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The Herione, Or, Adventures of a Fair Romance Reader Week 5: Chapters XL - XLIX

1) Cherry is transported from her castle to an apartment where she is locked in. When Barron Hildebrand arrives and tells her she is to marry Lord Montmorenci, she refuses. Did this surprise you?

2) Sympathina, the Baron's daughter, came to see Cherry and extended her friendship. She promised to bring some folks to visit. She returns with a group of heroes and heroines. This entire scene seems surreal to me. What did you think of it? What do you think the purpose of it was?

3) Cherry keeps her wits and decides to escape through the portrait in which a ghost appears. She stumbles into a dinner party that includes Lord Montmorenci and Betterton laughing and making fun of her. She is rescued when Stuart and a group of police arrive. Stuart explains that everything that has happened to her has been a hoax. What do you think was the end goal of this grand hoax? (I feel like I missed something because the hoax made no sense to me.)

4) Stuart decides Cherry needs to make amends to the people she hurt. He had her return the portrait to Lady Gwyn, who confesses her mother was actually her own nephew. She helps to reunite William and Mary. Then gets her father released from the madhouse. All the people she has hurt forgive her. Do you find this scenario (all the forgiveness) realistic?

5) Cherry falls ill for several weeks and starts seeing a clergyman, who helps her get her head back to the real world. Stuart and Cherry are married... she got her happy ending. Did you like the ending of this novel?

I feel that Barrett’s devotion to satire led him to paint himself into some corners in the course of the story. The hoax was too elaborate and Betterton spent way too much money and effort playing into Cherry’s fantasies. It made sense to me that Grundy/Montmorenci would play up to her and try to marry her for her money and even that he would act as procurer for Betterton; but Betterton must have realized she was not entirely defenseless as soon as he met Stuart, and in a realistic story he would have moved on to a pretty girl of a lower class. It was one thing in those days to ruin a farm girl, entirely another to ruin a gentleman’s daughter. But every gothic romance requires a villain determined to pursue the heroine to ridiculous lengths, so I suppose he had no choice.

I was entertained by the irruption into the story of characters from more nainstream fiction, and I took them to be actor friends of Grundy hired by Betterton. Loved seeing those characters aged and disillusioned by life. I think the point for the author was to indicate that novels like those of Samuel Richardson and Frances Burney are just as absurd and unrealistic as those of Mrs. Radcliffe and her ilk. Or perhaps it was simply that a habit of facile mockery is hard to break.

It pleased me that Stuart made her go on her atonement tour. Perhaps people forgave her too readily, but from the standpoint of a spoof the fun was over and it made sense for the author to wrap things up quickly. I was delighted that she married Stuart though I can’t help but feel he was altogether too patient with her waywardness. Still, there were those scintillating conversations earlier that showed what she was capable of if she could only get over her heroine obsession.

I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to read this—thank you for adding it to the Gothic Project list! When we read period fiction, it can be hard to see it through the original readers� eyes. Spoofs like this help clarify what contemporaries saw as absurd. They also help shine a light on what contemporaries did not question.

Since multiple people were playing a hoax on Cherry, with different motivations, things got a bit confusing. I guess her age would be a factor in why people forgave her so quickly, but wouldn't it also be abnormal for a 15-16-year-old of her class to get married?

It is a little young; 18 would be a more normal marriage age for a girl of her class. Maybe her father was glad to get her off his hands after all she’d done, and he must have seen the value of a willing suitor considering the hit her reputation would take if her exploits became widely known. And we don’t know how much time passed between the events of the story and the marriage.

I think the key for the author in forgiving Cherry is that she had a good heart, which Stuart acknowledges. Her sins were not intentional cruelties, with the possible exception of the way she behaved toward her father, about which Freud would have a thing or two to say. (It probably didn’t hurt that she was very pretty.)

But here we are treating them all like real people, and I maintain that realism is not the standard by which to judge a work of satire! The author nods to plausibility from time to time but is more focused on the implausibility of the works he’s skewering. The mirror image of ridiculousness is not necessarily reality.

I didn't enjoy this one. I'm never sorry to read a classic as my exposure to the classics has been woefully neglected. I think for me to enjoy a book I need to like the protagonist or at least be able to understand them. I felt about Cherry the way I felt about Chopin's Edna in The Awakening and Holly Golightly in Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's. I didn't like the characters and didn't enjoy the stories.

I'm glad you all enjoyed it. That makes me feel better. I'm looking forward to Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, I always enjoy that selection.

I know I'm commenting late to this discussion but I only recently saw that the group was reading this (my bad) and was intrigued by the book - I had never heard of the book and love satires so I was excited to read it. Started the book about 5 days ago and finished it just a few minutes ago.

Overall, I enjoyed the book though there were a times I cringed. Gem, I understand why you don't like Cherry - I agree with you on Edna from The Awakening (could not stand her) but for me, since this is a satire, Cherry's rudeness, vanity and other faults didn't bother me as much.

I loved the part of the older characters from other books visiting her in the chamber - very clever by the author. Life goes on and often becomes mundane and bad things happen to good people - a fairytale life isn't realistic.

I wasn't as crazy about the ending - Stuart seems too good for her but glad he tried to right her wrongs and made her take responsibility for her actions. Hard to believe that people forgave her so easily. I think the author just wanted a happy ending and chose an easy way to wrap things up. Also, I wasn't too keen on all of the philosophizing at the end from Stuart regarding the evils of romance novels and the need to balance them with more practical books - it didn't flow with the rest of the book. If maybe Cherry had countered some of his arguments with reasons why she loved romances, then I think this would be more true to the book (and more entertaining as this part read like a dry sermon to me, torn from a page of a philosophy book).

Thank you for introducing me to this book - and hope you don't mind me coming into this discussion so late!

Glad to hear from another reader, and one who enjoyed it! I agree about the moralizing in the end, but it’s hard to think of many novels of the era that don’t end with moralizing (except of course Northanger Abbey, which ends with a spoof moral).

Jennifer wrote: "I know I'm commenting late to this discussion but I only recently saw that the group was reading this (my bad) and was intrigued by the book - I had never heard of the book and love satires so I wa..."

The discussion is this group are always opened, feel free to add to any of them, anytime. I'm glad you enjoyed the book.