57 pages • 1 hour read
The Rise of Silas Lapham
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Chapters 16-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary
Tom visits the Lapham house to show his respect after Silas’s antics at the party. He meets Penelope while waiting to see Silas. They discuss Tears, Idle Tears, the novel that was so heavily criticized the previous evening. Penelope dismisses the novel’s sentimentality and forced emotion. They discuss the novel’s themes and plot. As their conversation continues, Tom suddenly and unexpectedly declares his love for Penelope. She is taken aback, nearly falling down. She insists that everyone knows that Tom is in love with Irene, not her. Penelope stops herself from talking, claiming that this is “the end of life for [her]” (221). She politely asks Tom to leave without discussing the outburst with Silas, whom Tom passes on the way out.
Chapter 17 Summary
The following day, Silas complains that the girls never join him for breakfast. Persis seeks out Penelope, who reveals that Tom “offered himself to [her] last night” (225). Persis acknowledges that Irene is no intellectual match for Tom, though Penelope certainly is. Despite this difference in her daughters, she never considered the possibility that Tom might fall in love with Penelope. Penelope explains that she has tried to avoid contact with Tom but confesses that she felt attracted to him and hoped that he felt the same about her. She blames herself for the impossible situation, worried that she might hurt her sister. Penelope wants to resolve the situation without hurting anyone. She suggests that she give up her affection for Tom, so as not to betray her sister. Persis knows that Silas would call Penelope a “fool” (230) if she did such a thing. She says that she will discuss the matter with Silas. She sends a message to her husband, asking him to return early from work. When she talks to Irene, Persis struggles to honestly respond to Irene’s giddy comments about Tom.
Chapter 18 Summary
Silas learns that Tom loves Penelope, rather than Irene. He insists that Penelope should marry Tom if that is what she wants. Persis cannot see how this will work, as Irene will be incredibly upset. She believes that Silas does not care about Irene’s feelings as he is focused on marrying either of his daughters into the Corey family at any cost. Silas decides to seek out Minister Sewell for advice. Sewell suggests that it is better for one person to be unhappy than for three people to be unhappy, rather than adhere to some “false ideal of self-sacrifice” (241). He blames Sentimental novels for cultivating the wrong ideas in the minds of young people. He helps Silas and Persis conclude that Tom and Penelope should be together.
Chapter 19 Summary
Persis reluctantly goes to Irene to tell her what has happened. Irene is shocked. Still in a state of surprise, she gathers together all the small tokens and mementos that remind her of Tom, including the pine shaving and the newspaper article. She gives them to Penelope. Irene takes a long walk with Silas. While they are out, he buys her a potion “to make a nervous person sleep” (246). When they return, Irene drinks the potion and goes to bed. When she wakes up the next day, she announces that she will return to the family’s traditional farming community that is now named after Silas. As she is about to depart, she asks Penelope to share her confusion with Tom, telling him that everyone presumed him to be in love with Irene. She believes that Tom “has a right to know” (249) what has happened.
Tom comes to visit Penelope. He finds her still in a state of shock. When he realizes that she is taken aback by his declaration of love, he appeals to her common sense. He tells her not to be as foolish as the heroine in Tears, Idle Tears. When he reaches out to touch Penelope in a comforting manner, she leaps back. She cannot yet allow him to touch her. Though he promises to wait for her, she tells him that she cannot be with him “yet” (257).
Chapter 20 Summary
Irene travels to the town of Lapham, named after her father. Persis travels with her and returns alone. Silas proposes to travel west on a business trip, taking Irene with him. A new development in his business prompts the need for this trip. Silas has been “throwing good money after bad” (260) in his deal with Rogers, so he now must sell the mills that he used as collateral against his loan. Silas is in danger of not being able to pay his debts. Rogers’s business plan has failed due to the machinations of the railroad, so Silas has no choice but to sell the mills at a knockdown price.
During this time, Tom reveals his true affections to his mother. He tells her that he loves Penelope, not Irene, whom he has always regarded as nothing more than “a pretty child” (265). Mrs. Corey is surprised but immediately recognizes the difficult position in which Penelope now finds herself. Bromfield is more practical about this. He actually sees the romantic side of the confusion. Tom’s parents agree to back him as he attempts to find a solution. Mrs. Corey actually praises Penelope as the more sensible of the two sisters, meaning that she will be able to understand the awkward situation better than Irene might have done. Mr. and Mrs. Corey agree to endure the ignominy of their son’s marriage to someone they believe to be beneath them, agreeing to tolerate the Laphams’ “terrible” (269) conversation.
Chapter 21 Summary
Walker is Silas’s bookkeeper. He suspects that Silas is having financial difficulties and says as much to Tom. Shortly after, Rogers arrives to meet with Silas. Silas tells Rogers that the mills are now worthless and that they both stand to lose a great deal of money. He calls Rogers a “thief” (274) and reveals that he plans to sell the mills at whatever price he can get. Rogers stops him. He reveals that he has found a group of English buyers who wish to purchase the mills. Silas is suspicious. He offers Rogers 24 hours to bring forth a deal or else he will sell the mills. As he reflects on the situation, however, Silas is not sure that he can allow Rogers to sell the mills to the buyers while knowing that they are no longer worth a fraction of what the buyers will pay. The moral quandary keeps him up all night as he talks over the matter with Persis, just as she helped him with the business “when he first started” (278).
Chapters 16-21 Analysis
Tom reveals his true affections to Penelope and, in doing so, reveals how Familial Responsibility and Social Etiquette and Class intersect. Both Persis and Mrs. Corey were convinced that Tom would fall in love with a girl who adhered to the expectations of Boston high society, rather than a girl who rejected such demands. Irene did everything possible to conform to the expectations of people like Mrs. Corey, and Tom’s politeness toward her was misunderstood to be affection. In this way, Social Etiquette and Class impose on how people communicate clearly and authentically. Meanwhile, Penelope hid her own affection for Tom behind a flat loyalty to her sister. She refused to engage with Tom, so as not to put herself in an emotionally compromising position, showing her own adherence to Familial Responsibility that also becomes an obstacle to clear communication.
As much as the families are shocked by Tom’s choice of Lapham daughter, Tom himself is shocked by how poorly people seem to know him. Neither his mother nor Irene ever expected that he could have any interest in Penelope, which illustrates just how little they understand him and his desires. Tom may have been raised among the elite, but he deliberately rejects their demands at every turn. He works in an unfashionable industry and feels drawn toward subversive women. Tom’s surprise at the reaction to his openly expressed feelings reflects how deeply embedded the expectations are for both Social Etiquette and Class and Familial Responsibility, which mislead those who adhere to these preconceived social expectations.
The reveal of Tom’s true emotions is coupled with the reveal of Penelope’s hypocrisy. Earlier in the novel, she and Tom discuss the characters in the fictional Sentimental novel Tears, Idle Tears. Penelope criticizes the novel’s heroine for failing to act in a practical manner and allowing herself to be overwhelmed by sentiment. When Tom reveals his love for her, however, she finds herself in a similar literary position. Penelope makes a sentimental choice, selecting to side with her sister by rejecting Tom. This decision will make all three of them miserable, so it cannot be considered the practical or pragmatic result. Though Penelope criticizes sentimentality in theory, she cannot overcome the social demand for sentimentality in practice. She feels loyal to her sister, even though she acknowledges that this solution would annoy her if it was made by a fictional character. This self-aware hypocrisy highlights the power of social demands, even over one of the most intelligent and subversive characters.
As Silas struggles to keep his business afloat, he is presented with a difficult moral decision and must confront his own history with Ambition and Hubris. He has gone into business with Rogers as a way to atone for his earlier betrayal of his business partner. Persis has never allowed him to forget how he drove Rogers out of the paint business, so Silas enters into a partnership with Rogers. When this turns sour, Silas has the opportunity to sell a set of mills to a group of businessmen who are willing to pay a vastly inflated price for the seemingly worthless properties. Silas is faced with a conundrum: Either he refuses to sell, thus bankrupting Rogers again, or he sells to the Englishmen at a price that he knows to be false. Silas refuses to sell, as he believes that Rogers is already morally compromised. Through his refusal, Silas makes a moral statement. He cannot atone for his earlier sins, but he can prevent himself from making further mistakes. Silas chooses the least immoral option, a sign of his move toward atonement as he is willing to sacrifice what he has built for the mistakes that he made while building it.
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