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Chapters XXX–XXXII 

Summary: CHAPTER XXX: “The Girl I Left Behind Me” 

The regiment prepares to go to war. Major O’Dowd rests while Mrs. O’Dowd organizes his belongings. Rawdon is emotional in contrast to his cool, calm wife. He reviews their financials with Becky in case he dies in battle. After Rawdon’s departure, Becky gets ready for bed and stows away the note from George. After she awakens, she calculates the worth of her valuables and determines she has enough money for a fresh start, if necessary. At the rooms Jos shares with George and Amelia, Dobbin arrives. He came to say goodbye, but he really hopes to see Amelia. Dobbin also tasks Jos with taking care of Amelia and getting her home if he and George don’t return. Through the door, George catches sight of Amelia’s stricken face as she attempts to help pack. Then George takes her back to the bedroom and departs shortly thereafter. Relieved to have the leave-taking over, George marches his men toward the city gate.

Summary: CHAPTER XXXI: In Which Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister 

Jos enjoys the morning without his brother-in-law even though Amelia is ill. Jos’s servant brings back reports from the front. They learn that the advance army was crushed and the army commander is about to flee. A disbelieving Jos prepares to go outside himself when Becky shows up. She flirts with him, implying she still has feelings for him, to ensure herself a seat in his carriage should they have to leave Brussels. Then Becky goes to Amelia’s room. Amelia lashes out at Becky, saying she has always been a good friend but Becky tried to take away her husband. Despite herself, Becky is touched by Amelia’s love for George. When Amelia starts to ramble, Becky realizes how unwell she is. She finds Mrs. O’Dowd to tell her about Amelia’s situation. Mrs. O’Dowd spends the day at Amelia’s bedside. As Jos and Mrs. O’Dowd dine, they hear cannon fire.

Summary: CHAPTER XXXII: In Which Jos Takes Flight, and the War Is Brought to a Close

The cannon fire continues all day, while people run around in chaos. Jos wants to flee, but Mrs. O’Dowd says Amelia is too weak to travel. Jos’s servant has been unable to find horses for the carriage anyway. That evening, they hear that the British army is on the verge of defeat. Jos decides to find horses himself.

Meanwhile, Becky refuses to sell Rawdon’s horses to Lady Bareacres because the family snubbed her, but she allows Jos to have them for an exorbitant fee. Jos determines to leave Brussels. When he reaches his hotel, however, he learns that the allied army halted the French, so he postpones his plans. As Amelia grows increasingly frantic for news of George, a carriage arrives with a wounded ensign from George’s regiment. He tells Amelia and Mrs. O’Dowd that their husbands are unhurt. The next day the armies engage at Waterloo, just 15 miles away. When Amelia refuses to leave the city with Jos, he rides off with his servant.

The narrator describes the battle at Waterloo, where the men fight bravely all day. The French army makes one last push but is chased back by the British. Brussels falls quiet as the military leaves the area. Amelia prays for George, who lies dead in the field.

Analysis: Chapters XXX–XXXII

Chapter XXX focuses on three men leaving for war and how their wives behave. The women’s actions and thoughts while the men prepare to fight inform readers about them as people and about the relationship they have with their husbands. Mrs. O’Dowd, who usually makes jokes and talks nonstop, doesn’t want to give her husband anything else to worry about or distract him from his purpose. She efficiently readies her husband’s belongings so he can get the rest he needs for the ordeal ahead. After he leaves, though, Mrs. O’Dowd is unable to sleep, showing that the calmness she portrayed did not reflect the inner turmoil she feels.

Becky, not surprisingly, makes little show of emotion, but for quite different reasons than Mrs. O’Dowd. She simply doesn’t have much feeling for Rawdon beyond fondness. While Rawdon has undergone a transformation brought about by his love for Becky, for Becky, he is a means to an end—with that end being money. Even Rawdon finally picks up on the oddity of her lack of emotion and questions her for it. The narrator highlights this dynamic, sarcastically pointing out that the next day Becky woke and drank her coffee, an activity that felt easy compared to the morning’s exhausting events. Any exhaustion Becky might have felt was due to the whirlwind of the ball and the dancing. Any grief she might have felt was due to the recognition that, in the case of Rawdon’s death, she would not be able to use him to get money from his family.

Amelia, as expected, is a distraught and piteous mess. She tries to help George pack but is completely incapable of doing so. Just as Amelia played a passive role in her own life and love affair with George, she is the same as he sets off to war.

The three women continue to be contrasted in the days following the departure of the army. Amelia mainly stays in bed, letting others take care of her and only rousing herself to finally tell Becky that she knows all about the flirtation between her and George. This exchange is the first instance in which readers see Amelia with a backbone. However, it is only the desperation of Amelia’s love for her husband that inspires her to challenge the forceful and tricky Becky. Once Becky leaves, Amelia returns to her bed.

Becky, meanwhile, uses the chaos in Brussels to work out her schemes and exact some revenge. For Becky, no moment is beyond using to her advantage. People’s heightened fear of invasion, as well as her possession of horses, gives Becky leverage over not only the Bareacres, despite their status as nobles, but also Jos, who outranks her in terms of social class and bank account.

Jos’s character truly reveals itself in this section, which places him as the central figure, as highlighted in the titles of Chapters XXXI and XXXII. In the ironically titled Chapter XXXI, Jos shows that he is far more interested in taking care of himself than his sister. It is also ironic that it is Becky, not Jos, who recognizes the depths of Amelia’s illness. It is Becky who gets Mrs. O’Dowd to come take care of Amelia. Jos’s self-interest also shows on the first day after the army leaves for war. Despite the uncertainty and chaos, he enjoys George’s absence, several bottles of champagne, and his conversation with Becky, when it seems he is on the brink of falling in love with her again.

The war is brought to a close with George’s dead body lying on the battlefield. While readers learn that he had performed bravely in an earlier skirmish, his death goes unrecorded and, at the time, unknown. In the last phrase of the chapter which describes Amelia praying for her dead husband George, the narrator underscores that Amelia’s world revolves around George. The heart is both literal and symbolic. The bullet physically stopped George’s heart, causing death, but it will also figuratively destroy George and Amelia, far more than his heartless philandering ever did.

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