Student Question
What illustrates the theme of ambition in Joanna Baillie’s The Second Marriage?
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In Joanna Baillie’s play The Second Marriage, the theme of ambition is shown through the actions of the married couple, Anthony Seabright and Lady Sarah. Their marriage is based on political, social, and financial ambitions rather than love. Seabright deliberately chose a second wife who would benefit his aspirations. Lady Sarah, who likewise values status and its outward signs, is determined to see her step-daughter, Sophia, marry well.
In The Second Marriage, Joanna Baillie centers on the theme of ambition through her portrayals of Anthony Seabright and his second wife, Lady Sarah. Each of them is highly ambitious, which is part of what brought them together.
Baillie’s social satire highlights common issues in nineteenth-century Britain. In many ways, the husband and wife complement each other by providing the social or financial assets that the other lacks. Beyond their marriage, Lady Sarah tries to imprint these values onto her step-daughter, Sophia, Anthony’s daughter by his first wife. Sarah promotes a marriage based on money and status, not love. Sophia offers a foil to these characters; she lacks ambition and hopes for harmonious coexistence.
Craving both a title and a political career, Seabright needs noble connections to make that happen. Lady Sarah was a poor and powerless relation, but she came from an elite family. In the first act,...
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Seabright admits that he sought an alliance by marrying Lord Allcrest’s sister because of the family relations “to the first people of the country.” Despite his best efforts, he must face his former peers’ reluctance to acknowledge his new “superiority” to them.
Realizing her ambition to becoming financially solvent, Lady Sarah dedicates herself to influencing others’ opinions on behalf of both her husband and his daughter. Sarah advocates in act 2 that everyone try to use their position and social circle—through “every letter that they write, every dinner that they give”—to their own advantage.
References
Illustrate the theme of ambition in Joanna Baillie's play The Second Marriage.
Though Joanna Baillie's play The Second Marriage is a comedy about ambition, it nonetheless has some very serious points to make regarding the subject. Ambition is presented from the very first scene onwards as a danger to the stability of the family and, by extension, of society as a whole.
In the eponymous second marriage of Anthony Seabright to Lady Sarah, there are no signs of any love or affection. In keeping with the values and social mores of the time, this marriage among the upper classes has more to do with forging strategic political alliances between powerful families than with satisfying the demands of the heart. Indeed, Seabright openly admits as much to his daughter when he tells her that his second marriage is about forming an alliance with the sister of a worthy man by the name of Lord Allcrest.
Though Seabright subsequently gains much in the world by his purely strategic marriage, it's notable that he loses much at home. Success in the public world cannot begin to compensate for domestic misery. As a direct result of his political ambitions, Seabright has lost the relative peace and tranquility that once characterized his home life.
In marrying Lady Sarah, he thought he could somehow keep his home life separate from his public life as a politician. But he is much mistaken, for getting married to Lady Sarah has simply had the unintended effect of bringing the contentiousness and conflict of political life into the inner sanctum of his home.