Caleb Williams

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1794

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Volume 3, Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Volume 3, Chapter 3 Summary

One day Caleb sees two men come in with a piece of paper and show it to Mr. Raymond; it is a wanted poster for Caleb offering a reward. Captain Raymond asks if the man, Larkins, who brought the poster in is “in distress” and needs the money that badly. Calling in the others, Captain Raymond shows them the poster and says that Caleb has told him his story and that he believes Caleb is telling the truth. He challenges his men, saying that they cannot play both sides of the law. Larkins in the end agrees and apologizes to Caleb.

Caleb’s has recovered and begins planning for his future (319). He reflects on everything that has happened to him and decides he could never be a robber. He tries to dissuade the other men from robbery, saying they create unnecessary suffering for themselves (320). While most get annoyed with him, Captain Raymond actually listens to what Caleb had to say but says it is too late now (320): The laws that drove him out of society stop him from returning.

Volume 3, Chapter 4 Summary

While thinking about his conversation with Captain Raymond, Caleb contemplates his next moves and dozes in bed (324). Something startles him awake, and when he opens his eyes, he sees an old woman who lives with the gang standing over him with a “meat cleaver.” She tries to kill him, but he fights her off and gets the weapon before restraining her on the bed (325). She was close with Gines and is not happy that he was banished because of Caleb.

Once Caleb releases her, she starts to leave the room but stops to say that she “will be the death of [him] yet: [Caleb] shall not be [his] own many twenty-four longer” (326). Caleb worries that she is referring to the hand-bill about the reward for him. He rushes to leave without telling anyone that he is going. He dresses himself as a beggar with tattered clothes and covers one eye before leaving Captain Raymond’s hideout.

Volume 3, Chapters 3-4 Analysis

The hand-bill with the details of the charges and reward for Caleb is a plot device similar to Caleb and Mr. Hawkins’s letters. The hand-bill reveals a truth about Caleb that was not known to anyone in the hideout but Captain Raymond. In addition to showing the terrifying reach that Ferdinando has—he has arranged for a man-hunt for Caleb across England—the hand-bill is a starting point for a discussion about justice. Godwin uses Captain Raymond to question the justice system and the morality of the people in his group. Captain Raymond says that they cannot play both sides of the law: As wanted men, they cannot turn Caleb in for money when the same thing could happen to them (317-18).

Godwin presents the thieves through Caleb’s perceptions of them, which differ from those of society. Rather than describing the thieves as dangerous criminals, Caleb “[sees] and respect[s] their good qualities and their virtue” (319). He goes on to say that he does not “believe them worse men, or more hostile in their dispositions to the welfare of their species, than the generality of those that look down upon them with most censure” (319). Godwin is making a strong claim in suggesting that the thieves are not doing anything worse than the upper class that looks down on them; the only difference is that those with power can get away with their theft.