Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Oliver Goldsmith was an Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright, poet, dramatist, and short story writer who was born on 10 November 1728 in Ireland and died on 4 April 1774. Goldsmith is best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield which is a book about family endurance. The novel was published in 1764 and it became one of the most successful novels of the eighteenth century and continued its successful run during the Victorian era.
Goldsmith wrote the novel in 1762. Facing financial troubles, he asked for Samuel Johnson’s help in finding a publisher for his novel. Samuel Johnson checked the merits of the novel and agreed to help Goldsmith and sold the novel to a bookseller and publisher for sixty pounds that Oliver Goldsmith used for paying his rent and bills.
Characters of The Vicar of Wakefield:
The Vicar or Dr. Charles Primrose is the protagonist of the novel. He is a virtuous morally upright man with great pride and affection for his family. He believes in the goodness of mankind and lacks the prudence to distinguish bad from good. He is often deceived by the appearances and behavior of those around him. Deborah is Vicar’s wife. She is intelligent and independent but falls prey to her vanity and pretensions of a higher social status. George Primrose is the eldest son of Dr. Primrose who is an educated, brave, and honest but naive young man who fails to find a proper source of income. Olivia is the eldest daughter of the Vicar who is extremely vain and concerned with her social status. She falls for Squire Thornhill, considering his wealth who fools her into a fake marriage and then pushes her to prostitution. Sophia is the younger sister of Olivia who is modest, virtuous, and much less vain than Olivia. She too aspires to regain her higher social status but to a much lesser extent. Moses and Dick are the Vicar’s two younger sons who are honest but gullible. Mr. Burchell is an honest, handsome, brave, and intelligent young man but he is penniless. He saves Sophia who falls in love with him. Later on, it is revealed that Mr. Burchell is in fact, Sir William Thornhill in disguise. Sir William Thornhill is a rich man who led a profligate youth but has reformed. He is the uncle of Squire Thornhill who is the young, handsome, and roguish landlord of the Vicar’s family. He has conned many women into fake marriages and left them to work as prostitutes after having his way with them. He gains the trust of the Vicar’s family and then seduces Olivia and pushes her to prostitution. He further plans to seduce Sophia as his next target. Ephraim Jenkinson is a scoundrel and trickster who initially helps Squire Thornhill in his evil plans but then repents his mistakes. Later on, he becomes the Vicar’s confidante and helps him through the troubles. Soloman Flamborough is an old poor farmer and neighbor of the Vicar who has two daughters. Arabella Wilmot is an elegant and beautiful young girl who is in love with George and is supposed to marry him at the beginning of the novel. But her father Mr. Wilmot breaks the relationship with the Vicar and cancels the marriage of Arabella and George after being insulted by the vicar's opinions of marriage, and learning about the vicar's loss of fortune. Mr. Arnold is an uncle of Arabella. His butler pretends to be Mr. Arnold and invites the Vicar to have dinner at Mr. Arnold’s house. Farmer Williams is another neighbor of the Vicar who has feelings for Olivia and wishes to marry her.
Summary of The Vicar of Wakefield:
The novel begins as the Vicar, Dr. Charles Primrose is leading a serene and virtuous life in his country parish with his wife Deborah, and five children, three sons, George, Moses, and Dick, and two daughters, Olivia, and Sophia. He received an inheritance from a diseased relative and he invested that wealth appropriately thus, his family is leading a wealthy lifestyle. The Vicar is known as a good, virtuous man who donates the £35 that his job pays annually to the widows and orphans of local clergy. His eldest son, Geroge is an educated young man who got his degree from Oxford and he is engaged to Arabella Wilmot, the beautiful daughter of Mr. Wilmot, a wealthy merchant. George and Arabella love each other. One day, the Vicar meets Mr. Wilmot and they engage in a philosophical debate over marriages. The Vicar, being sanctimonious, ignores the points raised by Mr. Wilmot and tries to prove himself correct while insulting Mr. Wilmot. The very next day, Dr. Primrose comes to know that he lost all his money through the bankruptcy of his merchant investor who has left town abruptly. On the same evening, Mr. Wilmot cancels the engagement of Arabella and George, partly because he is angry with Dr. Primrose and mainly because now George is a penniless young man unworthy of Arabella’s social and economic status.
Unable to maintain the same status, the Vicar’s family is forced to move to a more humble area. The Vicar takes the farmland of Squire Thornhill on rent and starts living there while working as a farmer and curate. The new house is comfortable but his wife and daughters are distraught as they find it difficult to accept the lower level of lifestyle they are forced to live now. The Vicar sends Geroge to London so that he may find a job and help the family through his earnings.
The Vicar befriends his neighbors, Farmer Williams and Solomon Flamborough. The Vicar befriends a young handsome man Mr. Burchell who once saved Sophia from drowning. After that incident, Sophia started liking Mr. Burchell but her mother Deborah noticed it and refrained Sophia from making any gesture towards Mr. Burchell. Meanwhile, the Vicar and his wife come to know about their new landlord Squire Thornhill that he is a rich man living on the money of his uncle Sir William Thornhill. Their neighbors warn them that Squire Thornhill is a rouged young man who is a womanizer and conman.
One day, Squire Thornhill visits the Vicar’s new house and he appears to be charming, attractive, genteel, and amiable. He openly shows his interest in Olivia who falls for his rich attitude. The Vicar’s wife hopes that if Olivia gets married to Squire Thornhill, it will bring their old wealthy days back. The Vicar too gets interested in this prospect he starts objecting to Mr. Burchell's attention to Sophia as he does not want her to marry a penniless man. To win Squire Thornhill’s approval for his marriage with Olivia, the Vicar’s family starts pretending to be rich. They leave their simple and frugal ways of living and begin leading a prideful and vain lifestyle. However, their efforts to impress Squire Thornhill bring more embarrassment to the whole family. Once Deborah suggests that they should sell their family horses to buy a new fashionable horse. When Dr. Primrose and his son Moses go to sell the horse, they are duped by a con man named Ephraim Jenkinson.
One day, Squire Thornhill brings two fashionable women appearing very rich with their costumes, to the house of the Vicar. The women impress the Vicar's family and introduce themselves as women of power in the city. Squire Thornhill then suggests that the ladies might help Olivia and Sophia to get high positions in the city. Deborah agrees for sending her girls to the city. However, Mr. Burchell comes to know about it in time and he writes a letter ambiguously threatening the reputation of the girls. Because of this letter, the plan of Squire Thornhill to deport the girls to the city where he may exploit them easily gets spoiled. However, the Vicar and his wife fail to understand how Mr. Burchell saved their daughters. They get angry over him and banish him from entering their house ever again.
To force Squire Thornhill to express his desire to marry Olivia, Deborah tells him that she is considering of marrying Olivia to Farmer Williams. Squire Thornhill feels jealous of the farmer but he makes no effort to propose. Deborah then starts preparing for the marriage of Olivia with the farmer. However, Olivia is not at all willing to marry Williams and thus, she decides to elope with Squire Thornhill right before her wedding to Williams. This breaks the Vicar’s heart. He decides to pursue and search for Olivia, hoping to save and forgive her. First, he goes to see her at Squire Thornhill's house who is alone at his home. Then the Vicar suspects that Mr. Burchell might have abducted his daughter. But he finds that his suspicion is false. He continues to search for Olivia and goes far away from his home. He continues to travel and look for Olivia for three days and nights and then he falls ill. During his return journey, he meets an acting company and accompanies them. When they reach the next town, an intelligent person, appearing to be a man of repute befriends him and invites him to his home for dinner. When the Vicar visits his home, he gets astonished by the man’s magnificent mansion. However, soon it is revealed that the man who invited him is not the owner of that mansion but he is a butler of Mr. Arnold, the actual owner of the mansion. The Vicar meets Arabella at the mansion who greets him and informs that Mr. Arnold is her uncle. The Vicar comes to know that Arabella still loves George and hopes to marry him but her father, Mr. Wilmot has arranged for the marriage of Arabella with Squire Thornhill. The Vicar is still ill and Arabella insists he stay for a few days in the mansion till he regains his health. Meanwhile, they visit to see a drama by a new acting company in the town and find out that George is working with the acting company. Geroge is happy after meeting Arabella and his father. He informs them how his efforts at finding a job failed and how he ended up working with the acting company. Arabella invites George too at her uncle’s mansion but on the same evening, Squire Thornhill too visits there. Squire Thornhill is surprised to see the Vicar and George at the mansion. He notices that Arabella is favorable towards George and thus, he procures a job for George in West Indies so that he may go far away. Geroge and his family desperately need money and thus George accepts the job opportunity.
After a few days, the Vicar returns to his home. One night, he stops at an inn and gets startled when he sees Olivia there. He embraces Olivia who is sobbing. She informs him how the Squire seduced her and duped her into a fake marriage and after using her, he left her in a de facto house of prostitution where she met the women who visited their house with the Squire. Olivia informed the Vicar that those two women are prostitutes who tried to bully her into the profession but she somehow escaped their clutches and has since lived at the mercy of the innkeeper. After thanking the innkeeper for safekeeping his daughter, the Vicar brings Olivia back but instead of taking her directly to their home, he leaves her in a nearby inn so that he may prepare the other members of the family to forgive her and embrace her back. When Dr. Primrose reaches his home, he sees it burning in huge flames with his two younger sons trapped in the fire. He jumps into the fire to save his sons and although he saves them, his both hands get severely burnt. He then informs Deborah of Olivia’s whereabouts. The family is not ready to bear any more accidents and hence they bring back Olivia back with them.
While the Vicar’s family is trying to mend their burnt house and bring it back to normalcy, they hear about the engagement of Arabella with Squire Thornhill. This enrages Dr. Primrose who now knows how Squire Thornhill fooled and disgraced his daughter. One day, when the Vicar sees Squire Thornhill, he confronts him and openly insults him. Squire Thornhill gets enraged and vows to take revenge. The next day, he sends two police officers to collect the rent for his land. Since the Vicar has no money, he fails to pay the rent and gets arrested by the officers. His family decides to go with him. While Deborah, Olivia, and Sophia stay at an inn nearby the prison, Moses and Dickjoin the prison cell of Dr. Primrose. In the prison, the Vicar meets Ephrain Jenkinson who fooled him and his son and robbed his horses. He finds that Jenkinson is a changed man who has repented for his previous crimes. Vicar forgives him and they become good friends. In the jail, Dr. Primrose realizes the importance of patience and fortitude and starts to offer sermons to his fellow prison mates. When the Vicar tells Jenkinson how the Squire ruined his daughter’s life, Jenkinson informs him that he used to work for the Squire in the past. He tells him that he will help him in whatever way he can. The Vicar writes a letter to Sir William Thornhill, informing him of the misdeeds of Squire Thornhill.
Though the Vicar now knows the importance of patience, he is still very angry at Squire Thornhill and refuses to compromise with Squire Thornhill. One day, Jenkinson informs him that Olivia has died because of ill health and starvation. This breaks Dr. Primrose who realizes that he needs to get out of jail to help his family. He sends a letter of compromise to Squire Thornhill who refuses to compromise because of the letter the Vicar sent to his uncle. On the same day, the Vicar learns that Sophia has been abducted by a hooligan. After some time, he sees George being brought into the prison as a criminal and learns that after learning about the shame of Olivia, he challenged Squire Thornhill for a duel but the squire sent his officers to beat him and imprison him. The Vicar gets horrified by these incidences and believes that nothing worse could happen. He then feels his own inner strength and offers a sermon on fortitude to the entire prison.
Right after the sermon, Moses informs Dr. Primrose that Mr. Burchell has rescued Sophia. Mr. Burchell brings Sophia to the prison to meet her father. The Vicar apologizes to Mr. Burchell for his previous ill behavior against Mr. Burchell and says that though Mr. Burchell is penniless, he is the best possible lifemate for Sophia. As the Vicar offers Sophia’s hand to Mr. Burchell in marriage, he accepts it and orders a great feast for the whole of the family and all the prisoners and jail staff.
During the feast, the Vicar learns that Squire Thornhill has arrived at the occasion and he wishes to meet Mr. Burchell. The Vicar gets frightened that Squire Thornhill will again do something bad to his family, Mr. Burchell reveals that they need not worry because he is William Thornhill, uncle of Squire Thornhill and he will not let him do anything wrong. Sophia then described the man who abducted her and when Jenkinson listens to her, he realizes that he knows that man. He asks for the jailer’s help to catch the abductor. The jailer sends two policemen with Jenkinson and they apprehend him. The abductor informs that he abducted Sophia on Squire Thornhill’s order who planned to mock-rescue her so he could then seduce her. Meanwhile, Sir William Thornhill comes to know about George and lectures him about fighting. He then realizes how George might have felt when he came to know how Squire Thornhill ruined his sister’s life. William Thornhill forgives George. Meanwhile, Arabella learns about the arrest of the Vicar and she visits him in the jail along with her father Mr. Wilmot. Mr. Wilmot is sorry for the misfortunes of the Vicar and embraces him. Arabella immediately declares that she is ending her engagement with Squire Thornhill. However, the squire isn’t worried about it because he has already signed the contract for Arabella’s dowry. Arabella and George don’t care about it. They are overjoyed and plan to marry anyway.
At that moment Jenkinson reveals that Olivia is still alive and he lied about her death to convince the Vicar to compromise and make peace with Squire Thornhill. He also says that he disguised himself as a priest in what Squire Thornhill believed was his fake marriage with Olivia. However, he says that it was a real and legal marriage and he is willing to offer proof for it. This ruins Squire Thornhill’s plan as being married to Olivia, he couldn’t engage with Arabella legally and hence he can have no claim on her dowry. Now when his wrong deeds are open in front of his uncle Sir William Thornhill, he cannot expect any help from him too. He begs mercy from his uncle who insists that he should accept Olivia as his legal wife and take care of her and then he will allow him some allowance and a home to live peacefully to which Squire Thornhill agrees.
Mr. Wilmot agrees to the marriage of George and Arabella while Sir William Thornhill marries Sophia. Meanwhile, the rouge merchant who ran away after swindling the Vicar’s money also gets caught and the Vicar’s fortune gets restored.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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