Caleb Williams

Volume 2 jumps back into Caleb’s story. After hearing about Ferdinando and Barnabas’s history, he cannot help but doubt whether Hawkins was the true killer. To Caleb, Hawkins’s personality does not match the act of killing a man in the streets (179-80). Caleb wonders if Ferdinando’s behavior stems from the fact that he is actually the murderer. Caleb doesn’t want to believe this but can’t stop thinking about it, remarking that Ferdinando was “the centre about which [his thoughts] revolved” (180). He decides to observe Ferdinando.

Caleb begins asking Falkland questions under the guise of getting to know him better. Ferdinando receives the first hint Caleb drops with “an air of surprise” and leaves the room without answering (181). Eventually, Caleb’s tactics lead the men into a conversation about Alexander the Great. Ferdinando praises Alexander, saying that his goal was to bring about a more civilized society, whereas Caleb asks whether all the killing Alexander did to secure his goals was worth it (183-84). The conversation escalates until Caleb lets slip a question about how one could go about justifying murder, which causes a reaction in Ferdinando; the blood drains from Ferdinando’s face and he explodes in anger. Afterwards, Caleb wonders if his master’s anger was the result of a guilty conscience or the fact that Caleb was accusing him of something (187).