Summary Of Once Aboard The Lugger

In the short story, “Once Aboard the Lugger,” the main character, a fisherman’s daughter in Ruan, Nance Trewartha, is brave enough to rebel against the moral patterns for a woman in the 1800s. Nance knows there is a certain pattern she must live by, just like every other woman. She has to be wedded and have children, but she wants to fulfill the pattern in her own way. She fulfills the moral pattern backwards which in other people’s eyes may look shameful. Nance sets an example where women can follow a certain pattern that is created upon them, but follow it in their own way and not let a superior control them. Social classes always seem to interfere with relationships. Even until now, upper class parents do not believe their children should ever date anyone below them. In the short story, Nance is a lonely child, the daughter of a fisherman, and lives in the poor class of Ruan. Samuel lives in Troy where the upper class lives. In the story, it is said there has never been a courtship of a couple outside both towns. It is very rare. People seem to marry in within their own class. Of course, Nance knows she has to follow the morals she has grown up with; she has to grow up and marry a man and further on have children. When Nance hears the girls from Troy talking to one another of who was going to be the wife of the new
It was almost perfect, there must have been something missing to make it seem like Paradise. About three weeks later, after Nance decided Samuel is going be her husband, Samuel watch a young moon go up toward heaven. Samuel thought about wanting to go farther in life and only wants Troy to be stepping stone for him. However, he did not know Nance is going to change that for him. His life is going to make a dramatic turn that night when Nance takes her plan into