Charlotte Temple is a novel by British-American author Susanna Rowson, originally published in England in 1791 under the title Charlotte, A Tale of Truth. It tells the story of a schoolgirl, Charlotte Temple, who is seduced by a British officer and brought to America, where she is abandoned, pregnant, sick and in poverty. The first American edition was published in 1794 and the novel became a bestseller.It has been called "the biggest bestseller in American History until Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852" (Rowson, Susanna. Charlotte Temple and Lucy Temple, Ann Douglas, ed., New York: Penguin Books, 1991, Introduction, pp. vii-viii), and the first American best-selling novel (Watts, Emily Stipes. The Poetry of American Women from 1632 to 1945. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1978: 56. (cloth); (paper)). It has gone through over 200 American editions. Late in life, the author wrote a sequel that was published posthumously.
Synopsis The book relates the tale of Charlotte Temple, who is enticed by a dashing soldier, John Montraville, to run away with him, but after they cross to America, he abandons her. It belongs to the seduction novel genre popular in early American literature.Bontatibus, Donna R. The Seduction Novel of the Early Nation: a Call for Socio-Political Reform, East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1999.
The novel opens upon an unexpected encounter between the British Lieutenant Montraville and Charlotte Temple, a tall, elegant girl of 15. Montraville sets his mind on seducing Charlotte and succeeds with the help of his libertine friend Belcour and Mademoiselle La Rue, a teacher at the boarding school Charlotte attends. Mademoiselle La Rue had herself eloped from a convent with a young officer and "possessed too much of the spirit of intrigue to remain long without adventures."Rowson, Susanna. Charlotte Temple, Norton Anthology of American Literature, Ed. Nina Baym, New York, London: Norton, 2002, p. 892. Montraville soon loses interest in the young girl and, being led by Belcour to believe in Charlotte's infidelity towards him, trusts Belcour to take care of Charlotte and the child she expects.
Following the advice of her new-found friend and neighbor Mrs. Beauchamp, Charlotte writes home to her mother. Her parents decide to receive her, her father even goes to New York to come get her. Without any financial support - Belcour does not give her the money Montraville put into his hands for her - Charlotte has to leave her house and, having walked to New York on a snowy winter's day, asks the former Mademoiselle La Rue, now Mrs. Crayton, for help. But the now wealthy woman pretends not to even know her for fear of her husband discovering the role she played in the girl's downfall. Charlotte is taken in by Mrs. Crayton's servant and soon gives birth to a child, Lucy. The doctor, however, has little hope of her recovering and asks a benevolent woman, Mrs. Beauchamp, for help. Mrs. Beauchamp is shocked when she recognizes Charlotte Temple in "the poor sufferer".Rowson, Susanna. Charlotte Temple, Norton Anthology of American Literature, Ed. Nina Baym, New York, London: Norton, 2002, p. 941. The following day, Charlotte seems "tolerably composed" and Mrs. Beauchamp begins "to hope she might recover, and, in spite of her former errors, become a useful and respectable member of society", but the doctor tells her that nature is only "making her last effort"Rowson, Susanna. Charlotte Temple, Norton Anthology of American Literature, Ed. Nina Baym, New York, London: Norton, 2002, p. 942. Just as Charlotte is lying on her deathbed, her father arrives and Charlotte asks him to take care of her child.
Upon returning to New York, Montraville goes in search of Belcour and Charlotte. Learning of her death and burial from a passing soldier, Montraville is filled with remorse for his part in her downfall, and angrily seeks out Belcour, killing him in a fight. Montraville suffers from melancholy for the rest of his life. Mr. Temple takes Charlotte's child back to England. The novel ends with the death of Mrs. Crayton (the former La Rue), who is discovered by Mr. Temple in a London doorway, separated from her husband, living in poverty, and repentant for her involvement in Charlotte's downfall. Mr. Temple admits her to a hospital, where she dies, "a striking example that vice, however prosperous in the beginning, in the end leads only to misery and shame."Rowson, Susanna. Charlotte Temple. Ed. Cathy N. Davidson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986. p. 120.
Sequel The author wrote a sequel, telling the story of the daughter born to the unfortunate Charlotte, Lucy Temple. Still unpublished at the time of her 1824 death, it went to press in 1828 as Charlotte's Daughter, or, The Three Orphans, but later editions simply bore the daughter's name as title Lucy Temple.
Rowson also uses Charlotte Temple to reflect the increased silencing of women that occurred at the time. The formation of the middle class came about in America during the 18th century, and with this, the social expectations of women and femininity changed. Upper and middle-class women were reduced to the private sphere, “trapped behind the walls of their homes, they were increasingly forced into silence”.Susan Greenfield, “Charlotte temple and Charlotte's daughter: The reproduction of woman's word,” Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 18, no. 2 (1990): 269-284. Charlotte becomes increasingly silenced by male authority throughout the novel which represents the oppression of women during this time. Scholar Susan Greenfield suggests that the immense popularity and cultural impact of the novel come from the relatability of the silencing of Charlotte's character.Susan Greenfield, “Charlotte temple and Charlotte's daughter”, 269-284. Greenfield also comments on the irony of this period's history as “the same culture which insisted that women be private and silent also generated women's unprecedented access to written words”.Susan Greenfield, “Charlotte temple and Charlotte's daughter”, 274. The 18th and 19th century gave way to the rise of female authors and female readers, as well as fictional novels as literature.Baker, Anne. “Tempestuous Passages”, 205-221. Greenfield notes that “The novel was as much a middle-class product as the domestic female”. Where Rowson differs from many other female seduction novel authors is her style of writing. Epistolarity was a common style of many seduction novels, Rowson, however, chose to narrate the novel which is described as maternal, like “a very human mother advocating for the ruined child”.Blythe Forcey, “Charlotte Temple and the End of Epistolarity,” American Literature 63, no. 2 (1991): 225-241Holly Blackford, “Daughters of the American Revolution: Sensational Pedagogy in Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple,” in Transatlantic Sensations (Taylor and Francis, 2012), 42. Jarenski proclaims that through Rowson's narrative intrusions she attempts to assert “ an authoritative female voice in a male-dominated public sphere”, creating a voice for the women who are silenced.Shelly Jarenski, “The Voice of the Preceptress”, 66.
Seduction novels
The seduction novel genre, of which Charlotte Temple is a part, grew in popularity after the American Revolutionary War. The American Revolution simultaneously gave women more opportunities and agency whilst highlighting the “feminine weakness, delicacy and incapacity”.Marybeth Norton, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800 (New York: Cornell University Press, 1996), 228 The genre's female protagonists reflected the “same trepidation and endangerment that concerned the young country” making them easily identifiable with readers, primarily made up of young early American girls.Julia Francis, “The Seduction Novel's Awakening,” The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English 23, no. 6 (2021): 64-5Blythe Forcey, “Charlotte Temple and the End of Epistolarity,” American Literature 63, no. 2 (1991): 226
Themes
Didacticism
Whilst representing and reflecting the fears and climate of a post-revolution America, Charlotte Temple also acts as a cautionary tale for young girls. Married women were seen as the "guardians of America's morality". The novels conveyed the didactic lesson that a woman who allows herself to be corrupted will lose her feminine influence rendering her unable to regulate men's conduct. During a commencement address at Columbia College in 1795 the influence of the virtuous women was said to be "a never-failing antidote against the most dangerous temptations of vice." Charlotte Temple and other seduction novels presented "virtuous woman" characters as "antidotes" to the disordered conduct of male characters like Montraville.
Agency
British law at the time would have allowed Charlotte, a 16-year-old girl, to elope, however she still required her parents' approval to formally get married. Lucia Hodgson say "Rowson's novel mounts a critique of the controversial Act for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriage". This act passed in 1753 in England (and New York) disallowed secret marriages. Critics of the act said it did little more than pave the path to a young woman's "ruin". To illustrate this point, most seduction novel characters, including Charlotte, were sixteen, an age where a young woman's emerging sexual agency would be in conflict with her father's control over her marriage.Lucia Hodgson, “Age and Consent in Charlotte Temple,” Studies in American Fiction 46, no. 2 (2019): 170 Tradition was still central to society and a woman's actions had serious consequences for her own and her family's social standings.Marion Rust, “What's Wrong with “Charlotte Temple,” The William and Mary Quarterly 60, no. 1 (2003): 106 In this way, Rowson also warns parents of their daughters’ potential sexual agency and the destruction that she could bring to the family, if she is allowed too much freedom. For young women without dowries, Charlotte's story is especially important. For them, the result of being seduced and losing their virtue is not just losing credibility, it also includes being left alone and homeless.Jan Lewis, “The Republican Wife: Virtue and Seduction in the Early Republic,” The William and Mary Quarterly 44, no. 4 (1987): 715
Rowson's characters Belcour and Montraville are symbolic of the dangers women faced as they are “attracted only to the most singularly virtuous of girls and [are] not satisfied until [they have] succeeded in ruining her”.Lewis, “The Republican Wife: Virtue and Seduction in the Early Republic,” 719 These characters represented the common sentiment held by men at the time – that men are entitled to women and their bodies because women are the subordinate sex.Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (California: Stanford University Press, 1988), 91
These feelings and contradictions are displayed in Charlotte Temple as it depicts “nightmare of dislocation, alienation and abandonment” reflecting the instability and chaos felt by Americans at the time.Blythe Forcey, “Charlotte Temple and the End of Epistolarity,” American Literature 63, no. 2 (1991): 226–227 Throughout the novel, storm motifs are used to reflect this “temptation and its consequences”.Anne Baker, “Tempestuous Passages: Storms, Revolution and the Status of Women in Rowson's Fiction,” Studies in American Fiction 38, no. 1 (2011): 206 Through this metaphor, Rowson explores this new problem faced by women and how they were not effectively equipped to dealing with them – for example Charlotte uses her freedom to seduce Montraville but does not know what to do in the aftermath when she is left pregnant and alone in America.
Education