Alienated
“Let me direct you,” said Montraville, lifting her into the chaise.
“Oh! My dear forsaken parents!” cried Charlotte.
The chaise drove off.
She shrieked, and fainted into the arms of her betrayer (Rowson 37).
Charlotte Temple is a young British girl who attends a boarding school. One day in Chichester, as she was leaving church, she encounters the start of the end of her life.
Montraville is a British officer who is about to relocate to America. He serenades Charlotte with his love letters and manipulates her into falling in love with him.
“Come with me to America,” he said—what a brilliant idea!
Montraville then threatens to kill himself if she disappoints "his ardent hopes" (Rowson 37).
Charlotte gives in to his manipulation since it became a "sentimental" moment where he "presumably" was willing to sacrifice his life if she refuses to fulfil his hopes of wanting her to join him on his trip to America.
The quote above portrays the first act in which Montraville enslaves Charlotte physically as a result of her emotional enslavement to him. He lifts her into the chaise as a movement of physical domination.
As the chaise moves, Charlotte faints into her betrayer’s arms (Montraville) once she realises the lack of power and inability to leave.
Following that incident, Charlotte is then placed on a boat that is scheduled to leave for New York.
Lauren Coats analyzes the scene upon Charlotte's arrival, “When Charlotte is removed from her ship cabin to the American shore, Montraville, her seducer, ensconces her in a ‘small house a few miles from New York’” (336). In that Farmhouse, Charlotte is abandoned and deprived of love, support and care.
Poor Charlotte is unable to navigate her way around a foreign land, nor is she able to physically deliver letters that could provide her a salvation. What's worse is that Charlotte is kicked out of the Farmhouse, then walks in awful weather conditions and ends up at the Hovel.
Here's a map of New York that shows Charlotte's locations:
The map shows an estimated layout of Charlotte's trips around New York. As you can see, the Hovel and the Shore are not so far away from each other. Charlotte could have had a chance to make it to shore and return home, but she was unable due to her physical and emotional strain.
Poor Charlotte crossed physical barriers of geographical locations and fates, only to remain trapped in a foreign land and endure a variety of misfortunes, such as illness, depression and carrying the burden of an innocent life (her baby). Montraville is not even physically present to enforce her confinement because he failed to fulfil his promise of marrying her and instead married someone else. Lauren Coats argues that: “Charlotte’s travel across an ocean has culminated not in freedom or expanded geographical horizons, but in confinement. Immobilized, Charlotte spends her time as captive to Montraville because ‘he had [her] from all her connections” (338).
From a deconstructivist point of view, one could argue that Montraville's (physical) absence is supplemented through the presence of his domination. Montraville's domination has stripped Charlotte away from her connection to her home, respect, love and dignity.
Rowson. Susanna. Charlotte Temple. 1794. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.
