An Ethical Reading of Charles Primrose in The Vicar of Wakefield

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内容摘要

本文试图纠正将奥利弗·哥德史密斯针对查尔斯·普里姆罗斯博士的描述视为讽刺或戏仿牧师唯物主义的解读。相反，通过从牧师在《威克菲尔德牧师传》（1766）中显露并表现出的伦理身份来解读他性格中的矛盾。牧师的道德困境与其缺乏经验有关，根源在于他无法有效地维护自己的家长权威。一旦叙述者揭示了怪异的伯切尔先生的真实身份是威廉·桑希尔爵士，并在小说结尾将他推介为救世之神，准男爵就被提升为牧师伦理身份的逆反模式：他将为了自己的公共和私人形象，设定唯一的伦理标准，进而掌控困扰普里姆罗斯博士的伦理混乱。

关键词

哥德史密斯；《威克菲尔德牧师传》；普里姆罗斯博士；伦理阅读；伦理认同

作者简介

桑德罗·荣格，复旦大学英语与比较文学二级特聘教授，兼任杭州师范大学的特聘教授。荣格在过去的11年里一直担任A&HCI季刊ANQ（Routledge / Taylor & Francis）的主编，出版 200 多篇出版物，其中包括 140 多篇 A&HCI 文章和多部学术专著。他的新作是《詹姆斯·十八世纪插图与文学物质文化》（2023）。

Title

An Ethical Reading of Dr. Charles Primrose in The Vicar of Wakefield

Abstract

This article offers a corrective to interpretations that have focused on Oliver Gold-smith’s characterization of Dr. Charles Primrose as ironic or as a parody of clerical materialism. Instead, it investigates the contradictions in the clergyman’s character by reading them in terms of the ethical identity he manifests and performs in The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) . The vicar’s ethical dilemma is related to his lack of experience , and it is rooted in his inability to assert his authority effectively as pater familias. Once the narrator reveals the idiosyncratic Mr. Burchell’s true identity as Sir William Thornhill and introduces him as deus ex machina at the end of the novel, the baronet is advanced as a counter-model to the vicar’s ethical identity: he will be shown to have mastered the ethical chaos that enveloped Dr. Primrose by having reached a single ethical standard, both for his public and private personae.

Key words

Goldsmith; The Vicar of Wakefield; Dr. Charles Primrose; ethical reading; ethical identity

Author

Sandro Jung is a Level 2 Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Fudan University and Jack Ma Distinguished Professor at Hangzhou Normal University. He has been the Editor-in-Chief of the A&HCI journal, ANQ (Routledge / Taylor & Francis) , for the past 11 years. He has produced more than 200 publications including 140 A&HCI articles and many monographs.His latest book is Eighteenth-Century Illustration and Literary Material Culture (2023).

Email: [e-mail]

Because of the position he hold sin his community, Oliver Goldsmith’s Dr. Charles Primrose, the titular Vicar of Wakefield, is understood by his parishioners as representing are liable and trust worthy ethical standard: he administers advice and assistance where needed but also intervenes if he perceives transgressions that need to be redressed. As such, he appears to be a figure of authority whose judgment is trusted by those for whom he holds spiritual responsibility as a pastor of the Church of England. This appearance of his impartial ethical identity was popularized in the late eighteenth century, during which period he was frequently cast in both verbal and visual criticism as a moral paragon, characterized by “Piety and fortitude, a glowing benevolence, an uncommon share of parental fondness, ”and “artlessness ”(Critical Review 441, 440) . Instances of his mental and physical suffering–ranging from his enforced move from Wakefield and Olivia’s elopement to the rescue of Olivia and his imprisonment–repeatedly served as vignettes that were understood to stand paradigmatically for his unerring convictions, faith, and morality. However, the selection of these instances of characterization belies the fact that Dr. Primrose is frequently guided not by ethical precepts but by his passionate temper.

In fact, throughout the narrative the character is shown to be flawed: his characterization constitutes one of the reasons why Goldsmith’s sentimental narrative has been defined as “the most paradoxical” of the author’s works (Passon 59) . Previous scholarly attempts at defining the exact nature of the vicar’s flaws, including how his character’s shortcomings and morality should be made sense of, have been diverse and, at times, diametrically opposed, ranging from interpretation that have stressed the novel’s sentimentalism as part of which Dr. Primrose’s “amusing foibles…seem to endear him to the reader as much as his moral rectitude” to readings that have identified Goldsmith’s character as “a satire on clerical  materialism” (Passon59) . Goldsmith has been understood as “hold[ing…] virtue to Stoic standards” (Anderson 420) and Dr. Primrose has been termed “quixotically ineffective” (Murray 327) . By contrast, James Kim has argued that that the vicar undermines “an emergent style of masculinity” (Kim 21) which allows him to function meaningfully, closely attached to the members of his family, rather than seeking to dominate the family’s structure and operations. Other scholars have gone further in their critiques of Dr. Primrose. Michael E. Adelstein, for instance, insists that the vicar “neither understands mankind nor the ways of the world” (Adelstein 316) , while the hero, in satirical readings, has been characterized as a “hypocritical villain” and “as a monster whom Goldsmith ridicules and holds up for the reader’s contempt” (Preston 230, 229) . Despite these different assessments, a consensus of what should be at the centre of examinations of the vicar’s meaning seems to exist: “At the heart of this debate, ” observes Kim, “is the ethical status of the novel’s titular character and first-person narrator” (Kim22) , a claim echoed by Vera Nünning, who argues that Dr. Primrose ’s “unreliable narration is…located at the point where narratological and ethical categories intersect” (Nünning 237)  .Earlier ethical readings that have sought to trace a conversion or transformation of the character as part of a survival narrative “from the theme of prudence to that of fortitude” (Adelstein 316)have not taken seriously the extent of his ethical thinking and performance, including how he resolves the “ethical chaos” (Nie 89) that leads to his calamitous adventures. He has been contextualized as developing further the stereotype of “the good clergyman, ” which Goldsmith first sketched in “The History of Miss Stanton” (published in the British Magazine for July 1760) , a central source for The Vicar of Wakefield. While his characterization has made him “fictionally interesting” (Ferguson “Dr. Primrose and Goldsmith’s Clerical Ideal” 326) , the ethics of his decision-taking as both clergyman and pater familias have been glossed over in terms of a sympathetic interpretation - largely a Christian one – that makes him redeemable. Building on those interpretations that have critiqued the vicar in moral terms, this article will examine instances of his ethical agency and its articulation by the narrator. It will argue that, rather than part of a satire of the clergymen along the lines of Henry Fielding’s cruel Mr. Thwackum and Jane Austen’s sycophantic Mr. Collins,^① the dilemmas of Goldsmith’s Dr. Primrose are rarely perceived to be ethical ones by the vicar, as he lacks the necessary self-awareness. Instead, they are supposed to be recognized as such by the reader, whose own ethical thinking is to produce alternative, remedial solutions to the problems faced by the vicar. Above all, readers are to develop not only ethical awareness but also self-reflexiveness in a way not manifested in the novel. For very infrequently does the vicar admit to being flawed: his hobby-horsical obsessions such as his participation in the Whistonian monogamy debate – that is whether a clergyman, after the decease of his first wife, is allowed to remarry – demonstrating that his judgment is not underpinned by principle proper. Rather, it is based on prejudice in favor of his own discrimination and intellectual attainments, as well as motivated by his vanity.The ethical reading I propose interprets The Vicar of Wakefield not in the homogenizing way late eighteenth-century and Victorian readers did, for, understanding the vicar as a reliable narrator, they did not foreground the character’s contradictions. Instead, it will concentrate on the private individual and his “ethical identity” (Nie 94) , as well as on how he constructs himself both publicly and privately vis-à-vis his community towards which he is fashioned in line with an absolutist monarchical ruler, whose judgment is not to be questioned. Goldsmith's novel will be shown to be the product “of the need of humans to express their views on ethic[s]” and “the desire to share their ethical experience, ” including “the ethical relationship or ethical order between man and man, man and society, or man and nature” (Nie 85, 88) .As pater familias, Dr. Primrose considers it his paternalistic right to make decisions on behalf of his family. Judgments are thus validated by a hereditary right, rather than by the proven (and contestable) ability to apply ethical standards that will ensure the moral well-being of those dependent on him. Instead of following the straight and narrow path dictated by what would be appropriate moral behaviour required by a given ethical environment, both the attachment to his family and the desire to avoid open conflict with his wife and daughters prevent his serving as an effective source of ethical guidance. In this respect, his inaction repeatedly encourages the follies of his wife and daughters when he should, in fact, have curtailed their extravagance. In other words, his opportunism, preferring domestic quiet (if not contentment as such) , leads to situations where he remains silent rather than corrects inappropriate behaviour. As a result, what is right or wrong is situationally determined not on the basis of a consideration of contextual factors only but also in response to the vicar’s (often questionable) personal predilections. According to Daniel McDonald, the vicar’s inconsistencies of thought and action “weaken the Vicar’s humanity” (McDonald 30) . Dr. Primrose is reduced “at times to a gloomy stereotype incapable of human involvement” (McDonald 30)  . For his ethical identity and judgment–especially where decisions he takes affect others–are not to be relied on absolutely, since the “disconnection between the Vicar’s public and private selves” (Murray 332) does not allow a single ethical standard. In fact, as noted by McDonald, the hero’s “qualified morality–considered with the Vicar's gloomy sensibility and erring judgment–tends to ridicule his status as a moral spokesman and to invalidate the religious theme of the story” (McDonald 32) .The vicar’s narrative and ethical unreliability is largely grounded in repeated acts of emasculation, especially by his wife and daughters: “ for all his outward certainty, Primrose ultimately…undermines the very style of masculinity he is striving to assert” (Kim 21) . His is not a traditional marriage, for it is characterized by “a succession of marital disputes…which he generally loses to Deborah” (Hillard 465) , as well as marred by unregulated desire for material wealth and status–ethical chaos he does not proactively seek to control: it is his wife’s ardent wish to recover their previous affluence and the status they held before their departure from Wakefield. Reminding her at different points in the narrative of their changed circumstances, Dr. Primrose, nevertheless, fails in insisting that the family as a whole need to adapt and alter their outlook on life. His ethical function thus consists in safeguarding the family’s moral interest but also in preventing their giving in to temptations that might be fed by family members’ vanity. An example of how he fails in his ethical function of moderating his wife’s ambition and her “egoistic energies” (Hilliard 466) is introduced early, shortly after the vicar’s family have made Mr. Burchell’s acquaintance and he has saved the youngest daughter, Sophia, from drowning. Deborah Primrose’s reaction is characteristically comical but, at the same time, puts into sharp relief the family’s ethical dilemma.My wife observing as we went, that she liked him extremely, and protesting, that if he had birth and fortune to entitle him to match into such a family as ours, she knew no man she would sooner fix upon. I could not but smile to hear her talk in this lofty strain: I was never much displeased with those harmless delusions that tend to make us more happy. (Goldsmith 21)

Even on such a short acquaintance with Mr. Burchell, Mrs. Primrose is unguarded and deploys the superlative rhetoric that she will also subsequently adopt in praise of the rakish Squire Thornhill. Despite the high encomium she bestows, she, nevertheless, attaches a qualification, implicitly comparing herself and the perceived status of her family with what she mistakes to be Mr. Burchell’s modest circumstances. She judges him worthy; yet, at the same time, she misapprehends his social position. For she reads him at face value, taking the persona under which he introduces himself to her family as a reflection of his real, socially defined financial worth. She thus detaches the intrinsic qualities of his worth–above all, his intrepidity to save her daughter from the stream – from his appearance. The latter confirms her socialized notion of his unsuitability – as a falsely perceived non-economic equal to her family – even though she introduces a fiction of past affluence, one which no longer holds and which therefore defines her economic status far more ambiguously than his. In this judgment, then, she demonstrates that her own views of others cannot be trusted since they are always ideologically linked to an agenda of bettering her own condition rather than on doing justice to, and right by, others.

In contrast to his wife, Dr. Primrose does not articulate as ill-guarded an estimation of Mr. Burchell at this point, although he will subsequently misunderstand his behavior and misjudge him, which leads to a near-breach in their connection. That the vicar does not follow a single ethical standard in relation to potential suitors for his daughters’ hands, such as Mr. Burchell and Squire Thornhill, is also demonstrated by his becoming “complicit in the very acts of emulative consumption he has taken it upon himself to police” (Kim 34) . In fact, the prospect of raising his family through an alliance with Squire Thornhill, as well as the “combination of male narcissism and duplicity at work” (Kim 29) , leads him to suspend his ethical standard and sensibility in his social engagements with the Squire, his would-be son-in-law.Both the vicar and Deborah pride themselves on their discrimination and penetration, but both are foiled by disguised individuals whose ethical identities – with the exception of Mr. Burchell – remain hidden from them. In “this almost phantasmagoric world of shifting disguise” (Dahl 93) , the vicar is taught by experience to distrust appearances, even though by the end of the narrative he still has not fully developed the skill to see beyond surfaces. Knowledge of his failing suffices in a story world where order is re-established by Sir William Thornhill. Except for the baronet’s idiosyncratic assuming the character of Mr. Burchell, by which means “he learns truth” (Dahl 91) , none of the other characters utilizes a demonstrable method to hone their ethical understanding of humankind, including ethical relationships. Sir William represents the successful transformation of an individual who has undergone his own moral trials, having himself, because of his inexperience and lack of knowledge of humanity as a young man, fallen victim to numerous deceptions. While his (economic) fortune has suffered as a result of his credulousness, his ethical understanding has been sharpened. Sir William’s ethical behaviour is revealed at different points in the narrative and especially when he repairs to prison in order to investigate Dr. Primrose’s incarceration but also the part that his nephew played in it. Sir William’s ethical standards are inflexible and absolute: they are governed by what, after a long process of philosophical study and deliberation, he knows to be right.But to return to Deborah’s assessment of Mr. Burchell’s worth as a potential son-in-law: Dr. Primrose does not articulate an economically motivated view that would debar Sophia’s rescuer from becoming a member of the vicar’s family. His “smil[ing]” at his wife’s talk without commenting on the inappropriate nature of her judgment represents a reprehensible, unethical response, which polarizes intrinsic value and economic worth, without determining which should be preferred ethically. His silence at what he terms “those harmless delusions that tend to make us more happy” implicitly, in not contradicting his wife’s statements, condones her view and confirms it as just. This implicit confirmation of his wife’s unethical way of thinking, given especially her being married to a Christian clergyman and his supposed exemplary function as moral arbiter, reveals a significant shortcoming in Dr. Primrose’s own ethical thinking. For he intimates to the reader that he “was never much displeased” with his wife’s talk of her social aspirations, the litotes “never much displeased” emphasizing that his displeasure was not such that he categorically rejected her view. Quite the opposite is the case: he appears not to consider her talk of much consequence, despite the fact that it proves to have an adverse effect on their daughters, who, following their mother’s example, have notions of grandeur beyond their social station. So, understanding these “delusions” as “harmless” is a fundamental misjudgment on the vicar’s part. For it does not recognize that these “delusions” possess real affective power that, in turn, drives Deborah’s ambition to induce Mr. Thornhill to marry one of her daughters. In fact, the conclusion the vicar has drawn – that these “delusions” result in happiness – is equally false. For it contributes to the exact opposite: it facilitates the too uninhibited exchanges between the Primrose family and Mr. Thornhill, which are the basis on which the latter builds his various schemes related to Olivia’s abduction. In not commenting on his wife’s view of Mr. Burchell, then, the vicar fails in his educational, admonishing function – in short, in the exercise of his vocation and calling.Dr. Primrose’s unthinking, unethical, and implicit acquiescence in his wife’s notions is at odds with how he discursively constructs himself as the head of his household, the “little republic to which I gave laws” (Goldsmith 22) . While he is insistent on issues of “proper ceremony” and the “mechanical forms of good breeding” (22) , these regulatory mechanisms of his micro-society alone do not ensure the ethical working of his family’s life. He contrasts his own family with “the harmless people” (23) , his parishioners, who do not have aspirations beyond their financial means and whose judgment is guided by the ethics of simplicity that regulate their living harmoniously with one another. As a private man, Dr. Primrose repeatedly tries to dissuade his family from indulging in extravagance, but his exhortations are frequently ignored. Shortly after his arrival in his new parish, therefore, the vicar admits that “[t]he first Sunday in particular their behaviour served to mortify me, ” for “[h]ow well so ever I fancied my lectures against pride had conquered the vanity of my daughters; yet I still found them secretly attached to all their former finery” (Goldsmith 23) . His mortification, a sense of shame and embarrassment, is caused by the realization that the fine clothes through which the female members of the Primrose family previously displayed their wealth, are – now that their fortune has changed – inappropriate, yet demonstratively worn, nevertheless. Despite having exhorted his family to be frugal, they defy his words in order to appear in the way they want to be perceived – as economically better off than they, in fact, are. Theirs is a disguise meant to deceive.Dr. Primrose’s lectures are not the “laws” that he mentions as his domain as pater familias. It is clear that the Primrose women’s transgressions against the views advanced by his “lectures” do not entail punishment for the breaking of laws. For as a private man, Dr. Primrose is characterized by an inconsistency through which he sets a bad example for his family. More than that, his family’s witnessing of his own vanity induces them to be inconsistent as well. Importantly, these actions – both by Dr. Primrose and his household – are not considered unethical by the characters themselves, even though the reader is supposed to understand them as such in light of the role of law-giver that Dr. Primrose assumes in his self-characterization.Goldsmith highlights the centrality of vanity in the family and its corrupting influence throughout the novel. An emblematic reminder of the family’s vanity is produced in the form of a “large historical family piece” (Goldsmith 70) , a group portrait that is motivated both by the family’s eagerness to differentiate themselves from their neighbours, the family of Farmer Flam borough, and as a means to align themselves with their social betters, the “genteel” and “families of…taste” (Goldsmith 70) . Owing to their constrained economic situation, the family members are represented as a group, each member, nevertheless, being realized as an “independent historical figure” (Goldsmith 70) . According to Christopher Flint, the portrait is “meant to idealize the family, [but it] persistently mirror[s] its problematic relationship” (Flint 128) . It demonstrates yet another ethical failing on the part of the vicar, his non-frugality. For there is no pragmatic need for the portrait other than the family’s desire to outdo the Flamboroughs having their portraits painted. This reason is not explicitly stated but it is clear, nevertheless, through the statement that the picture was meant to “gratify[…]our vanity” (Goldsmith 71) . The painting functions as part of the vicar’s “conscious manipulation of the world about him” (Fisher 12) – to shape how others see and understand him and his family.The unreliable narrator prefaces the production of the family portrait by noting that “a sort of rivalry in point of taste” (Goldsmith 70) existed between the two families. As a result, the commissioning of the painting is implicitly justified as a matter of taste, a moral concept the corruption of which is reflected by the finished product in which the vicar’s wife appears as Venus, the goddess of (physical) love. While in English illustrated editions the family painting was not visualized until the 1820s, the German-Polish designer, Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki (1726-1801) , selected the subject for representation for a series of 12 miniature plates in the popular Almanac Généalogique for 1777, an influential publication which introduced to readers on the continent how Goldsmith’s novel should be seen and understood (see Figure1) . Chodowiecki renders Deborah as the sexualized woman Goldsmith mutes: an unattractive, double-chinned Venus is facing a disgruntled-looking vicar in his “gown and band” (Goldsmith 70) , the latter passing a book – one of the vicar’s own, on the Whistonian controversy – to her. An individual with cocked hat, not mentioned in Goldsmith’s narrative, stands behind both figures and is glancing at her bare breasts; these are far more easily and fully visible to the reader-viewer of the illustration, however. The group on the right, composed of Sophia (as a shepherdess with crook, and several sheep in the background) , Olivia (as an Amazon) , and Squire Thornhill at Olivia’s feet (as Alexander, the Great) , is less prominent – especially since the young man with cocked hat and the vicar’s passing the book to his wife direct attention to Deborah-Venus. The realization of the family group in the way Chodowiecki captured it zooms in on the ethics of viewing Dr. Primrose authorizes, not only with the production of this mimetic medium but also, owing to its overlarge size, with its inevitable display in the kitchen where it became “the jest of all our neighbours” (Goldsmith 71) . Deborah’s eroticized bodily representation is as much authorized by Dr. Primrose as the squire’s posture at Olivia’s feet, which the vicar misinterprets as an unmistakable sign of Thornhill’s desire to become his son-in-law.Not alert to the potential readability of the picture as a caricature or as an accurate reflection of the family’s disconnectedness and flaws, the vicar insists that the family – including himself – were “perfectly satisfied” (Goldsmith 71) with the performance and the manner of depicting the individual characters. Seeking to promote a public representation of his taste and social aspirations, the vicar unexpectedly not only invites “jest[s]” but also moral censure. For he does not appear to realize that the manner of representation and the ethical relationships among the figures painted are open to interpretations that go beyond the supposed “taste” the family demonstrated in their monumental capturing of its own dysfunction. The individuals painted consequently “embody the narrative’s self-reflexive concern with the troubling exchange between private experience and public performance” (Flint 128) . At the same time, the canvas illustrates the vicar’s detachment from the real-life concerns that govern ethical relationships in a moral economy in which reputation is valued highly and fiercely guarded. Introduced into a setting where he is flanked by a Roman goddess and a pastoral shepherdess, he is defined by romance rather than the reality of the need to assert an ethical identity for himself as pater familias of the disparate group (not resembling a family) with which he is depicted. No attempt is made “to repress their [the figures’] differences in the name of either unity and harmony or oppositions that would institute a hierarchy of values” (Ginsburg 412) .It is clearly a misreading of the narrative when David Durant maintains that Goldsmith’s novel hinges on a “separation of experience and principle” (Durant 478) , as too frequently the vicar’s principles are informed by prejudice rather than well-founded insight. No principle – neither modesty nor a concern for the public perception of a private (declared wrongly as a “historical” ) representation of his family’s vanity – is introduced when the cause of taste is ostensibly defended by the production of the family portrait. The painting is an instance of the family’s material longing and contradicts such interpretations that read the vicar as Joblike, “Job-Primrose [being]…the good man whose goodness causes the misfortunes which test him” (Durant 482) . The publicly viewed painting undermines Dr. Primrose’s judgment and ethical standing, and this perception is a misfortune of his own making and the result of his ethical failure to guard the reputation of his family. The iconic narrative of the painting – once transformed into verbal gossip – gives rise to “malicious suggestions” and “Scandalous whispers” (Goldsmith 71) that reveal the vicar’s lack of taste at best and his ethical ignorance at worst–a narrative that he is unable to control, shape, or dispel.In contrast to his questionable, private ethical choices, the vicar is steadfast and guided by unshakable ethical standards where his flock is concerned. That Dr. Primrose is indeed capable of protesting against and preventing unethical behaviour is evidenced when he admonishes his parishioners who, apprised of his being arrested, are ready to liberate him from the officers of law.
We were now got from my late dwelling about two miles, when we saw a crowd running and shouting behind us, consisting of about fifty of my poorest parishioners. These, with dreadful imprecations, soon seized upon the two officers of justice, and swearing they would never see their minister go to goal while they had a drop of blood to shed in his defence, were going to use them with great severity. The consequences might have been fatal, had I not immediately interposed, and with some difficulty rescued the officers from the hands of the enraged multitude. (Goldsmith 123)

The parishioners’ attachment to their pastor finds expression through their willingness to resist the law of man. This decision is underpinned by the natural connection supposed to exist between the vicar and his flock. But the militant character of this effort, including the risk of physical injury, runs counter to an ethical order that should ensure that harm comes to no one. Personal loyalty to Dr. Primrose thus conflicts with an obedience to the law made by man. Importantly, the news of the vicar’s imprisonment, whether the reasons for it were known among his parishioners or not, stirs the community into action. For the character the parishioners attach to him is one of a moral paragon distinct from themselves and possessed of the spiritual insight they lack. Their reverence for him thus entails an unquestioning trust in his integrity. Just as much as the vicar “believes the family requires the principle of ‘subordination’ to preserve order and morality, and subordination is Providentially ordained” (Dykstal 331) , so the parishioners unquestioningly accept his authority and status as a divine as both mysterious and oracular. At the same time, the private individual Dr. Primrose has likely not been able to keep knowledge of his own ethical inconsistency within the domestic realm of his own family from them. But it is the parishioners’ inability to pass judgment on his ethical behaviour in the home based on their social inequality with him that ensures his position within the religious community over which he presides.

Rather than explain why their opposing the officers of law is unethical, Dr. Primrose instead reminds them of “the duty you owe to God, to your country, and to me” (Goldsmith 124) . This is, however, merely a rhetorical gesture, as the mention of God, country, and the vicar himself creates the impression of these terms’ metonymical sameness. But this is not the case, since the laws of the country hold Dr. Primrose accountable for a legal transaction (a debt) he entered into and is now not able to discharge. The reference to the vicar himself invokes his role as pastor and moral guide, rather than as the individual whose misfortune the parishioners have assembled to resolve. Still, the unreliable narrator uses the authority he holds over the community to remind them of a vaguely introduced duty. He does not, however, specify what this duty entails beyond taking his word as undisputable. He asserts confidently that they were in the wrong to oppose the officers of the law and then states that they “repent[ed]” their transgressions, but it is not explained precisely what it is that is being repented or in what sense they disobeyed Dr. Primrose in the first place. The vicar frames his reproach to his flock in terms of their having been “seduced” into an unethical act of disobedience. He does not motivate or rationalize his rejection of the parishioners’ action to liberate him: “[H]is law is primarily negative, prescribing rules to obey rather than describing a virtue to emulate” (Dykstal 335) , a persistent problem which also resulted in Olivia’s disobedience and elopement. He expects that his parishioners accept at face value his pronouncements, without the necessity of presenting a reasoned argument that will impress upon his listeners the logical, ethical argument against their applying violence to set him free.That the vicar is successful in changing the course of events by insisting on the duty and obedience they owe to him is clear in the case of his parishioners. But, then, he is preaching to the converted. He encounters a fundamentally different audience in prison, where he develops a plan of reforming the inmates, an undertaking that is initially met with ridicule on their part. As a religious missionary, he seeks to assist them as they reclaim their lives and become useful citizens of the society. And yet, his account of himself is still self-congratulatory, informed by vanity, rather than by the selfless desire to do good.It was now that I applauded my perseverance and address at thus giving sensibility to wretches divested of every moral feeling, and now began to think of doing them temporal service also, by rendering their situation somewhat more comfortable. …I did not stop here, but instituted fines for the punishment of immorality, and rewards for peculiar industry. Thus in less than a fortnight I had formed them into something social and humane, and had the pleasure of regarding myself as a legislator, who had brought men from their native ferocity into friendship and obedience. (Goldsmith 132-133)

Within the legal structure of the prison, he – without proper authorization – sets up a legal structure devised by himself, one that curtails self-determination even further than that imposed by the officers of law. Even though he has been largely disenfranchised through his own incarceration, he sets himself up as “legislator. ” He aids the prison inmates to an income-generating working life, rather than contributing primarily to their spiritual edification. In fact,“he re-establishes his authority as pastor and father on the basis of a new and sentimental ethic of sincerity, forged out his identification with the prisoners” (Murray 329) . In the process, he succeeds in harnessing self-interest centred in the desire for gain, converting those he communes with into industrious workers taking responsibility for their own livelihood.

Goldsmith’s novel presents surprisingly few instances of the vicar’s performance of his spiritual duties as a clergyman. Church services and sermons are cursorily mentioned by the narrator, but, apart from a vaguely defined ethos of charity and the esteem in which his parishioners hold him, little concrete information is provided by the vicar about his faith and about his instruction of others in it. It is only in prison where he is moved by what he terms the” highest compassion” (Goldsmith 128) to assist his fellow inmates that he seeks to undertake the prisoners' reformation by turning missionary of sorts: aiming to facilitate their self-sufficiency through work, he introduces the optimism that had characterized most of the narrative, specifically his belief that individuals who have committed crimes of whatever kind (such as his daughter, Olivia, and Mr. Jenkinson) can change, be forgiven, and be reintegrated into society. His ethical stance is thus motivated by his conviction that everyone can be redeemed if only they repent but also by his confidence in his own ability to bring about this reformation. His undertaking is not, however, fundamentally religious: it is an ethos of activity rather than of faith that will bring about a change in the prison community’s indolent way of life. For the prisoners gain in usefulness – an early step in their potential rehabilitation. But this process does not depend on their belief in God. In this respect, rather than acting primarily as a man of the church, the clergyman Dr. Primrose affects change as an ethical individual promoting improvement through secular means.The vicar’s hopeful outlook and faith in the redeemability of man are shattered once he learns that his son likely faces the death sentence and that his daughter, Sophia, has been abducted. Having previously trusted in God to sustain him and his family in their fall from affluence to poverty, as a result of his sense of loss and hopelessness he delivers a long exhortation to the prison inmates in which he dramatizes his own despair through a religious message of resignation. He explains that not only theirs but all human existence is a life of perpetual suffering in which happiness is fleeting. They should look to overcoming their earthly burdens by trusting to a better state of existence after death. This sermon, the only one in The Vicar of Wakefield, occupies the entirety of chapter 29 and offers a view regarding human life that is diametrically opposed to the optimism and hopefulness the vicar had promoted in the narrative up to this point.Clearly, his own personal suffering and especially the (to him near) certain loss of his children have induced a bitterness that it should have been his duty as a clergyman of the Church of England to combat. He exhorts his listeners in the manner of a man of the cloth but delivers a message in his sermon that is personal in that it is underpinned by his own acute suffering. In other words, he unethically advances a view of human existence that is not sanctioned by the Christian way of life of hope. Quite the opposite: no longer advocating industry to improve man’s lot, he ethically irresponsibly casts human life as one of woe and hopelessness. In fact, he adduces the prevalence of suicide as a symptom of the misery of human existence, which to those who end their lives has become unbearable. Remarkably, he does not remonstrate against suicide or define it, as the Catholic faith holds, as a mortal sin. He simply, without ethical caution, acknowledges it as an effect of the human condition. Instead, he appeals to his listeners to trust in religion to furnish “comfort” (Goldsmith 145) . This “comfort” consists in the “heavenly bliss” (145) and “endless felicity” (146) only after death, as well as a diminishing of the “pain” (146) of the unhappy on earth. The final exhortation provides an unconvincing solution to the suffering of humankind, since Dr. Primrose does not encourage faith but the vague entity religion (including an implicit death wish) to bring an intangible hope to those who are already hopeless and despairing. It represents an unethical action on his part, which is contradicted by his own actions as his fortunes change and that which he thought lost is recovered.Throughout the narrative, the vicar expounds on his (professional) qualification and ability, even while in the same scenes he is shown to be deficient in the ways he instructs those he has in his care. His character is invested with an ethical responsibility and duty, but he repeatedly fails in judging ethically, even though in his public role as a clergyman he frequently does better than he does as a father and a husband. In this respect, modern readers should be sensitive to the ways in which flaws pervade his ethical identity – a centralizing of the character’s flawed moral being that is diametrically opposed to readings that attribute “heroic status” to him as a result of his acquisition of “understanding and fortitude” (Ferguson, “Goldsmith as Ironist” 227) in the wake of Olivia’s elopement and her recovery. Compared to the vicar, the Reverend Mr. Wilmot, a fellow clergyman, introduced especially for his love of money, as well as for opposing Dr. Primrose’s Whistonian notion of monogamy, is a more striking example of an unethical clergyman: he, too, judges by appearance, rather than by intrinsic qualities of personal worth. But he is devoid of the benevolence that redeems Dr. Primrose at least as a clergyman.Criticism of the clergy is, however, not the only criticism of socially powerful individuals that Goldsmith introduces, for even Sir William Thornhill, alias Mr. Burchell, appears to be disingenuous, at least in his characterization of his future father-in-law. Dr. Primrose’s realization, at the end of the novel, of Sir William’s true identity also brings about the realization that his family has not treated him according to his rank – irrespective of the personal qualities which the family, although not consistently throughout the narrative, commended.
We now found the personage whom we had so long entertained as an harmless amusing companion was no other than the celebrated Sir William Thornhill, to whose virtues and singularities scarce any were strangers. The poor Mr. Burchell was in reality a man of large fortune and great interest, to whom senates listened with applause, and whom party heard with conviction; who was the friend of his country, but loyal to his king. My poor wife recollecting her former familiarity, seemed to shrink with apprehension; but Sophia, who a few moments before thought him her own, now perceiving the immense distance to which he was removed by fortune, was unable to conceal her tears. (Goldsmith 152-153)The vicar’s ethical understanding appears to be inflected by what is due to individuals from different social classes. Only Sophia, who had been steadfast in her affection for Mr. Burchell, is devastated by the discovery that her lover is not poor. For she assumes, aligned with her parents' ethics of class, that marrying Sir William is as impossible as Mrs. Primrose had judged the prospect of a marriage between Sophia and Mr. Burchell. Sophia’s ethical understanding of his worth has not changed; hence her spontaneous, public shedding of tears as a result not only of her disappointment but also of what she considers the hopelessness of her love. Dr. Primrose’s voice as narrator does not, however, admit and acknowledge repeated and grave errors of judgment in relation to Mr. Burchell and shifts the embarrassment onto his wife. In this he acts hypocritically, especially since as the supposed law-maker in the household, he should have prevented his wife from insulting Mr. Burchell. Thus not taking responsibility for the indignity offered to Mr. Burchell, Dr. Primrose once again, at least narratologically, casts himself as blameless.That Goldsmith appears to be complicit in a desire to obscure, albeit not effectively, the unethical and inconsistent behaviour and thinking of Dr. Primrose is also instanced by the manner in which Sir William speaks of the vicar when he repairs to prison to investigate the reasons for the latter’s incarceration:
I am now come to see justice done a worthy man, for whom I have the most sincere es-teem. I have long been a disguised spectator of thy father’s benevolence, I have at his little dwelling enjoyed respect uncontaminated by flattery. (Goldsmith 152)
Sir William’s characterization as would-be judge, as part of the ethical code of eighteenth-century decorum, glosses over the complimentary reception he received in the Primrose household when he expressed doubt as to the respectability of the two ladies (in reality, prostitutes)  whom his nephew had recruited to aid him to seduce Olivia. Instead, he highlights the hospitality he enjoyed as well as the benevolence he witnessed. Especially towards the poor, Dr. Primrose consistently behaved ethically, supporting those it was in his power to succour. Sir William insists that he did not encounter the “flattery” that he is used to as a baronet, but this statement is illogical, since no-one would have flattered his alter ego, Mr. Burchell, who was assumed to be poor. Nevertheless, his introduction into the prison as deus ex machina reinforces his powerful position as someone who will right the wrongs the Primrose family have experienced. According to Wendy Anne Lee, he “is effectively the king of this novel, and he issues his commandments in the very idiom of sovereign power” (Lee 197) . His ethical standards, which are exacting and, in the case of his nephew’s punishment, severely applied, appear to be reformulated decorously, however, when he considers the way in which he publicly expresses his “sincere esteem” for his future-father-in-law. As his alter ego, “Burchell is established as a foil to the Vicar: he is virtuous, but active. His militant virtue comes from the fact that he is a-principled at least in the Vicar’s debilitating terms” (Durant 485) . And yet Mr. Burchell’s public ethical identity is ambiguous and subject to misinterpretation; he represents meaning in flux that will be fixed when he appears in the prison as Sir William. In this respect, “Sir William, as Mr. Burchell, often falls short of the authoritative: he cannot write an unequivocal letter, complete a third-person narrative, nor refrain from repeating the word ‘fudge’” (Loveridge 25) . Once revealed to be Sir William, however, he performs his ethical identity differently from Mr. Burchell, in line with the ethical environment of his rank and societal function. His ethical insight, gained through experience, is now constrained by the rules of decorum, which his alter ego repeatedly ignored. Fundamentally, no stranger to idiosyncrasy of character himself, Sir William is convinced that his future father-in-law’s ethical identity is one of moral goodness and that, for that reason, he can ally himself to the family.Even though younger than Dr. Primrose, Sir William possesses a mature ethical judgment that is egalitarian. For he treats the Primroses as equals, at the same time that his “esteem” for the pater familias does not blind him against the latter’s faults. Once the marriage union between Sir William and Sophia has taken place, however, a new pater familias will be at the head of a new family that will be governed and regulated according to ethical principles strictly applied and devoid of the inconsistency manifested by Dr. Primrose’s words and actions. Goldsmith’s portrayal of an orthodox clergyman, who was expected to possess Christian qualities of charity and benevolence, as well as ethical modes and ways of interacting with others, allows the reader – especially through the means of unreliable narration – to witness inconsistencies that weaken and, at times, undermine Dr. Primrose’s ethical credibility. In this regard, the citizen of the world and commoner, Mr. Burchell, represents an ethical being that is given real, political power once he is revealed to be an aristocrat-cum-egalitarian: to Sir William, the truth, as well as the cultivation of what is right and the rejection of what is wrong, matter above all other considerations. To the vicar, the truth largely constitutes “an abstract meaning beyond experience” (Haggerty 28) , an inflexible principle he seeks to live by, but he repeatedly finds himself unable to fathom. Once he collapses the barrier between public and private existence in the prison, he gains insight that will allow him to reform his ethical identity. Through “acts of selflessness, ”very much like Mr. Burchell’s hazardous rescue of Sophia from the stream, Dr. Primrose “liberate[s] him[self] from privacy” (Haggerty 33) , in the process establishing afresh ethical relationships with his family and parishioners.

责任编辑：张爱平

此文原载于《外国文学研究》2023年第6期

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