The characters' struggles illustrate the dangers of seduction and the pitfalls of giving in to one's passions, while advocating the moral education of women and the use of rational thinking as ways to prevent the consequences of such actions.

Mr. Harrington's one time affair with Maria Fawcet resulted in Harriot's birth, which had to be kept a secret to maintain the family’s honor.

[7] The novel was first published anonymously, but was popularly attributed to Boston poet Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton because of the resemblance between the plot and a scandal in her family; Brown was not correctly identified as the author until 1894.

Elizabeth Maddock Dillon complicates this standard reading by locating the novel within a global context marked by "forces of colonialism, mercantile capitalism, and imperialism".

The excesses of sympathetic thought lead to tragedy; it is implied that Harrington's suicide, for example, is spurred on by an over-identification with The Sorrows of Young Werther, a copy of which is found alongside his body.

[11] These excesses are contrasted with the rational thinking of characters like Worthy, who strives to uphold normative social and moral ideals.