# Charlotte Pontifex — The Way of All Flesh character guide

> Charlotte Pontifex in The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Charlotte, Miss Charlotte, Charlotte one

**First appearance:** 0012-x

## Snapshot

Ernest's pious, judgmental sister, raised to parrot the correct jargon and to measure her brother by their parents' unforgiving standard.

## Who they are

Charlotte grows up in the Pontifex household absorbing its self-righteous vocabulary whole, and she will inherit the family talent for condemning what she does not understand. Where Ernest is impulsive and easily undeceived, Charlotte is armoured in correctness, and the distance between them widens as his life goes wrong. She matters as the domestic face of the piety that shapes Ernest's childhood — the sister who will never forgive his good luck, exactly as Aunt Alethea predicted.

## Relationships

### [Ernest Pontifex](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/characters/ernest_pontifex)

_family_

Ernest's sanctimonious and spiteful sister, who betrays his confidence and embodies the family's moral hypocrisy.

### [Ernest Pontifex](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/characters/ernest_pontifex)

_family_

Ernest's sanctimonious and spiteful sister, who betrays his confidence and embodies the family's moral hypocrisy.

### [Ernest Pontifex](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/characters/ernest_pontifex)

_family_

Ernest's sanctimonious and spiteful sister, who betrays his confidence and embodies the family's moral hypocrisy.

## In the story

### [Chapter XX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/chapters/xx)

The third child, a girl born plain; Christina's visit to the Royal Academy exhibition is blamed for her looks.

### [XXIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/chapters/xxiv)

Ernest's sister, who along with Joey would sometimes betray him to their parents.

### [XXV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/chapters/xxv)

The daughter, commended to her brothers' care and protection in the letter.

### [Alethea's Assessment](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/chapters/xxxii)

Mentioned as one of the children Alethea decides to have nothing to do with.

### [XLVIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/chapters/xlviii)

Charlotte is the subject of Christina's matchmaking efforts; Christina pressures Ernest to help find her a suitable husband, specifically targeting Towneley.

### [LXXXIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/chapters/lxxxiii)

Hostile to Ernest, blames him for her unmarried state, and tries to make him feel guilty about agitating Theobald.

### [LXXXVI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/chapters/lxxxvi)

Married, lives near Dover, occasionally invites Ernest with a de haut en bas tone in her letters.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/characters/charlotte_pontifex
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_way_of_all_flesh_se/characters