Study Questions for Mrs. Martin, The Enchantress; or, Where Shall I Find Her?

1. Here is the entry on Mr. Martin from The Feminist Companion:

Martin, Mrs., ‘Helen of Herefordshire,' obscure author of five intelligent, various, stylish MINERVA novels (not Sarah M.,author of a 1795 cookery book; or Sarah Catherine M., author-illustrator of the rhyme of Old Mother Hubbard, pub. 1804; or the minor-novelist great-aunt of Mary Martin). She planned Deloraine, 1798, on country rambles, and wrote it in secret, to beguile solitude and misfortunes:  it weighs ‘sentiment' against true feeling; after marriage the hero and heroine retain 'the obsolete custom' of mutual frankness. Essay-chapters open each volume of Melbourne, also 1798 (criticism of novels in general; ingenious similes for her own); the hero as student, struggling on inadequate income, is well drawn. Reginald, or the House of Mirandola, A Romance, 1799, praises and follows, without hoping to rival, Anne Radcliffe. The Enchantress, or Where Shall I Find Her?, 1801, defends novels, quotes Coleridge, and voices scepticism about historians (she hopes ladies' maids will join their ranks). Here the heroine answers, with ‘fire and spirit,' the hero's advertisement beginning ‘A Man wants a wife' (cf. Sarah Gardner).

The Feminist Companion to Literature in English:  Women Writers from the middle Ages to the Present. Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, Eds. (New Haven:  Yale UP, 1990), pp. 751-52

Does this minimal information help us at all when it comes to evaluating The Enchantress? If so, what does it offer us? If not, why is it unhelpful? In any event, what additional information would you like to have about Mrs. Martin's life, works, and historical and cultural context?

2. Right from the beginning, we encounter an unusual -- and unusually involved -- narrator. Does the narrator recall any narrators you have encountered earlier in our reading? If so, what similarities do you see? And what differences?
More important, try to decide why Mrs. Martin chose to have precisely this sort of narrator, who is so explicitly involved in the tale-tellling and who addresses the reader directly and explicitly throughout the text. What relationship does her narrator set up between Mrs. Martin (as author), her narrator, the reader, and the story that is being told? Try to imagine the same story told from the perspective of a detached, third-person (probably omniscient) narrator:  what would be different? What would be gained? What would be lost?

3. What initial impressions do you form about Sir Philip Desormeaux from the opening chapters? What do we learn immediately about the sort of person he is? What are his values? What are his biases and prejudices? What, if you can make them out, are his virtues and/or strengths of character and person? How about weaknesses and failings?

4. Chapter 1 begins with the narrator's "slanted" or subjective account of Sir Philip's letter and the responses it elicited -- and, in turn, his response to those responses (including the one that he initially preserved). Then Colonel Montford appears, already on page 3, where the two men engage in a dialogue that is transcribed (or quoted) for us rather than simply being summarized and reported in the narrator's words.

a. What is Montford's function (or purpose) in the novel? It should be apparent to you already in Chapter 1.
b. What appear to be Montford's principal character traits? What are his values, beliefs, etc., as revealed in this scene?
c. Why does Mrs. Martin employ quoted (or transcribed) dialogue rather than summarized, reported, or paraphrased dialogue in this scene?

5. After the two men agree each to pursue one of the unknown respondents, why does Sir Philip decide to try to contact both of them?

6. Jessy Macfarlane appears to be the novel's first major complication. Sir Philip becomes interested in her, despite being some seventeen years older than Jessy. What does he find so appealing about Jessy, and why? And why is he so annoyed to find that he has a rival for her affections (Bosvile) -- even though he has not in fact even declared his interest to her in the first place?

7. At what point do you begin to suspect what Sir Philip begins to suspect -- that Jessy is the one of his unknown correspondents for whom he does not even have initials (as he does for "M. M.")? What does Mrs. Martin do to encourage you to think it is Jessy?

8. In the Gloucestershire countryside Sir Philip encounters "Milly" (Josepha Milward), who also intrigues him. He now has -- at least potentially -- four seemingly eligible options for a wife (even if he has apparently not actually met two of them yet). What are Josepha's most favorable attributes, as revealed here and subsequently in the novel? Why does everyone make such a fuss about the torn-up verses?

9. When Montford reappears and claims to be Jessy's long-lost suitor, does this make it seem clearer to you why Mrs. Martin has kept him "offstage" for so much of the novel? Is this sudden revelation in the novel there just to help reduce the complexity (and confusion) faced by the reader by removing Jessy from the set of Sir Philip's possible mates? Or is there more to it than that?

10. When matters come to a head and Josepha appears to be about to be forcibly removed to the West Indies, what is it that finally pushes Sir Philip into action and makes him undertake that very "dashing" (in several senses) nighttime trip to London to head her off and declare himself?

11. Especially in the scene in which Sir Philip repeats his proposal to Josepha, how does the "voice" and presence on (and in) the scene of Mrs. Martin's narrator help to keep the whole scene from deteriorating into melodramatic, sentimental nonsense? Or does it deteriorate into melodramatic, sentimental nonsense (anyway)?

12. Discuss the role and function of Bronze in the novel. What cultural assumptions and/or biases does he crystallize in his character and in his relationship with Sir Philip -- including their conversational protocols?

13. Finally, analyze the final paragraph of the novel in detail.