Caleb Williams

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1794

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Volume 3, Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Volume 3, Chapter 13 Summary

Caleb plans to leave town since he is afraid of what Ferdinando may do and cannot imagine living life any more in disguise (391). The further he travels from town, the more relaxed and freer he feels. Caleb wants to settle down and moves to a market-town in Wales where he gets two jobs: a watchmaker, and a math teacher (392).

Caleb becomes close to a family where he works : “[T]he father [is] a shred, sensible, rational man […] his wife [is] a truly admirable and extraordinary woman” who was a “daughter of a Neapolitan nobleman […] banished from his country upon suspicion of religious and political heresy” (393); after fleeing to Wales, the nobleman caught a fever and died. His daughter, Laura, was left without a family when she was eight, but she grew up reading, drawing, singing, and learning languages. She fell in love with “the only son of her guardian” and soon became a mother (395). Laura is “delighted to converse” with Caleb on all kinds of subjects (396), and he sees her as a maternal figure in his life.

One day Laura mentions Ferdinando’s name, spooking Caleb. He finds out that her father knew Ferdinando and that she holds him in high esteem (397). He begins to look back on his troubles like they were a dream that stripped him of what made him a man.

However, Caleb soon becomes an outcast from his colleagues, and no one will explain why; he later discovers that Gines has been bad-mouthing him and that some laborers who knew of Caleb have come to town. Caleb tries to let go of his troubles with Ferdinando, but he cannot and turns to Laura for help. Rather than seeing his need for justice, Laura turns him away, later sending him a letter saying that she no longer wants to see him (402). Determined to find a better explanation, Caleb goes back inside the house and sees the copy of the newspaper on the kitchen counter.

Volume 3, Chapter 14 Summary

Caleb is sad to leave Laura and her family and does not take the memoirs he started writing with him. Caleb discovers that Ferdinando hired Gines to follow Caleb around from “place to place, blasting [his] reputation, and preventing [him] from the chance” of settling down (409). Caleb feels defeated and worries at some points that he is going insane. He decides to bring charges against Gines.

One night, Caleb runs into Mr. Collins on the road, but he doesn’t recognize Caleb because of his old age; it has been 10 years since the two men last saw each other, so Mr. Collins does not remember him until Caleb introduced himself (415). Mr. Collins asks if Caleb is going to try to turn him against Ferdinando, and Caleb denies this, saying he only needs Mr. Collins’s help to put an end to Gines’s and Ferdinando’s torment.

Volume 3, Chapter 15 Summary

Caleb plans to go into a voluntary banishment, leaving his home soil to get away from Ferdinando. When he attempts to leave, there is no ship ready to take him to Holland, so he goes to an inn to wait (419). While he is at the inn, Gines comes to speak to him and warns him that Ferdinando has taken steps to make sure that Caleb will never be successful in his attempts to get away. Gines says that it is best for Caleb to “keep proper distance from the sea, or fear the worst” and bids Caleb goodbye (419).

In a postscript, Caleb writes about what happened over the last few weeks. He went to Harwich with the intention of seeing the magistrate again and pressing charges against Ferdinando for both Barnabas’s murder and what he did to Caleb. Ferdinando’s appearance shocked Caleb: He looked like a “corpse,” and Caleb felt that he looked like he only had hours to live (426). Caleb felt guilty at seeing Ferdinando and wondered if he had gone too far, but it was too late to take any of it back. The two men came to a type of resolution before Ferdinando died, with him admitting to Caleb that Caleb isn’t to blame; Fernando’s jealousy is responsible for Fernando’s current state. Caleb accepted what Ferdinando said but still feels like he is in a way Ferdinando’s murderer.

Caleb writes that he began his memoirs with the “idea of vindicating [his] character,” but that now he has “no character that [he] wishes to vindicate” and was only finishing the story so that it could be fully understood (434).

Volume 3, Chapters 13-15 Analysis

Godwin wrote two different endings for this story. In his original conception, Ferdinando and Caleb never reconcile; in fact, Caleb ends up imprisoned once more and eventually shows signs of a mental health condition. Godwin’s rewrite suggests that such a stark indictment of English society was not publishable at the time of the novel’s publication.

Bad luck reappears in this section when the laborers from a couple of towns over tell Caleb’s colleagues about him, making him an outcast. The motif of letters also comes up again, as Laura writes to Caleb to end their friendship. This pushes Caleb over the edge, and it is one of the driving reasons that he pursues further action against Ferdinando.

Caleb’s monologue about being stripped to nothing and then rebuilding his life shows character growth. While Caleb is not the carefree man that he was in the beginning of the novel, he’s a more worldly and experienced man who has begun to take control of his life. He does not run from anyone anymore and pursues justice on his own time. Ultimately, however, this proves elusive even in the published ending. Caleb does not feel that what justice he did receive made anything better; in fact, he feels that his involvement in Ferdinando’s guilty past makes him partially responsible for Ferdinando’s eventual death. By the end, Caleb is only continuing his memoir so that the story will not remain unfinished.