Caleb Williams

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1794

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Volume 2, Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Volume 2, Chapter 1 Summary

Volume 2 jumps back into Caleb’s story. After hearing about Ferdinando and Barnabas’s history, he cannot help but doubt whether Hawkins was the true killer. To Caleb, Hawkins’s personality does not match the act of killing a man in the streets (179-80). Caleb wonders if Ferdinando’s behavior stems from the fact that he is actually the murderer. Caleb doesn’t want to believe this but can’t stop thinking about it, remarking that Ferdinando was “the centre about which [his thoughts] revolved” (180). He decides to observe Ferdinando.

Caleb begins asking Falkland questions under the guise of getting to know him better. Ferdinando receives the first hint Caleb drops with “an air of surprise” and leaves the room without answering (181). Eventually, Caleb’s tactics lead the men into a conversation about Alexander the Great. Ferdinando praises Alexander, saying that his goal was to bring about a more civilized society, whereas Caleb asks whether all the killing Alexander did to secure his goals was worth it (183-84). The conversation escalates until Caleb lets slip a question about how one could go about justifying murder, which causes a reaction in Ferdinando; the blood drains from Ferdinando’s face and he explodes in anger. Afterwards, Caleb wonders if his master’s anger was the result of a guilty conscience or the fact that Caleb was accusing him of something (187). Caleb remarks that curiosity is dangerous because it hurries one forward irresistibly.

Volume 2, Chapter 2 Summary

Caleb knows that Ferdinando won’t fire him after realizing that Caleb knows his secret, but he worries Ferdinando will grow to resent him (188). When clearing out a case of drawers, Caleb finds a paper that has fallen behind the case; he can’t control his curiosity and opens it, finding it to be a letter written by Hawkins about his son’s wrongful imprisonment. Hawkins says that he is writing to Ferdinando in hopes that he can help; however, Hawkins states that he holds no hate towards anyone, and that he would not do anything to Barnabas in revenge (190).

Caleb decides to leave the letter out for Ferdinando to find in a way that will suggest that Caleb has probably seen it. The two men later have a conversation, and Caleb tells Ferdinando a story of a man who would have been wrongly hanged for murder if the actual murderer hadn’t been on the jury (191). The story angers Ferdinando, but Caleb says that he thinks that all things eventually come to light and that justice will be done (192). Ferdinando says he “doesn’t know what justice is” (193), ranting that justice is not in reach for him. He then leaves, upset that he has confided in Caleb with such candor.

Volume 2, Chapters 1-2 Analysis

Chapter 1 establishes Caleb’s curiosity, and his need to find out about Ferdinando now takes over his every thought. Caleb decides to keep an eye on him and pushes to the point that Ferdinando realizes Caleb has suspicions about the murder. Caleb uses the conversation about Alexander the Great to compare Ferdinando’s past to that of Alexander without revealing his suspicions directly; Ferdinando in turn recognizes what Caleb is doing, heightening the tension. However, the argument also points to a more general conflict between the two men, as Ferdinando’s sympathy for Alexander reflects his sense of himself as similarly elite and above ordinary moral rules.

The episode is the tipping point for the events that begin Caleb’s tragic downfall. The novel states that “curiosity is a restless propensity, and often does but hurry us forward the more irresistibly, the greater is the danger that attends its indulgence” (187); this quote foreshadows the bad things that come to Caleb because he chooses to pursue his curiosity. As though to underscore just how destructive this curiosity is, Caleb isn’t satisfied even with the proof that the conversation about Alexander furnishes. He uses another, more pointed story to get to Ferdinando.