"But I still love thee"
The narrator highlights the physical appeal of Montraville (as a British soldier) and describes the process of seduction as:
This quote describes how a girl can be enslaved or taken over emotionally by a man, reflecting strongly on what happens to Charlotte. There is a romantic connotation to soldiers but "scarlet" echoes implications of carnality and lust, alluding to Charlotte's seduction. The soldiers are described as forces that have the ability to take over girl's sense almost involuntarily - "Ah! well-a-day for the poor girls."“When beauty of person, elegance of manner, and an easy method of paying compliments, are united to the scarlet coat, smart cockade, and military sash, ah! well-a-day for the poor girl who gazes on him” (Rowson 22).
Even after everything Montraville puts Charlotte through and she is aware of his cruelty, Charlotte still looks on him with sentiment.
She calls him “the still dear,” where “still” refers to an omnipresent love to him, contrasted against the words “cruel, ungenerous.” She is driven by her emotions to physically subjugate herself by “[throwing herself] at his feet,” a position associated with emotional evocation inferiority and humiliation. Her act of throwing herself glorifies him and in a relative context, her inferior position foils him and makes him superior.“I once had conceived the thought of going to New-York to seek out the still dear, though cruel, ungenerous Montraville, to throw myself at his feet, and entreat his compassion” (Rowson 72)
There is lack of agency and an authoritative agency working here. She is fully dependent on him because he forces her to be, which relates the definition of slavery as the idea of “being subject to” (OED). She has no agency because she is at his mercy.
By losing agency, Charlotte becomes “a ghost in that she becomes invisible within cartographies of womanhood” (Coats 336), loses her body, the essence of being human, and is dehumanized due to her lack of freedom. Her existence becomes as translucent as a “ghost.”
Charlotte seems to display symptoms of Stockholm syndrome. Defining Stockholm syndrome as “the ties that bind: Bonding between victim and aggressor” (Ochberg 25) just emphasizes that this attachment Charlotte is experiencing is a form of slavery. The references to bondage in the definition illustrate Stockholm syndrome as an emotional form of slavery.
Coats, Lauren. “Grave Matters: Susanna Rowson’s Sentimental Geographies.” Charlotte Temple: A Norton Critical Edition. 1st ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 2011. 327-349.
Ochberg, Frank M. “Stockholm Syndrome.” The Gazette, vol. A25, 2005, p. 25.
Rowson. Susanna. Charlotte Temple. 1794. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.
