59 pages • 1 hour read
Sarah PerryThe Essex Serpent
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “To Keep a Constant Watch”
Part 3, Chapter 6 Summary: “June”
As summer arrives, “the Essex Serpent recedes for a time, since how could it thrive under so benevolent a sum?” (176). Banks catches fish, Naomi sits on the shore, and Stella collects flowers. Will sleeps before a half-written letter. Cora is planning a midsummer party; Martha peels eggs, and Charles and Katherine have been invited, as has Garrett. Will visits a sickly Cracknell. Spencer visits Charles in London and is introduced to people who might help with his “sudden philanthropic bent” (177). Cora walks through the countryside, still thinking of Will. She resents being considered at fault. She also misses the rest of the Ransome family. She thinks about Stella’s condition and her newfound obsession with the color blue.
Stella, Will, and Joanna go to the party. Will is nervous. Though the doctor has told the family that Stella has the flu, she “[knows] consumption when she saw it speckle the white folds of a handkerchief” (181). She has not yet told Will. When they arrive, Cora seems almost a stranger to Will. The rest of the guests arrive. Will wishes he could sit down and talk to Cora but he cannot and he tries again “to rouse himself to anger” (183) but it will not come. He apologizes to Garrett and the two talk; Garrett’s medical speak makes Will feel faint. Joanna plays a stuttering waltz on the old piano and the guests dance. Garrett asks Cora to dance, but Stella insists that Cora dance with Will. Francis watches and notes that Martha and Garrett have the same look on their face, both “a little afraid” (185). Cora and Will dance a few steps and then stop. The guests leave shortly after as midnight approaches. Francis notices an awkward aura that had descended on his mother after her dance with Will; Katherine had noticed a similar moment between them. Martha and Garrett tidy up as Cora goes to bed. They grow “companionable in fear” (187) and discuss how often Cora mentions Will’s name. Martha believes that Cora is “collecting” (187) Will like one of her natural specimens. The two feel their “antipathy ebb” (188), and Martha invites Garrett to her room. They have sex, wearing “each other like hand-me-down coats” (188). Elsewhere, Will walks alone on the common, “raging” (188) at his own desires.
Francis slips out of the house in the night. In his quest to understand the world, only Stella deserves his “patience” (190). He sympathizes with her collections of blue objects. He walks out to the salt flats near World’s End and sees a “bundle of cloth” (191) beside the Leviathan. It moves. He investigates and finds Cracknell, who becomes toward him and tries to say something. Cracknell begs Francis to fetch Will. Francis understands that Cracknell is dying and sees “no sense in wasting time” (192). Cracknell dies, and Francis sits with the body as dawn rises. At four o’clock that morning, Cora writes to Will, admitting that she was happy when her husband died and saying that she is to return to London “for a while” (195).
Joanna finds her father in his church the next day. He is removing the wooden Serpent from the pew. As she tries to stop him, Naomi enters the church and announces that “it’s come again!” (197). Will arrives at the march and sees Cracknell’s dead body, on which Francis has left a “silver fork and a grey stone pierced with a hole” (197). Francis stands on the edge of the crowd. He has stolen a brass button from Cracknell but soon loses interest.
Will sends a postcard to Cora and thanks her for her letter. Garrett writes to Will, recommending that Stella visit a doctor “as soon as possible” (198). Will writes to Cora, telling her that Cracknell is dead and the “villagers are in uproar” (200). He is struggling to know what to do. Stella will visit the doctor in the coming week. Will admits his “longing” (201) for Cora and refuses to be ashamed or troubled. After a week, Will has not received a reply. He writes again, worried that he spoke “too freely” (203). He admits that he is concerned about Stella; they travel to London the next day to visit the doctor.
Stella attends her appointment. Will and Garrett are present as Dr. Butler announces that he has “no doubt in my mind of tuberculosis” (204). Will is concerned and protests the diagnosis. Stella demands to see her mucus sample under a microscope. Garrett recommends a surgical treatment and Will is furious, accusing the Imp of treating Stella like “one of your cadavers” (207). They argue. Stella interrupts to remind them that her body is her own.
Part 3, Chapter 7 Summary: “July”
In Aldwinter, Naomi has gone missing. She has left a note that reads “COMING READY OR NOT” (209), and her inconsolable father sails the estuary. The village “is wary” (209); they are sure the Essex Serpent killed Cracknell. A watch is set up, and children are confined indoors. Stella writes secretly in a blue book that Will is not allowed to read. Will tries to remain positive in his sermons. He is no longer certain that the Essex Serpent is a myth, and he “hears nothing from Cora” (210). Cora reads her letters but “does not reply” (210). She spends too much money and meets regularly with Garrett. Martha and Garrett find “an ease which is like that of fellow soldiers who’ve survived a common battle” (210). They have a tacit agreement not to mention their evening together to Spencer. Martha meets with Burton, and they plan new social housing. Hall lurks in the shadows, plotting to stab Burton again. Cracknell is buried, and Will takes to walking to unspool his thoughts. He “bargains with God, as Gideon once did” (212).
Garrett writes to Cora in late July and confesses his love for her. He describes his love for her in detail, but he knows that she will not love him in return. Stella writes in her blue book, her “holy book with blue ink on the blue page and stitched up in threads blue as blue-blooded veins that are blue” (215). Her children have been taken from her. She believes that she bears her condition “well enough” (215).
Part 3, Chapter 8 Summary: “August”
Charles wanders the impoverished streets of Bethnal Green, comparing them to animals in a zoo. He meets with Spencer, Martha, and Garrett in Burton’s home. They eat lemon biscuits served by Burton’s mother. Garrett is relived to have finally told Cora his true feelings, likening his letter to “lancing a boil” (218). Leaving Burton at home, the others walk the streets and viewing the “miserable scene” (219). Martha and Garrett talk, discussing Spencer’s infatuation with Martha as the reason for his sudden philanthropy. Martha feels guilty, and Garrett asks her to “let [Spencer] down easy” (220). She accuses Charles of not caring for the poor; a bill has been passed, he assures her, and the “policies are in place” (220). When an organ grinder puts on a show in the street, Spencer is appalled and Martha despises him for it. Hall watches them from an alley; he has come to resent Garrett as much as Burton. The music stops. Hall pushes through he confused crowd toward Garrett. Spencer intervenes and a fight breaks out. Hall is knocked to the ground and smashes his head on a curbstone. Garrett has been stabbed and “from collar to belt his shirt was scarlet” (224) and the tendons and muscles of his right hand have been torn open to the bone. Garrett slips into unconsciousness.
Cora’s time in London has been “dreary” (225). Katherine and Charles have taken in the Ransome children following Stella’s diagnosis. Katherine and Joanna visit Cora; Katherine asks her for the truth about what happened between Will and Cora. She receives a terse reply; Cora insists that “there was nothing strange: we enjoyed each other’s company for a time, that is all” (226). Cora is struggling to come to terms with the issue herself. She had convinced herself their love was impossible and blames herself for what happened. Garrett’s letter has also thrown her “off-balance” (226). She posts a letter to Garret “with a kind of contempt” (227) and sees the same organ grinder who had played during the attack. Cora places a few coins in his cap.
In her letter, Cora asks Garrett “how could you” (228). Friendship, she claims, is all that she has to give him. She tells him to “leave it there” (228). A day later, she writes a second letter after learning about the attack. She asks when she can visit him. Spencer writes to Cora without Garrett’s knowledge and says that he would “never have thought you capable of such cruelty” (230). Spencer then details the terrible injury Garrett has suffered: Spencer operates, and Garrett places himself under a hypnotic trance rather than succumb to anesthetic; Garrett tells Spencer what to do and falls under; Spencer then calls for the anesthetist. The surgery is not enough. Garrett wakes and knows exactly what Spencer has done. He refuses visitors for two days. Spencer then accompanies Garrett to his home, and Garrett reads Cora’s letter: “[W]here the knife failed, you have succeeded. He is shattered” (232). Three weeks pass and “there has been no good news” (232). Garrett cannot write or hold a pen; he is “absent [and] has no resolve” (232).
Part 3 Analysis
Part 3 is the point at which the narrative pivots for so many characters. Will and Cora share their moment of tentative romance; Stella comes to terms with the reality of her illness; and Garrett is stabbed in the hand and loses his ability to perform surgery. Perhaps the most important of all is the stilted dance between Will and Cora. The moment barely lasts a few seconds, but forever alters the lives of the two characters, as well as those in the room. The text treats the moment with a delicate subtlety: “[T]here was a quiet moment, and no-one spoke” (185), but the importance of the event is captured in the other guests’ reactions: Francis notices his mother smile, Martha withdraws and stands beside Garrett, and there is a flash of fear etched across their faces. The burgeoning romance between Will and Cora is scandalous. A widow and a married priest cannot seemingly be together, but the moment is charged with romantic energy.
Katherine, later in the story, will be prompted to ask Cora about the true nature of the relationship as she could feel the palpable chemistry between the two. However, as quickly as it begins, it is over. Joanna stops playing the piano and the party disintegrates, but the effects of the moment are felt long afterward. Cora finds herself awake in the early hours of the morning and writes to Will, stating that she must return to London. Will stalks along the paths of Aldwinter and masturbates alone in the forest, seeking some form of sexual relief but brings further shame upon him. Even Francis is affected; he ventures out to the shoreline in the night and sees Cracknell die. Later, the reverberations will be even greater. In one quiet moment, the entire narrative pivots into a different direction.
If the moment between Will and Cora is a sudden sharp turn, then Stella’s diagnosis seems predictable and inevitable. She travels to London after agreeing to meet with Garrett’s recommended doctor. Even before this, she expects that she has tuberculosis. When this is finally diagnosed, she is not shocked. Though Will is worried, Stella is resigned to the life-changing news. She has already begun to take action, collecting blue objects and writing in her book. While Will rages and grasps at solutions, Stella quietly deals with her problems. While potential scandal emerges between her husband and Cora, Stella faces her own mortality with a quiet, dignified courage. Her calm, reasoned approach differs starkly from that of her husband. By juxtaposing the two life-changing events, the text imbues Stella with an admirable degree of strength, especially compared to her husband.
Garrett’s injury is just as life-changing. He has always dreamed of being a surgeon. He has pushed the field further than any of his British contemporaries and is finally beginning to receive plaudits for his skills. However, the attack ruins the tendons in his hand, and he knows that he will never be able to exercise the fine control needed to perform experimental surgeries. Garrett must face up to the fact that he will never be able to achieve his dreams. He will have to live with his own inadequacy—his one defining trait stolen from him by a random act of violence. It is unfair and brutal; it crushes his spirits and is made all the worse by Cora’s angry accusations that he has ruined their friendship by declaring his love for her. In the space of a few days, Garrett loses everything he had always wanted. He has lost the things that he had used to define himself. He even loses Spencer, who failed to adhere to the promise not to use anesthesia during the surgery. From a confident, cocky young surgeon, Garrett is thrown into a dark, depressing place. He loses everything and must find a new way to achieve a purpose in his life. His condition is just as terminal as Stella’s and just as life-altering as Will and Cora’s. Lacking Stella’s quiet resolve, Garrett must find his own way to escape from the overbearing dread that has fallen over his existence.
