Cammie Abell

11/16/99

Engl. 444

Deliverance

Ellen Glasgow’s "Deliverance" is described as a romance of the Virginia tobacco fields. But there is much more than mere romance in this novel. There are many themes that are touched upon in various ways throughout the novel, duty and family loyalty both being key issues, but the one theme that seems to be the foundation of all the others is class distinction. Throughout this novel, the reader is drawn into a whirlwind of emotions and questions, all the while wondering whether or not Christopher Blake will experience this "deliverance."

This novel takes place in the tobacco fields of Virginia, following the end of the Civil War. Our first insight into the importance of class distinction in this novel is shown through Lucy Blake. The Blake family owned over 2,000 acres of land, as well as Blake Hall, the house that had been in the family for over 200 years. After the war, Lucy Blake’s husband lost his mind, as well as most of his money, and after his death, their plantation was auctioned off, and bought by a man named Bill Fletcher. Lucy’s children, Christopher, Lila, and Cynthia, felt it best to hide this fact from their blind mother, and moved her into the overseer’s house, adjoining the Blake land. "She must never know…she may die at any moment from a shock; but she must die without knowing this. There must be quiet at the end, at least" (79). Fearing their mother would die if she discovered that she was no longer a respected plantation wife, Chris, Cynthia, and Lila began a charade to keep their mother in the dark about their decline in social status. They ornately decorated her sitting room with all the belongings she had in her sitting room at Blake Hall, and even used their small income to make sure they had brandy for her to drink at her request.

Lucy’s strict social beliefs are well shown in one particular scene where she has a conversation with Lila’s beau, Jim Weatherby. Lucy, unknowing of her family’s loss, talks to Weatherby about marriage, as if he were lower than her.

Above all things, let me caution you most earnestly against the reckless marriages so common in your station of life. Don’t marry a woman because she has a pretty face and you cherish a sentiment for her…select a wife who is not afraid of work, and who expects no folderol of romance (234).

 

Because Lucy thinks Jim is still the son of one of her workers, she urges him to marry not for love, but as a matter of survival.

Not only was class distinction important to their mother, but it affected each of the children as well. Being the oldest and brought up before their land was lost, Cynthia was much like her mother in that social status meant everything to her. She refused to have any interaction with their "lower-class" neighbors, and was horribly appalled that Lila married Jim Weatherby, the son of one of their father’s workers. "So it’s all over and you are married at last…then you are satisfied, I hope, now that you’ve dragged us down to the level of the Weatherbys…Oh, you have no family pride" (366). Being raised in the splendor of life at Blake Hall, Cynthia would rather cling to family pride and social snobbery, than to accept life as it became for her, and to be happy with it.

Lila was very different from either Christopher or Cynthia. Being very young when the Blake land was lost, she has none of the "family values" that were instilled into Cynthia, and lives her life as if she were made to be poor, as the family is now.

To Lila, the only destiny worth cherishing at heart was the one that

drew its roots deep from the homely soil. The stern class-

distinctions that steeled Cynthia against the friendly advances of

her neighbors, troubled the younger sister not at all. She

remembered none of the past grandeur, the old Blake power of

rule…" (99).

She never complains about their way of life, and even seems to love the life she leads. Marrying Jim Weatherby for love, not money, makes Lila happier than if she were to have had all the former riches that came with the Blake name.

Christopher seems to be the exception to all of the rules in the family. Although he was raised in Blake Hall until he was ten-years-old, he has accepted his station in life and goes about his work with an unusual zest. He has a natural love for the land, and works his hardest to take care of his mother and sisters. He never questions his status in life, and takes no notice of his own happiness, until Maria Fletcher comes into his life. Maria, being the granddaughter of Bill Fletcher, lived in Blake Hall, and was very well taken care of by her grandfather’s money. When Chris meets and falls in love with her, he begins to question whether his current life is worth the hardships,

…he found himself asking the next instant whether the simple bond of blood was worth all that he had given; worth his youth, his manhood, his ambition? Until this moment his course had seemed to him the one inevitable outcome of circumstances, the one appointed for him to tread; but, he saw in a sudden illumination that there might have been another way- that with the burden of the three women removed he might have struck out into the world and have kept his own head above water. (190).

 

Christopher loves his family but comes to realize that he could have had such a different life, had he not been held back by family pride and a sense of duty. This, in essence, was his "deliverance." He comes to realize that it is not important whether you act a certain way, or say a certain thing. Chris learned, through Maria, that having money and social status is not what is truly important; what is important is being content with one’s self and understanding what is truly meaningful in life.