Caleb Williams

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1794

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Symbols & Motifs

Letters

Letters are a plot device that reveals information to the characters in ways that spur the story along. The letter that Mr. Hawkins writes to Ferdinando, which Caleb finds, proves Mr. Hawkins’s innocence of murdering Barnabas. that the same letter creates Caleb’s need to further investigate Ferdinando by sparking his curiosity.

Letters appear again when Caleb writes one during his attempt to leave the service of Ferdinando; this heightens the tension between the two men and leads Caleb to realize just how bad the consequences of his actions will be. Mr. Forester also writes a letter to Caleb to persuade the latter man to return to town to defend his case. When Caleb receives the letter from Laura telling him to stay away from her, it helps push him over the edge into seeking vengeance against Ferdinando.

The wanted ads, while not letters, similarly work to move the plot along and create conflict between the characters. The wanted ad that describes the Irish robbery is the reason that Caleb never makes it out of England. An ad also is what makes Gines Caleb’s archnemesis because it happens to pass through his office at the right time.

Darkness

Darkness conceals characters or their actions throughout the story. It is as if nighttime allows people to act in secret as they cannot during the daytime. The only time that any of the characters choose to escape is in the dark. Emily flees the night before her wedding because it is the easiest way to travel the roads unseen. Caleb also uses darkness in his escape from Ferdinando’s home and during his later escape from jail. Darkness is also when Caleb puts his disguises on; by morning, his appearance has changed from the day before. In all of these instances, characters who cannot count on support from official channels (most notably the legal system) rely on darkness to pursue their goals.

Darkness works to the law's advantage when it comes to Leonard. Leonard felt it best to go out at night to move the barricades for his father, but it was the time of day that he chose–not the act of moving the objects–that led to his arrest. The Black Act law that Godwin describes in the story reveals the injustice of penalizing innocent people simply for being out at a certain part of the day.

Luck

Caleb is caught in a string of bad luck that surpasses the consequences of his own curiosity and actions; instead, bad things reveal themselves to him purely because things happen to align that way. An example is Caleb stumbling upon Mr. Forester the night he got lost coming back from an errand for Ferdinando. What at first looks like good luck—a chance to plead his case to a sympathetic audience—turns sour when Ferdinando shows up because he just so happened to have a meeting with Mr. Forester scheduled for that day. What’s more, Ferdinando only walks at the exact moment to catch Caleb because unforeseen circumstances delayed him. Another example of this is when Caleb gets arrested for a robbery because of a fake accent that just so happened to match a random crime he had nothing to do with. Even when Caleb is in the middle of nowhere, walking along an empty road, he just so happens to come across Ferdinando traveling in his carriage and is almost seen; normally, the chances of something like that happening would be very slim.

Disguises

Caleb often relies on disguises and lives many of his years on the run disguised as someone else. His disguises include an Irish man, a “deformed” man, and a Jewish man. However, it becomes clear as the story progresses that, while many of the disguises do help him move around town, they ultimately worsen his situation.

For example, the Irish disguise allows Caleb to get passage out of England, but his choice of disguise also causes him to get arrested for a crime he didn’t commit. The “deformed” disguise he creates later helps him find a place to settle and learn a trade from Mr. Spurrel; however, Mr. Spurrel only takes Caleb on because the disguise makes him look like Mr. Spurrel’s dead son. This comes back to bite Caleb when Mr. Spurrel brings Gines home to prove that Caleb is not the wanted man. If Caleb had picked somewhere else to stay, he would have gotten away from Gines easily.