The Bestselling Novel: Currents in American History and Culture

Much Ado About La Rue

Sweet

charlotte
WHOSE FAULT WAS IT?
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Picture this: An innocent school girl, with the perfect upbringing and perfect parents.

Now picture this: A frail, lucid girl with a child in her arms, dying in front of her beloved father in a wretched, dirty room.

What could have gone wrong here?

This was the story of Charlotte Temple, a tall, elegant girl of fifteen who is daughter to Henry and Lucy Temple, a couple joined by virtuous traits and pure love. Being a very young girl, the best way to describe her is naive and easily influenced. She is well-meaning, but indecisive and unable to make own choices.

Still, Charlotte also greatly fears disappointing her parents, but at the same time does not want to sadden her friend, La Rue, nor her seductor, Montraville.

However, due to her extremely passive nature, not only does Charlotte break her parents' hearts for her actions, but she also unfortunately falls victim to a man's seduction and a friend's bad advice, and ends up cast away as a mistress and then an adulterer.

It also results in her evoking pity from all those around her, further making her insecure and even more dependent. 

And finally, after being discarded by yet another man, Charlotte dies in the arms of her father, full of regret and sorrow. Not only was she unable to raise her own child, but she departs her loving parents and puts them in misery.

So, is Charlotte's naivety the sole blame for her sad demise?

Perhaps there was one more person who could have also been a a reason for this mess.

Madmoiselle La Rue, could it be you?
 
 

















 
SO, DO WE

blame la rue?
MADEMOISELLE LA RUE
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Perhaps one the biggest ironies in the story is how Charlotte was enrolled in a school that was meant to teach girls the "proper" values, yet had a character like La Rue as one of the instructors.

Charlotte's young and attractive French teacher, Mademoiselle La Rue had a "colorful" past that made her into the person she was today. Not only has she previously eloped with a young officer in England, she since then has lived carefree with many other men. La Rue then proceeds to deceive Charlotte into meeting with her seductor out of boredom, and taunts her several times for being “foolish little prude”, which encourages her to act outside of her comfort zone even more (23). 

Because she was a deceptive and negative influence to her and secondly because Charlotte was naïve enough to fall for her words.
making her the exact opposite of Charlotte: unchaste, sinful and deceptive. 

La Rue is also undeniably one of the major catalysts of Charlotte’s downfall. Rowson describes her as someone who was "not the kind of people whose conversation and morals were exactly such as parents of delicacy and refinement would wish a daughter to copy" (20).

It is evident from this that Rowson completely disagrees with La Rue's behavior and condemns her character, thus using her as one of the main reasons of Charlotte's doom.

La Rue serves two purposes in the story: 
1- The person you should never be.
2- The person you should never befriend.  





 
 
 
 


 






 
  
 

      Now pray don't think I meant take Eve's part.
      No, she'd no right, 'twas acting very wrong.
      To Listen to the Serpents flattering tongue;
      And from her error, her descendant's claim
                                     (Rowson, "Rights of Woman" 138)

Rowson alludes to the Creation story in order to properly illustrate how women were not the only ones who have to bear the blame of their misfortunes. 
She brings up how Eva was also accountable for her misdeeds in the the Garden of Eden.  


   

 

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