Work record

Can You Forgive Her?

Name: Can You Forgive Her?
Author: Anthony Trollope

Anthony Trollope

1865 · 19th Century · Novel · English

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Abstract

Written: 1863-1865
Setting: 1860s; London, Westmorland, Norfolk, Switzerland and Lucerne
Author: Anthony Trollope
Country: England
Language: English
Genre: Political and domestic novel
Form: Novel in 80 chapters
Recommended: Grades 10–12 (Very long Victorian novel; leisurely, clear prose.)

Question. A spirited young Londoner, betrothed to a gentle scholar with a country house, fears a life of quiet submission and wonders what women may make of their lives.

Error. She breaks with him and, urged by her cousin Kate, pledges herself instead to Kate's handsome, reckless brother, who wants her fortune to pay for a seat in the Commons.

Second story. An heiress married against her heart to a dutiful statesman is drawn toward the charming wastrel she once loved; her husband gives up a great ministry to take her abroad.

Comedy. A wealthy widow enjoys the competition of a boastful Norfolk farmer and a penniless, dashing army officer.

End. The reckless cousin turns violent, fires at his rival, and escapes overseas; the heroine humbly returns to the scholar, who forgives her, and the statesman's wife bears an heir.

Reading. The first of six Palliser novels, it is long and leisurely but rewarding, and its title invites readers to judge the heroine themselves. Students can compare the three courtships side by side and ask what each suggests about freedom, pride and commitment in Victorian marriage. It also introduces the statesman and his wife, who return in five later novels.

Main characters

Alice Vavasor: A thoughtful young woman unsure about marriage.
John Grey: A patient, upright gentleman.
George Vavasor: An ambitious, violent politician in debt.
Kate Vavasor: A loyal sister who schemes for him.
Lady Glencora Palliser: A lively young heiress unhappily married.
Plantagenet Palliser: A serious politician devoted to public finance.

Summary

Can You Forgive Her?, published in monthly parts in 1864-65, is the first of Anthony Trollope's six Palliser novels, which follow English political life over many years. Its title asks the reader whether he can forgive Alice Vavasor, a thoughtful, independent young woman of good family who cannot make up her mind about marriage. Alice is engaged to John Grey, a kind, wise and steady gentleman of Cambridgeshire, but she fears that life with him will be too quiet and that she will lose herself. Wondering what a woman should do with her life, she breaks the engagement and, under the influence of her cousin Kate, renews her old engagement to Kate's brother George Vavasor, a dashing, violent and debt-ridden man who wants her money to finance his campaign for Parliament. Alice soon realizes her mistake, and George reveals his brutality, threatening Grey and finally fleeing to America after a failed attempt to shoot him. Alice humbles herself and accepts John Grey again, and he forgives her completely. A second plot introduces Plantagenet Palliser, the serious, hardworking heir to the Duke of Omnium, and his young wife Lady Glencora, who had been made to give up her love for the handsome but worthless Burgo Fitzgerald. Glencora is tempted to run away with Burgo, and at a ball the danger is great, but she confides in her husband; Palliser, who has been offered the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, gives it up to take her abroad and save their marriage, and by the end she bears him an heir. A comic third plot follows Alice's widowed aunt, Mrs. Greenow, courted by two rivals, the rich farmer Cheesacre and the penniless Captain Bellfield. Trollope treats his characters' moral struggles with sympathy and irony, and the novel is a rich portrait of Victorian marriage and political ambition. Its great length suits patient readers who enjoy Victorian fiction.

Virtues in this work

Humility: Alice humbles herself and returns to John Grey.
Charity: John Grey forgives Alice fully and patiently waits for her to return to him.

Plot or Argument

Alice's doubts
Alice breaks her engagement to John Grey and turns to her cousin George.
The Pallisers
Lady Glencora is tempted by Burgo Fitzgerald; Palliser gives up office to save his marriage.
Mrs. Greenow's suitors
The widow chooses between Cheesacre and Captain Bellfield.
Resolution
George's violence is exposed; Alice returns to John Grey, who forgives her.

Characters

Alice Vavasor, heroine
A thoughtful young woman unsure about marriage.
John Grey, Alice's fiancé
A patient, upright gentleman.
George Vavasor, Alice's cousin
An ambitious, violent politician in debt.
Kate Vavasor, George's sister
A loyal sister who schemes for him.
Lady Glencora Palliser, wife
A lively young heiress unhappily married.
Plantagenet Palliser, husband
A serious politician devoted to public finance.

Lessons

What should a woman do?
Trollope raises the question of a woman's life and choices.
- Why does Alice break her engagement?
- What does she want?
- How does Trollope answer her question?
Related across the library
- Two Lives of Charlemagne, Lesson: Rulers are built from habits
  Rulers are built from habits. Einhard treats diet, exercise, dress, study and worship as part of kingship. The biography teaches that political authority is represented through daily discipline as well as public acts.
- The Travels of Marco Polo, Lesson: A merchant's eye on a great empire
  A merchant's eye on a great empire. Marco notices what a Venetian trader would: paper money, coal, salt, pepper, silk, the post-stations, the bridges and canals of Kinsay. His admiration for Kublai's government, wealth and order made Europe aware that a civilization larger and richer than its own lay at the far end of Asia.
- The Prime Minister, Lesson: Conscience in power
  Conscience in power. The Duke is honest to the point of weakness.
- A Room of One's Own, Chapter One
  a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction The thesis of the essay, stated at the start as the one minor point she can offer.
- Essays, Lesson: Observe your own body before trusting general rules
  Observe your own body before trusting general rules. Of Regiment of Health makes a person's own observation of what helps and harms them the best physic, while warning that strength in youth hides debts paid in age. Bacon recommends gradual change of habits and a physician who knows the patient as well as the disease.
Forgiveness
The title asks the reader to forgive Alice.
- Should John Grey forgive Alice?
- Can you forgive her?
- What makes forgiveness possible?
Related across the library
- The Travels of Marco Polo, Lesson: A merchant's eye on a great empire
  A merchant's eye on a great empire. Marco notices what a Venetian trader would: paper money, coal, salt, pepper, silk, the post-stations, the bridges and canals of Kinsay. His admiration for Kublai's government, wealth and order made Europe aware that a civilization larger and richer than its own lay at the far end of Asia.
- Uncle Vanya, Lesson: The forests and the future
  The forests and the future. Astroff's maps in Act III record how the district's woods, wildlife and villages have shrunk over fifty years, and he plants trees for people who will live long after him. He hopes that descendants two hundred years on will remember the work, though he doubts it. His care for the land is the one hopeful passion in the play.
- Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of Constantinople, Retreat of the Crusaders
  The host leaves Adrianople by night, taking all its wounded with it.
- The Prime Minister, Lesson: Conscience in power
  Conscience in power. The Duke is honest to the point of weakness.
- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Lesson: Small goods held fast
  Small goods held fast. The book measures a good day in small things: an extra bowl of porridge, a scrap of metal, a pinch of tobacco, not being sent to the cells. By narrowing to one ordinary day, Solzhenitsyn lets the reader feel both how much the camp has taken and how much a man can still keep.
Duty and love
Palliser gives up high office for his wife.
- Why does Palliser go abroad?
- How does Glencora change?
- Which is more important, public duty or marriage?
Related across the library
- Lectures on Revivals of Religion, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1868 edition)
  partly from necessity There was no time to remodel the work and the public voice seemed to be that it was more attractive and more useful in its present condensed form Mr Finney has therefore done little more than to amend where the Reporter misapprehended the meaning or did not express it with sufficient distinctness He has enlarged in a few places where the illustrations as given by the Reporter seemed to be incomplete My labor with these sketches is now done and its results are sent forth in this permanent fo...
- Bérénice, Lesson: Public office and private love
  Public office and private love. Titus discovers on becoming emperor that he no longer belongs only to himself. Rome's law and long hatred of kings forbid a foreign queen, and Titus judges that to defy them would be to begin his reign by breaking faith with the people he must govern. The play does not treat this as easy or obviously right. It shows the price of office in the life of a man who would rather be free, and invites students to weigh the claims of vocation, law and love without collapsing one into another.
- Cranford, Lesson: Honesty when it costs
  Honesty when it costs. Miss Matty gives five sovereigns for a farmer's worthless note because she feels responsible as a shareholder. Captain Brown admits his poverty openly. Both choose honesty over appearances.
- Amos Fortune, Free Man, Lesson: Freedom spent for others
  Freedom spent for others. Amos's long-awaited liberty is not the end of his story. He uses his savings again and again to buy the freedom of women who cannot buy their own, remembering his sister. Yates shows freedom as a gift to be used for others rather than a prize to be kept.
- Sonnet 116, Lesson: Constancy as the test of love
  Constancy as the test of love. Shakespeare locates love not in feeling or beauty but in what refuses to change when circumstances change. A love that alters when it finds alteration was only ever a response to conditions. The sonnet teaches that fidelity is the measure of love, especially once youth and beauty begin to fall to Time's sickle.

Context

The 1860s saw debates about women's education and independence and about electoral reform, which led to the Second Reform Act of 1867.

Composition

Published by Chapman and Hall in twenty monthly parts in 1864-65, illustrated by Hablot K. Browne and Miss E. Taylor.

Reception

Popular with readers; it launched the Palliser series, which ended with The Duke's Children (1880).

Marriage Gender Women Power / Politics Money Wealth Honor Shame

Comparisons

The Prime Minister
A later Palliser novel in which Plantagenet becomes prime minister.
Middlemarch
George Eliot's study of marriage and vocation.

Quotes

“What should a woman do with her life?”

— Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?, Chapter XI (Project Gutenberg #19500).Quote card

The Scarlet Letter, Ch. 23
The final scaffold confession and death present public truth as both spiritual release and bodily endpoint.
The Scarlet Letter, Chapter XXIV, Conclusion
Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred The narrator draws one explicit moral from Dimmesdale's hidden guilt and public confession.
The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, Chapter XXIX, §§ 16-17
The vision of the angel with a fiery spear and her description of a pain that is spiritual but shared by the body.
Main Street, Chapter XXXIX
I may not have fought the good fight, but I have kept the faith. Carol speaks to Will at the end of the novel.
The Early Christian Creeds, Council of Chalcedon (451), Definition of Faith
one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten Chalcedon insists on the unity of Christ even while distinguishing divinity and humanity.

“Fall in love, marry the man, have two children, and live happy ever afterwards.”

— Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?, Chapter XI (Project Gutenberg #19500).Quote card

Cymbeline, Act 2, Scene 5
Is there no way for men to be, but women Must be half-workers The opening of Posthumus's tirade against women after Iachimo's false proof; the speech's extravagance shows his judgment overthrown by jealousy.
Ode on a Grecian Urn, Stanza 3, lines 25-27
More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; The praise of the carved love grows insistent, with happy and for ever repeated until the strain shows.
Sense and Sensibility, Vol. I, Ch. 8
Marianne mocks Colonel Brandon's complaint of rheumatism and his flannel waistcoat as signs of decrepitude.
Mansfield Park, Chapter Vii
passed over and all very ill used Certainly my home at my uncle s brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals Of Rears and Vices I saw enough Now do not be suspecting me of a pun I entreat Edmund again felt grave and only replied It is a noble profession Yes the profession is well enough under two circumstances if it make the fortune and there be discretion in spending it but in short it is not a favourite profession of mine It has never worn an amiable form to me Edmund reverted to the harp and was again ve...
The Happy Prince and Other Tales, Source
scarlet cloaks and their clean white pinafores How do you know said the Mathematical Master you have never seen one Ah but we have in our dreams answered the children and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe for he did not approve of children dreaming One night there flew over the city a little Swallow His friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before but he had stayed behind for he was in love with the most beautiful Reed He had met her early in the spring as he was flying down the river aft...

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

Alice's reasons for doubting John Grey.
George Vavasor's election campaign.
The ball where Glencora is tempted.
Palliser's choice between office and marriage.
Mrs. Greenow's two suitors.

Key terms and names

Palliser novels: Trollope's six novels about the Palliser family and English politics.
Chancellor of the Exchequer: The British minister responsible for finance.
Jilt: To break off an engagement abruptly.
Heir: The person who will inherit a title or estate.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension Why does Alice break off with John Grey?
Comprehension What does George want from Alice?
Comprehension Why does Palliser go abroad?
Interpretation Why does Trollope ask readers to forgive Alice?
Interpretation How are the three plots related?
Big Question What makes a marriage strong?

Faith Connections

Ephesians 4:32 (Scripture)
Forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
Proverbs 31:10 (Scripture)
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Pride and restlessness lead to bad choices, but humility and forgiveness can restore what was nearly lost.

Rhetorical device: direct address. The title and narrator ask the reader to judge and forgive the heroine.

Debate: Resolved: that Alice was right to doubt John Grey at first.

Memory Work

What should a woman do with her life?
Chapter XI. The novel's central question about women's lives.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Compare Alice's and Glencora's temptations and how each is resolved.

Comparison with The Prime Minister: Compare Plantagenet Palliser here and as prime minister in the later novel.

Creative Prompts

Essay
Can you forgive Alice Vavasor? Answer the title's question.
Dialogue
Write the conversation in which Glencora tells Palliser about Burgo.
Classroom
Compare the three courtship plots in a chart.