Summary
Mr. Candy writes to Franklin (and Rachel) of Ezra Jennings’s sad but peaceful death. Ezra Jennings was writing a medical book, and he gives these papers to Franklin, who might find them interesting in the future.
Analysis
On his deathbed, Ezra Jennings cries out the name of his love, showing that he is still thinking of her up until his very last moments. Like Franklin, whose time and attention is devoted solely to Rachel, one of Ezra Jennings’s greatest regrets is his lost love, in addition to his own treatment. Although condemned by others and suspected because of his darker-than-Caucasian complexion, Mr. Candy describes “an angelic expression” passing over Ezra Jennings’s face when he passed away. The doctor even says that he was “a great man – though the world never knew him" (516). Despite his hard life and quick death, Ezra Jennings’s legacy lives on in the book he gives to Franklin. As the story nears its end, new beginnings, such as this, appear.
