45 pages • 1 hour read
Charles Brockden BrownEdgar Huntly: Or, Memoirs of a Sleepwalker
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1799A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 19-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary
Edgar pauses in the narrative to reiterate that his actions were not in character, that he “had imbibed” a “spirit, vengeful, unrelenting, and ferocious” (182). When the action continues, he steals a gun from one of the Native Americans he killed, tries to run back behind the bank, is grazed by a bullet on his cheek, falls, and shoots another Native American.
He ruminates on his “transition” to killer after waking in the pit and checks on the girl who might have a broken rib. Hearing a gunshot, Edgar grabs another gun of a dead Native American, and hears some whites approach. Among them is the girl’s father (who isn’t dead, as she believed, but this discrepancy the author doesn’t acknowledge this point), and there is a family reunion.
The men question Edgar, but he faints, and they think he is dead. Edgar compares the sensation of waking from his faint to “awakening in the pit”; he sees a “mistiness” and eventually discovers the men put him among the dead Native Americans. The white settlers and girl have left. He goes back into the hovel, sits by the fire, and decides to walk to a nearby road. After loading the gun Sarsefield gave him, Edgar finds a spring where he can drink and wash his wound.
He sees the remaining “savage,” identifiable by his “disfigured limbs, pendants from his ears and nose,” and “shorn locks” (188), approaching from the bushes. Wondering whether he should shoot this man, Edgar cocks his gun, which gets the Native American’s attention, and Edgar shoots him. The wound isn’t fatal, and he must use the bayonet to end the man’s suffering.
When day breaks, Edgar steals a new tomahawk and leaves the Native American’s musket.
Chapter 20 Summary
Edgar tries to find houses but is lost. Eventually, he finds footsteps of cattle which lead to a cornfield and house where a woman feeds him. She informs him that a search party was looking for him. Edgar learns that the hovel belonged to a “Leni Lenape” woman called “Old Deb” or “Queen Mab” (193). She stayed behind when her tribe emigrated to the “banks of the Wabash and Muskingum” (193) and lives with three intimidating “wolf” dogs. Old Deb talks incessantly with these dogs and rarely ventures outside.
Old Deb used to visit Edgar’s uncle’s house, and Edgar learned her language to speak with her. He is the one who gave her the “Queen Mab” nickname because there was some likeness between her and “her whom the poets of old time have delighted to celebrate” (195). During her 20 years in Norwalk, other members of her tribe would regularly visit. Edgar reflects that her dogs would have killed him had she been home when he used her hovel.
Realizing where he is, Edgar hopes to arrive at his hometown of Solesbury—30 miles away—by nightfall.
Chapter 21 Summary
Edgar becomes lost and encounters many obstacles. In seeking the road, he ends up above it and the river. He considers jumping into the river but doesn’t want to give up his gun. Night has fallen, and Edgar tries to curl up in a “bower” of cedar branches. However, it is too cold and uncomfortable for him to sleep; he tries to start a fire, but fails, and returns to wandering along the chasm above the river.
He recognizes a ford where it is less dangerous to jump because of the river’s known depth but pauses when he hears someone. He thinks they may be Native Americans. While Edgar hides, several men pass by, but one stops near his hiding spot. Edgar shoots wildly at this veiled figure and jumps in the river. The still unknown figures (later revealed to be his own search party) shoot at Edgar when he resurfaces, and he swims toward the opposite bank.
Chapters 19-21 Analysis
This section includes more about Edgar’s unreliability as a narrator; from unresolved details, like the captive girl’s father being alive after all—to Edgar’s own admissions, like how the “magnitude of this exploit made [him] question its reality” (183) the reader has reasons to not trust the eponymous sleepwalker. The death-like faint, the “irresistible” desire for sleep, and the sleepless nightly wandering add more doubts about the veracity of Edgar’s claims.
Bloodlines and bloodletting are connected; Edgar believes any Native American will murder him like those that killed his parents, simply because they are part of the same “savage” race. His incorrect assumptions (this isn’t the group that killed his parents; this group didn’t even kill the captive girl’s parents) are, again, part of his unreliability.
Edgar not only perpetuates uncharacteristic violence against Native American, he also shoots on his friends and neighbors in his state of confusion. The latter misconception doesn’t appear in this section, but Edgar notes how his perceptions are clouded, in the passive voice; his “fears instantly interpreted” (204) rather than his rational mind.
Brown’s reference to Native Americans moving to the Wabash river recalls the earlier reference to the Northwest Indian War; the Battle of the Wabash (aka St. Clair’s defeat) occurred in 1791 and would have included the emigrated members of Old Deb’s tribe. Edgar’s “Queen Mab” nickname is an allusion to a fairy described in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
