Where Angels Fear to Tread

Caroline Abbott, the novel’s deuteragonist, undergoes a profound moral and emotional awakening. At the outset, she appears to be a conventional product of Sawston society: a “tall, grave, rather nice-looking young lady” (4) devoted to respectable charity work. She is the embodiment of Edwardian social etiquette, which is why she is considered the perfect chaperon for Lilia. However, Caroline’s decision to travel to Italy reveals a latent desire to escape the suffocating confines of her environment. She later confesses to Philip that she hated the “idleness, the stupidity, the respectability, the petty unselfishness” of her life at home (56). This discontent fuels her initial act of rebellion: encouraging Lilia’s marriage to Gino, an explicit challenge to Edwardian moral values. For Caroline, their union represents a blow against the oppressive social codes of the Herritons and a validation of sincere, passionate emotion over rigid propriety. This decision, however, is based on an abstract ideal rather than a true understanding of the people involved. The disastrous consequences of her actions force her into a much deeper and more painful form of self-examination.

Caroline’s development is driven by her direct confrontation with the consequences of her idealism. While Philip’s journey is primarily intellectual, Caroline’s is moral and emotional. The turning point for her is not an idea but an experience: witnessing Gino’s unfiltered, passionate love for his infant son. This observation shatters her conventional English notions of what constitutes a good father or a ‘civilized’ man. Gino’s love, she realizes, is more authentic than anything that she has experienced in England, even if it offends her English sensibilities. The sight of Gino washing his baby forces her to re-evaluate her judgment of him and the cultural values he represents. It is this capacity to see beyond prejudice and connect with a fundamental human emotion that distinguishes her from the other English characters. Her transformation highlights the novel’s theme of The Possibilities of Connection Across Social Divides, suggesting that empathy can overcome even deeply ingrained cultural biases. Where Philip initially dismisses Gino as a cad, Caroline comes to recognize his powerful, if untamed, capacity for love.

Her journey culminates in her secret and unrequited love for Gino, an emotion that almost completes her break from the Sawston ideal. Her passion is not a romantic fancy but a profound, life-altering force. It is this love that gives her the strength and moral authority to intervene in the violent confrontation between Gino and Philip, effectively saving both of their lives. Her confession to Philip—“I love him, and I’m not ashamed of it” (133)—is a declaration of her new identity. She has embraced the passionate, messy reality of life that she once only theorized about. At the same time, however, she does not act upon this love. She returns to England, leaving Gino behind. Unlike Lilia, whose rebellion was shallow and self-serving, Caroline’s transformation is born of genuine empathy and moral courage, but also of self-denial. She returns to Sawston, but she is irrevocably changed, carrying within her the knowledge of a world of feeling that her English peers cannot comprehend.

Gino Carella functions as a complex antagonist and a foil to Philip, embodying the Italian culture that both fascinates and repels the English characters. He is a round character, not because he develops, but because he possesses a contradictory yet coherent nature that defies easy categorization. To the Herritons, he is an uncultured and unacceptable fortune-hunter, the son of a provincial dentist. To Philip, he is initially the destroyer of an idealized Italy, an affront to the high-minded and romanticized version of Italy that Philip has constructed in his mind. But Gino is more than a stereotype; he represents a different way of being, one rooted in physicality, passion, and an unselfconscious connection to life. His charm is natural, his anger is immediate, and his affections are deeply felt. He is not constrained by English notions of propriety or chivalry, a fact that makes him appear both refreshingly authentic and dangerously uncivilized to the visitors from Sawston.

As a husband, Gino reveals the stark cultural differences at the heart of the novel’s conflict. His marriage to Lilia is governed by a patriarchal worldview that is completely alien to her expectations. He believes in a husband’s authority and sees no hypocrisy in restricting his wife’s freedom while maintaining his own. His treatment of Lilia is not born of calculated malice but of a deeply ingrained cultural perspective; he is genuinely bewildered by her desire for independence and social freedom. This clash of expectations leads to Lilia’s isolation and despair. Gino is capable of both tenderness and brutality, as seen when he nearly attacks Lilia for threatening to withhold money and later when he tortures Philip. These acts of physical violence and abuse underscore the raw, untamed nature that the Herritons, with their preference for verbal and emotional manipulation, are completely unequipped to handle.

Despite his flaws, Gino is made multi-dimensional by his profound and all-consuming love for his son. The baby represents not just a child but the continuation of his very being, a physical manifestation of his legacy. This paternal devotion is the central passion of his life, far outweighing his romantic feelings for Lilia or his desire for her money. His declaration, “he is mine; mine for ever… I am his father” (101), is the truest expression of his character. This love is instinctive and majestic, transforming him from a charming but morally dubious boy into a figure of primal, patriarchal power. It is this depth of feeling that Caroline Abbott recognizes and that ultimately complicates any simple judgment of him. Gino remains essentially unchanged by the events of the novel, but through him, the English characters—and the reader—are forced to confront a worldview where passion, pride, and love operate according to a different, and perhaps more elemental, set of rules.

Lilia Herriton serves as the primary catalyst for the novel’s events. She is a relatively flat and static character, defined by her impulsiveness and a yearning for a life less constrained than the one offered by her in-laws in Sawston. Described as vulgar and possessing “blowsy high spirits” (43), she chafes under the “refining influences” (7) of the Herriton family, who seek to mold her into a respectable widow and mother. Her desire to escape their control is the primary motivation for her actions. Her journey to Italy is less a cultural pilgrimage than a flight from oppression, and her quick marriage to Gino is an act of rebellion against the propriety and emotional sterility of her former life. However, Lilia lacks the self-awareness or resilience to navigate the new world she enters. Her pursuit of freedom is a failed example of the struggle to develop an individual sense of identity; she merely exchanges one form of confinement for another, unprepared for the patriarchal realities of her Italian marriage. Her death in childbirth is the tragic consequence of her impulsive and ill-considered bid for independence, setting the stage for the central conflict over the fate of her child.

Harriet Herriton is a flat, static character who functions as an antagonist and a foil to Philip. She is the rigid and unthinking embodiment of English social ethics, a woman who, as Philip observes, “bolted all the cardinal virtues and couldn’t digest them” (10). Her worldview is built on a foundation of unshakable moral certainty, piety, and patriotism, which leaves no room for empathy, nuance, or cultural understanding. She is consistently peevish and judgmental, viewing Italy and its inhabitants with suspicion and disdain. Whereas her mother, Mrs. Herriton, uses diplomacy to enforce her will, Harriet relies on blunt conviction. It is this quality that makes her so dangerous. Believing absolutely in the righteousness of her mission to “rescue” (69) the baby, she feels justified in any action, however cruel. Her ultimate decision to kidnap the child is the direct cause of the novel’s tragedy, making her the most destructive of the English characters who rush in where they should not tread. Her actions are a stark illustration of how abstract principles, when divorced from human feeling, can lead to catastrophe.