Failure of Family and Irony in The Vicar of Wakefield

Introduction: The Primrose Family and the Problem of Virtue

Tolstoy states that every happy family is the same (Tolstoy 1). He says this because happiness is the effect of a life well lived and not of any other cause, which is also the philosophy of Plato (Plato 47). Unhappy families, however, are unhappy mainly because they have failed to live well, or virtuously. That is the case of the Primrose family in The Vicar of Wakefield: the family undergoes terrible misfortunes mainly because it fails to live for the good or to understand its own place in the world. The primary responsibility for the misfortune falls on the parents, who fail to recognize their own faults and do not raise their children correctly. The parents also fail to realize who they are in social terms and thus deceive themselves as to their actual social value. This paper argues that the failure of family in Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield is what causes the novel's misfortune and that it is only through rescue from outside the family that happiness and order are restored.

A good family is one that is humble and virtuous and does not simply talk about how good it is to be humble and virtuous, as Dr. Primrose does at the beginning of the novel (Goldsmith 1). A real family interacts with one another, is patient with one another, suffers wrongdoings, and does not go around judging others. It does not promote arrogance, but faithfully adheres to lessons passed down from generation to generation (Rollins). Yet the Primrose family hardly interacts except to lecture one another. It does not patiently accept wrongs. It is judgmental. And it is not very perceptive. It is disconnected from the past and its only focus is on the immediate incidents within the immediate family's own history, as related by Dr. Primrose. The fact that the father does not ever really raise his children — his son he sends off to school and his daughters are empty-headed — shows that he does not fulfill his duty as a father. He thinks he is a good man simply because he marries and has children, which he says is what an "honest man" should do (Goldsmith 1). But it is evident that Dr. Primrose views himself as an "honest man" first and then looks at his actions to support that assumption. Instead, he should examine his actions to determine whether he is an honest man. He is backwards and unreliable as a narrator (Nunning 236).

To some extent, Dr. Primrose is like Mr. Collins in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Both may mean well, but their actions reveal them as ridiculous to anyone with good sense. As Zomchick states, Dr. Primrose cannot be the leader he should be "in his own family without transgressing the text's sentimental presuppositions and destroying the harmonious domestic idyll that the narrative struggles to maintain" (Zomchick 169). In this sense, the whole family dynamic is built around pretension, self-deception, and sentimentality — and it all stems from Dr. Primrose, who is naive about what the real world is all about.

Dr. Primrose as an Unreliable Narrator and Ironic Character

The fact that Primrose is not who he thinks he is becomes evident from the beginning. He thinks of himself as masculine and good (Goldsmith 1), and indeed he is given two distinguished titles — Reverend and Doctor — and an august Christian name, Charles. His surname Primrose, however, is not very masculine. Prim is a term similar to prudish — meaning overly proper — and is often associated with women, as in "a prim and proper lady." Rose is a flower with a feminine association. So, as head of both church and family, the Vicar should be a manly sort of man. Yet his name alone tells the reader that he is fastidious and full of affectation. The latter quality leads to personal deception, and thus the reader should be on guard against being misled by Primrose's own assessment of himself as an "honest man" (Goldsmith 1) who considers himself well-educated. Dr. Primrose is an unintentionally ironic character who can easily deceive the reader because he is so apparently well-intentioned. Yet the astute reader will find humor in the ironies that Dr. Primrose unintentionally displays (Goldsmith 3).

Dr. Primrose demonstrates his obliviousness to good sense when he praises himself for being read by "a happy few," even as the tracts he writes fail to sell well (Goldsmith 3). He then discusses composing an epitaph for his wife even though she is very much alive, describing her as "obedient unto death" — a quality that cannot possibly have been proven, since she still has much life to live. It is as though Primrose is browbeating his wife without realizing it, for in praising her he is really singing his own praises: "Look at what a wonderful woman I married — I am so intelligent to have chosen such a great one, and I will never marry another even if she dies because I am a strict monogamist." The joke is apparent: he does not understand the meaning of monogamy at all. He also does not understand how a husband ought to behave, or what St. Paul says on the subject. St. Paul states, "Husbands, love your wives" (Eph. 5:25). Hanging a sign over a chimney reminding one's wife to be good is not an indication of real love but rather of a superiority complex. Such an act is done either by a man who is aware of the joke and makes it out of loving affection, or by one who is entirely unaware of its humor and does it with all seriousness — because he is, like Mr. Collins of Pride and Prejudice, a pompous buffoon without any sense of self.

Part of the reason for Primrose's self-deception is that his country life has been so tranquil and peaceful for so long. For twenty years he and his family sit by the fireside and have their "adventures," but they never face any real complications or challenges. One of the lessons that Paul Tough discusses in How Children Succeed is that children need challenges and obstacles so that later in life they are ready to meet real difficulties and can "draw on reserves of self-confidence" (Tough 37). This lesson applies directly to The Vicar of Wakefield, because for so long there are no challenges or obstacles for the family. Dr. Primrose is drawing on self-confidence that is deceptive because it has never really been tested. When it finally is tested by the misfortunes that befall the family, his life becomes "real" — but in becoming real through affliction, the novel loses its humor. The irony fades into straightforward narrative, causing the novel to shift from one mode to another over the course of just a few chapters.

Poor Parenting and the Failure of Family Duty

So while a good family is one in which everyone understands his role and does his duty, the Primrose family fails to comprehend the basic nature of family. Family gives more than it takes (Rollins), but the Primrose family is wholly occupied with claiming honor it has not earned. For example, Dr. Primrose calls himself honest without providing any evidence for this claim. His daughter claims to be well-trained in converting "free thinkers," yet the evidence suggests just the opposite (Goldsmith 21). And the mother and father have hardly any real interaction with their children. A good mother has a strong relationship with her daughters and loves them unconditionally (Rollins), but this is not the case with Mrs. Primrose. She has to be "prepped" by Dr. Primrose to accept the return of her daughter after the latter runs away. A good Christian mother following the advice of St. Paul would not need such preparation. When it comes to parents, St. Paul says, "But if any man have not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel" (I Tim. 5:8). One could argue, therefore, that Mr. and Mrs. Primrose do not even act like Christian parents in this respect. This failure is particularly evident in the case of Olivia, who is not given proper guidance or understanding. Instead, her parents simply accept that she knows what she is doing when she speaks of converting a man who does not share her faith (Goldsmith 21). It is a moment of poor parenting.

In fact, the delusion is evident from the very beginning. At the outset of his story, Primrose states that a good wife will provide clothes and food for the family, presenting this as his wife's best quality. But there is more to being a wife and mother than cooking and sewing. There is also more to being a good father than preaching from a pulpit and telling others to be virtuous. Part of what fatherhood requires is raising children to know right from wrong — and this is precisely what does not happen in the story, as the family cannot distinguish good people from bad ones, as is evident in their seduction by a man with evil intentions. So when they fall apart and have to be rescued by an outsider, it is not surprising.

The novel opens with the narrator's exposition about his family, providing background about his wife, son, and daughters. It also reveals something important about the narrator himself — that he holds a high opinion of himself and his manner of raising a family. His remarks about his daughters' dispositions being largely shaped by their physical appearances are especially telling: he views men and women differently and holds them to different standards. His son he sends to Oxford; his daughters are thought of only in terms of finding a suitable mate. This is consistent with his theory in the novel's first sentence, that an honest man should marry and have a family. The Vicar is, at least, consistent in his limitations.

Conclusion: Self-Deception and the Limits of False Virtue

In conclusion, The Vicar of Wakefield is a novel about a family that does not act as a family should. For that reason it experiences great misfortune. It is unprepared to deal with the real world. It is not exercised in virtue but only in how to talk about it. And the head of the family is chiefly to blame, because he does not know himself but only thinks well of himself. He believes everything should be formulaic, formal, and proper — which accounts for his name, Primrose. He is not a very masculine person, and this adds to the problems within his family, as he crumbles under the weight of misfortune and acts as though there is nothing he can do. His wife is not of much help because she does not have a strong relationship with her daughters — shown by the fact that Primrose must "prepare her" for Olivia's return, which should not be necessary if the wife had truly connected with her children. Indeed, a strong mother–daughter relationship would likely have prevented Olivia from running off in the first place.

In the end, the family must be saved from outside, just as, by analogy, sinners must be saved by a power beyond themselves. The family cannot save themselves, yet they believe themselves to be good throughout and never show any genuine reflection or growth. This is the ultimate irony of the novel: a family that speaks constantly of virtue is incapable of practicing it, and a father who fancies himself a moral guide cannot guide his own household.

Works Cited

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Dahl, Curtis. "Patterns of Disguise in The Vicar of Wakefield." ELH — Johns Hopkins University Press, vol. 25, no. 2 (1958): 90–104. Print.

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Nunning, Vera. "Unreliable Narration and the Historical Variability of Values and Norms: The Vicar of Wakefield as a Test Case of a Cultural-Historical Narratology." Style, vol. 38, no. 2 (2004): 236.

Plato. Collected Works. Gutenberg. Web. 18 Apr 2015.

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