I am left wondering why Sedgwick chose to tie up the end of the novel so neatly. When Chaddock’s party mistakes Jennet for Hope, it allows for a happy resolution for the majority of the likable characters. Oneco and Faith are allowed to escape, and Hope and Everell’s plot to ensure the safe passage of Magawisca is not interrupted. In exchange for Hope, Sedgwick allows for the capture of Jennet. Jennet is one of the least likable characters in the book, and most readers would not mourn her passing. Gardiner and Chaddock are also portrayed almost exclusively in a negative light. Sedgwick then uses a deus ex machina to get rid of these negative characters. She has Rosa throw a lamp at a conveniently located barrel of gunpowder. Jennet, Gardiner, and Chaddock are all neatly disposed of, and Rosa is allowed to exact revenge for her oppression and mistreatment by Gardiner. The majority of good characters prosper, and the majority of bad characters meet their well-deserved doom.
The reason that the conflict between vengeance and forgiveness is compelling is that human beings are infinitely complex. There are no people who are perfectly bad or good. Sedgwick’s characters would have felt more true to me if Gardiner wasn’t always ill-intentioned, or Esther wasn’t always pure and graceful. Similarly, I would have found the resolution more thought provoking had Sedgwick not chosen to end on an artificially tidy note.
I agree with Nate’s assertion that the characters’ motivations were too one-dimensional leading up to the end of the novel. I would also argue that the novel underwent a significant stylistic shift from a revisionist history focused on the interpersonal struggles of the characters to find their own sense of morality, to a 1600s soap opera. At the beginning of the novel, Magawisca struggled to synthesize her own vision of justice, ultimately deciding to forsake the rigid “natural order” view of righteousness upheld by her tribe. Few actions in the later action of the plot display such ambiguity and complexity as that. The introduction of Esther and Sir Philip into the plot signified an overall shift in characterization towards predictable, black and white archetypes of good and evil.
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