Active
Themes
Beale takes Maisie to a house and, inside, into what is clearly a rich lady’s grand drawing room. Maisie asks about the woman and learns that she is a Countess—but an American one. Beale explains that he wants to introduce Maisie to her. As they wait for the Countess, Maisie experiences a powerful and confusing feeling of closeness toward her father and begins to cry. Beale seems uncomfortable with this display of emotion, and Maisie senses that he needs her help pretending that their emotional relationship is real and robust.
