Narrative and Ideology in Godwin's Caleb Williams

Abstract

Narrative and Ideology in Godwin's Caleb WilliamsKenneth W. Graham Seventeen ninety-three and 1794 were years of growing nervousness for British radicals. After 1792—the "annus mirabilis"1 that saw the founding of the London Corresponding Society and the rapid growth in membership of societies for political reform—the responses of the government and other supporters of the social order constituted a disturbing backlash. When Godwin completed his final corrections of the first edition of Political Justice in January 1793, John Reeves had founded the anti-reform Association for the Preservation of Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers and the gentry had begun to organize their tenants into a yeomanry for purposes of drill and propaganda. Pitt's Attorney-General, Sir Archibald Macdonald, had just achieved a conviction of Thomas Paine in absentia for seditious libel over The Rights of Man, Part II, and had prepared two hundred indictments, for the most part against publishers of radical opinions.2 Government, gentry, and or1 Marilyn Butler, "Introductory Essay," Burke, Paine, Godwin and the Revolution Controversy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 7-8. 2 The Morning Chronicle of 14 January 1793 reminded its readers: "There are no fewer than two hundred indictments prepared by the Crown Officers, to be presented to the Grand Juries throughout the kingdom for libels and seditious words. They are of all kinds, some against newspapers, some against pamphlets, hand-bills, &c. and of the seditious words some were uttered from the pulpit, and some in the ale-houses, in moments of jollity and inebriation. On the slightest computation, the trial of these indictments in law costs, and the value of the time of the imprisonments that may follow conviction, cannot be less [for the indictees] than 50,000 [pounds] to say nothing of the utter extinction of free opinion." See Lucyle Werkmeister, A Newspaper History of England. 1792-1793 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), p. 199. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 2, Number 3, April 1990 216 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION dinary citizens alike were becoming increasingly intolerant of reformist ideas: as support grew for Reeves's Association, it diminished for the London Corresponding Society. Godwin's preface to Political Justice shows his awareness of the change in atmosphere: "it is the fortune of the present work to appear before a public that is panic struck, and impressed with the most dreadful apprehensions respecting such doctrines as are here delivered. All the prejudices of the human mind are in arms against it."3 When Godwin started to write Caleb Williams, six weeks after completing Political Justice, relations with France had made the atmosphere more threatening. Godwin's journal records that during those weeks Louis XVI had been tried, sentenced to death, and executed. The very day that Godwin presented a copy of Political Justice to Chauvelin , the French ambassador was directed to leave the country. Soon Britain and France were at war. When Godwin finished Caleb Williams in late April 1794, the government were about to arrest the officers of the London Corresponding Society, some of whom were Godwin's friends and all of whom were acquaintances. About this time, Godwin rewrote the ending of his novel. The texts of both endings exist and a comparison of them raises the question: Did Godwin tone down the radicalism of his novel with an ending palatable to political authorities? If not, what motivated the revision? The two endings contrast strikingly. The original ending seems unflinchingly reformist. Caleb testifies to Falkland's murders before an unsympathetic magistrate and Falkland convincingly debunks the testimony as the clever fabrication of a thief, prison-breaker, and master of disguise. This final trial is a victory for Falkland, who resumes control over Caleb. Caleb, imprisoned and harassed, declines into madness, debility , and death, leaving behind only his manuscript to proclaim a final condemnation of "Things as They Are." The ending that Godwin published is much less reformist. It features a trial also, but during the hearing Falkland acknowledges Caleb's innocence and confesses to his crimes. Much weakened by age and struggles with his conscience, Falkland dies three days later. The establishment of Caleb's innocence seems to undermine the novel's extended demonstration...