Towards "The Good Soldier": Discovery of a Sexual Theme
Author(s): Thomas Moser
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Daedalus, Vol. 92, No. 2, Perspectives on the Novel (Spring, 1963), pp. 312-325
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20026780 .
Accessed: 19/11/2012 09:42
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THOMAS
Towards
MOSER
The Good
Discovery
Impressionistic
Soldier?
of A Sexual Theme
novelists
like James, Conrad, and Ford aim, in Con
rad's familiar phrase, "above all, to make you see.9' The reader is to
see
one of the
Lam
things through the eyes of
characters?through
or
or
bert Strether,
Dowell?rather
than from the author's
Marlow,
omniscient
This "impersonal" method
of narration has
viewpoint.
time and again, to modern
fiction s finest achievement:
of the reader with the moral and emotional
involvement
life of the characters.
Yet seeing through a character
sometimes
means not
at
find
all
The
reader
himself
may
seeing
clearly.
saying,
"Yes, the narrator views things this way, but how are they really?"
Even those of us who think that to torment a reader about the nature
contributed,
the intense
is, in itself, a worthy
purpose must grant that the use of
narration
raises
impersonal
special problems.
No novel better dramatizes
than Ford Madox
these problems
in
Ford's The Good Soldier
of good will,
Careful
readers
(1915).
as to the
seem
utter disagreement
its
to
not
of
be
narrator,
reliability
the same book. Is it the tragic story of a good soldier de
discussing
a
involvement with three women,
story told
stroyed by his passionate
the
best
and accurately
hero's
friend? Or is it
by
sympathetically
instead a story of five immoral fools, told by the greatest fool of them
of reality
all? Is it really what Ford first entitled it, "the saddest story," or is it a
of bitterly comic irony?1
masterpiece
to the same work
Such differing
responses
suggest the need to
case of The Good Soldier,
In
method.
the
the
exegetical
supplement
seem
useful. An examination,
for in
several approaches
potentially
in
material?Ford's
"nervous
breakdown"
die
of
stance,
biographical
1909
of
difficulties
and
and
extramarital
after?
marital
his
1904,
a
clues to the novel. So, too, would
study of Ford's
might provide
312
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Towards The Good Soldier
of his two masters,
James's
James and Conrad:
in conflict with illicit passion, What Maisie Knew
and The Wings
of the Dove; Conrad's novels of the flawed romantic
Lord
Jim, and of repressed passion, Chance. Again, one might
hero,
in which
the
The
Good
Soldier through
similar novels
approach
in
to
and
author's
intention and what he created
conflict
appear
which
sexual passion is, at least, an implied subject. One thinks here
The Pilgrim
of James's Turn of the Screw and of Glenway Wescott's
reading, particularly
novels of innocence
Hawk.
is that of Ford's
The avenue that this essay will follow, however,
earher fiction. A novelist, we know, may deal again and again with
a recurring
similar characters,
and subjects. Sometimes
situations,
a
sometimes
character
evokes the writer's
deepest
understanding;
character ceases to engage
the author's interest and subsides into a
in earlier works pr?
minor
therefore detect
role. The reader may
or may see a trend evolving,
and
in
novel
of
the
question
figurations
artist
the
about
thus he may make an educated
what
"really
guess
meant."
in fact, has often led
quest for sources and analogues,
the
sleuths
ary
astray. Although
study of Ford's earher
wildly
as
to
of
Dowell
characters
confirm my view
tends
primarily
ironic overtones,
liable narrator, despite
and of Ashburnham
if sentimental
that
and banal, hero, I recognize
sympathetic,
The
liter
male
a re
as a
Ford
his attitude toward these types. Con
suddenly
if unconsciously,
rad, after years of sympathetically,
dramatizing
aware at last of the inhibitions
of his ro
sexual reticence,
became
mantic hero and attacked them in Chance,2 published
only two years
in Ford's early works
the patterns
before The Good Soldier. Again,
in The Good Soldier rather
may point only to his initial intention
the novel actually
than to what
conveys. Even
though Ford may
with
and sympathized
Ashburnham
admired
he
have
thought
a more
instinct may have dramatized
creative
censorious
Dowell,
or not this
in minor
them as fools. Whether
pursuit of pr?figurations
answers the question of The Good Soldier, it
Ford novels ultimately
should at least lead us back to the major work with a richer sense of
sources. Finally,
of course, the text itself must yield its
its hidden
must
authentic
that
reveal
essence,
"quality of the mind of the pro
calls
novel's
the
ducer" which
"deepest quality."
James
In 1927, looking back twelve years to The Good Soldier, Ford
first into which he had
saw it not only as one of his best works?the
also as a culmination
of
put "all that I know about writing"?but
could have
reversed
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THOMAS MOSER
over
"as the Great Auk I considered
that,
twenty years of creativity:
as
one
reached
I
had
lain
and
well
allotted,
my
my
egg
having
might
a
die." Certainly
reading of the previous novels supports Ford's own
are relatively worthless
evaluation:
they
(only four historical novels,
A
The Fifth Queen
and
for themr
Portrait, merit
trilogy
reading
Yet
male
The
their
characters
Good
Sol
selves).
strikingly anticipate
is simply one of many
dier. Dowell
sensitive, passive heroes. Early
are gen
versions of this type, Ford depicts as wholly
admirable:
they
to
and attractive
tle, idealistic,
talented,
intellectually
superior,
women.
a very minor
in
Colonel
The
father,
Rufford,
Nancy's
figure
a remnant of another
Good Soldier, represents
important early type
a
?the
and sexually powerful
person with a
father-ogre:
physically
or
who
brutal
voice,
harsh,
often, deliberately
opposes
inadvertentiy,
to a type that emerges
the passive hero. Finally, Ashburnham
belongs
two: the bluff,
active, non-intellectual
physically
to women
of
attractive
often
hero, frequendy
"county" aristocracy,
sexual power.
but of uncertain
If The Good Soldier represents Ford's first successful
treatment
recurrent
character
of
control
types, it also reveals his first effective
later than the other
of attitudes
toward sexual passion previously
in disastrous
conflict.
a desirable
woman
in
the
novels,
young
presents
Repeatedly
early
to the hero, even as Florence
to
herself
makes
herself
available
on the night of their
as Nancy
Dowell
and
"sud
appears
elopement
denly to Edward, rising up at the foot of his bed, with her long hair
... a silent, a no doubt
f alhng, like a split cone of shadow
agonized
a spectre,
to him. . . ."And the
figure, like
suddenly offering herself
and Ashburnham,
refuses the girl.
usually
early hero, like Dowell
reason
But whereas
Dowell's
Ford understands
(he is psychi
reason
would
die rather
and
Ashburnham's
(he
cally impotent)
Ford does not understand
than defile his ward),
why his early
fail to respond to proffers of love. He asserts that the hero
heroes
In
refuses for some high ideal, and the tone is obviously
sympathetic.
of the period, he further suggests that
certain works of non-fiction
repression of feelings, the "ferocious lack
"delicacy," English
Enghsh
can cause such
of
the
of imagination"
Enghsh
personal disasters.3 In
same
in his ironic account
idea
The Good Soldier, Dowell
implies the
as
life together
looks as
of the two couples
"good people" whose
a
as a minuet,
full of screaming
decorous
yet is in reality
"prison
hysterics."
in the
for refusal that Ford actually dramatizes
Yet the motive
an
sometimes
of
is
the
sexual
result
novels
fear,
simply
Oedipal
early
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Towards The Good Soldier
if Ford had understood
that his heroes were
Presumably,
fear
of
have pitied
their
sexual
he
would
paralyzed
by
partners,
rather than admired
their
them and would
have treated ironically
how
idealistic
rationalizations.
instead
These
novels
show
early
to his artistry was Ford's lack of
nature of
crippling
insight into the
more
his subject. Of nineteen novels
five
deal
before
1915,
published
man
than
the
modern
with
others
Ford's
chief
theme,
obviously
situation.
caught in the toils of passion: The Shifting of the Fire (1892), The
Benefactor (1905), An English Girl (1907), A Call (1910), and The
Panel (1912).
At
Ford Madox
of the pre
Hueffer,
twenty,
young
genius
in print,
two
with
circle,
Raphaelite
book-length
fairy tales already
his first novel, The Shifting of the Fire. Grossly
published
inept, it is
nevertheless
It reveals Ford's sympathy
instructive.
for his passive
and his hero's
hero, his hatred and fear of the older male generation,
in
unconscious
situations.
novel's os
sexual
The
anxiety
implicitly
tensible subject is a natural one for a beginning
novelist:
the pardon
able human folly of youthful
idealism. It tells how a pair of lovers,
concern for each other's
out of
raise almost in
exaggerated
feelings,
a
to their marriage.
After Clem Hollebone,
surmountable
barriers
save
in
to
sensitive medical
has
order
himself
scientist,
impoverished
the creditors of his firm, he refuses to let Edith marry a pauper and
vows never to see her
not to lose her beloved,
again. Determined
Edith
sacrifices herself by secretly marrying
the eighty-year-old
soon
a
in
of
widow.
the
Clem
Kasker-Ryves,
being
wealthy
hope
at
But
at
and
hates
Edith.
the
discovers
first
last, after he
marriage
his own fortune and Kasker-Ryves
has recovered
has died, Clem
was selfish and
comes to realize that his
original rejection of Edith
a
was
noble
that her marriage,
gesture. The novel
though foolish,
on
and
Edith
their honeymoon.
ends with Clem
happily embarked
of the conflict between
generations
gives The
depiction
Ford
of the Fire the htde energy and interest it possesses.
contrasts
and
sexual
vigor
Kasker-Ryves'
instinctively
appalling
of his son and Clem. A blatandy Oedipal
prowess with the weakness
situation emerges that obtains in many of Ford's subsequent
novels:
or father
as
a violent old man,
husband
either
involved
intimately
with a lovely young girl, inhibits the gentle, idealistic young hero.
Ford's
Shifting
his fainting bride,
In three similar scenes involving Kasker-Ryves,
no doubt
and a young man, Ford dramatizes,
the old
unconsciously,
man's sexual superiority to the youth. In the first scene Kasker-Ryves
to his son within Edith's hearing the sexual exploits of his
describes
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THOMAS MOSER
is the account that his son, "amere tyro in vice,"
breath.
In his revulsion, he cries out within him
for
gasps
positively
men
are
"Good
in the world
God!
all
such villains? Is it possible
self,
that I am the only person in all the world
that struggles against my
at
Edith
faints
sound
the
of her husband's
voice,
passions?" When
acts
out
lust
before
his
his
Kasker-Ryves
symbolically
frightened
. . . fell to
son: he
on her
in his eagerness
body, and
"flung himself
face."
kissing her clay-cold
In the other two fainting scenes, Clem plays the role of the passive
interested
youth. In the first, he finds himself, under Kasker-Ryves'
on
to
unconscious
Edith.
the
unable
gaze, physically
Only
pick up
the third try can he lift her, "and he closed his eyes as he staggered
with her to the sofa." The action here suggests that Clem finds it diffi
in the old man's presence
cult to handle his beloved
and that he can
salad days.
So vivid
to look upon her, either because of
reticence or,
gendemanly
own
his
of
other scene
because
of
fear
The
hkely,
inadequacy.
even
in death.
shows Kasker-Ryves
again symbolically
triumphant,
sense
the
of in
action, feels "a sudden
Clem, witnessing
grotesque
as
Edith embraces her dead husband
and, fainting
congruous horror"
of course, pulls his body to the ground: the corpse "lay, stiff and un
natural like an artist's figure, across Edith."
So thoroughly
amateurish
is The Shifting of the Fire that one can
its ineptitude
to Ford's unawareness
the
for
confine
blame
scarcely
not bear
more
of Clem's
sexual
account
of
the sentimental
anxiety. Moreover,
reformation
and
deathbed
the
of
ulti
Clem,
Kasker-Ryves'
picture
are no more
and serenely, at one with his beloved
mately
implausi
ble than everything
else that happens. Yet this litde apprentice piece,
with its unconscious
and disabled
portrait of a passive
young hero,
contains
to be
the seed of future failures. In the next three novels
Ford's interests are much more deeply engaged;
hence
considered,
more
the failures are more radical?and
interesting.
After writing
The Shifting
with
of the Fire, Ford collaborated
none of his own until The Bene
Conrad on two novels, but published
Ford occasionally
satirizes George Moffatt
factor (1905). Although
talented writer
this sensitive,
kind, self-sacrificing,
clearly
to the same type of passive hero as Clem Hollebone.
belongs
George's
a handsome
on his wife,
settlement
sacrifices,
including
separation
a
have left him virtually
he and Clara Brede,
the
pauper. When
a
in
fall
of
finds
him
love,
clergyman,
daughter
neighboring
George
gently,
self in Clem's
The
Shifting
falls into the pattern of
situation, and The Benefactor
are, however,
of the Fire. The barriers facing George
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Towards The Good Soldier
even more
numerous. He is
and tied to another woman; his
penniless
father has decreed
that Clara must never
leave home.
While
he is certainly not an evil man, Mr. Brede
recalls Kasker
in his "magnificent"
his
"fierce
Ryves
physique,
energy," and in his
of temper." Moreover,
harshness
like Kasker-Ryves,
"impressive
Brede has caused his wife's death. A
she has a fatal
heart-patient,
beloved's
"tremendous voice...
spasm upon hearing her husband's
blowing up
a
so
over
Guilt
this
accident
stable-boy."
unhinges Brede's mind that
is required.
Clara's constant presence
to the
"The
By part four,
Bankrupt Jeweler," George has plunged
same
as did Clem when he was an
country
depths
impoverished
doctor; he has reached the classic stage in the career of the Fordian
hero:
ruined, physically
exhausted, mentally
financially
depressed
to the point of suicide, and deprived,
of
forever,
apparently
the only woman he really loves. At this point, just as in The Shifting
fortunes are restored
of the Fire, a great reversal occurs: George's
one
a
of his books miraculously
when
best seller and Brede,
becomes
a
is
suffered
institutionalized.
having
George
relapse,
permanently
realizes that there is "no one now between himself and Clara Brede."
at the end of James's The Ambassadors,
Strether
Lambert
When,
can have Maria
to
to
return
but
instead
chooses
America,
Gostrey
his reasons are complex, arguable, but certainly there. And when, at
the end of The Wings
Kate Croy's
lover Merton
of the Dove,
con
modeled
whom
Densher,
upon Ford, imposes impossible
James
are com
ditions on their marriage,
the reasons for that rejection
clear and unarguable.
But since the explicit motivations
of
pletely
The Benefactor
to
union
the
and
of
his
Clara,
point clearly
George
the logic of the novel but directs
rejection of her not only violates
almost
the
reader's
attention
to
the
hero's
unconscious
reasons.
scene between
the lovers suggests power
language of the last
to
that
her and that he fears to.
Clara
take
have
fully
George
longs
...
was gone now
it
thinks:
'Tier
father
she
his arrival,
Awaiting
would
be easy." George's
first impulse is to ask her to go to Italy
The
with him but that would be "too brusque." As they talk, her heart
starts "to beat
Yet she wants him not to speak "too soon ...
rapidly."
she was not ready; itwould
she lies back
spoil everything." Presently
in her chair.
He stepped towards her recumbent figure. It was as if already he held
her in his arms; as if she had said, "Ah!" as if her head had fallen back.
an odd
Suddenly it slipped into his mind, like
thought that he regarded
contemptuously,
"This
is seduction."
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THOMAS MOSER
She wondered for one swift moment what it felt like to be dishonored.
it like a pain? She had looked coldly at other women. He was com
. . . She felt in herself no dishonor, but the
ing: she shut her eyes.
glory
of sacrificing herself to him?But
he was coming, and she shivered. Out
side the darkness of her closed lids something paralysing, something terri
ble and blissful was coming towards her.
Was
Instead Clara hears George
say: "But it's too?" At the very moment
of her
surrender, George finds his masculine
aggressiveness
complete
of Brede: "The black and tremendous fig
dissipated
by the memory
ure of her father had risen before
once more." Almost
George's eyes
seems
to
hear
he
men's voices say
rationalizes;
immediately
George
ran away
a
his
Brede.
in
lunatic
and
He's
"Oh,
ing,
asylum,
daughter
with a married man."
and
believes
that his
Ford,
George,
probably
honor prevents
him from seducing
of his helpless
the daughter
not senility but
friend. But "black and tremendous
figure" describes
a
so The
must
which
before
George
quail. And
powerful mascuhnity
con
with
ends
Clara
and
Benefactor
apart?an
improbable
George
of the passive hero's
clusion in artistic terms, but striking evidence
malaise
and of Ford's unconsciousness
of it.
next
in the modern
Girl
world, An English
its predecessor.
Once again the hero fails
(1907), closely resembles
to marry the desirable young woman,
and once again the memory
of
a
man
a
exercises
fatal inhibition. Yet the novel repre
old
powerful
sents a new departure
in two important ways. First, An English Girl
contains the earliest example of the vigorous,
conventional
hero, the
a rival of
In The Benefactor
type to which Ashburnham
belongs.
appears only briefly in the person of Clara's cousin Carew,
George
and stock-whip mannerisms,"
of "large attractions
Second, Ford at
an
of
his
in
the
justification
passive hero's
tempts,
epilogue,
exphcit
failure.
improbable
of Don Kelleg, an expatriate young
The barriers to the marriage
a handsome
American
artist, and Eleanor Greville,
English
girl, ap
to return briefly
Don
before
the
minor.
marriage,
pear
merely wishes,
to try to repair some of the damage
done by the dis
to America
His
novel
of
love
father.
of his late, fabulously
wealthy
practices
to
Don
to
America, with
accompany
agrees enthusiastically
as
and her cousin Augustus
her father as chaperone
legal advisor to
a minor
as
Don
view
the
and
Eleanor
Don.
merely
delay
expedition
new
to
is
world
excursion
the
"our
to their nuptials:
just going down
to
to borrow a hammer." A potential
into the basement
complication
for
Eleanor.
she
their ultimate plans is Augustus'
passion
Although
business
honest
Eleanor
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Towards The Good Soldier
with Don,
repeatedly
rejects his pleas to break off her engagement
that "tamest sort of cat," and
on the boat,
she repels
although,
violent
not
Eleanor
does
advances,
Augustus'
forget the "hungry
of his kisses.
warmth"
Don's mission
to America
and
proves much more
complicated
ever
he
than
to
had
dreamed.
Don's
failure
disillusioning
right his
father's wrongs,
as a lover, merge
and his inferiority to Augustus
in a
climactic and unintentionally
scene in a New York hotel. To
amusing
"re-act against his father," Don has
chosen the suite that
deliberately
he and his parents
much
his
wretched
childhood.
of
occupied during
The rooms are full of memories
of that powerful,
ironic father who
and son in order to take a mistress. One evening,
finally left mother
Don receives a
about his father's will.
telephone call from Augustus
in
summons Eleanor
sinister
Don
tone,
Sensing something
Augustus'
for moral support. Although
the situation is ideal for seduction, noth
ing is further from Don's mind when,
legs trembling, he walks to the
to call Eleanor.
hotel telephone
in the room
Everything
affected him deeply with a sense of solitude, a sense of smallness, a sense
of impotence that he hadn't felt since he had been a small child. And the
repeated mention of his father's name had brought a tense sense of his
father again before him. His father had sat on those very chairs, had
looked at those very pictures with his
a
twinkling badger grey eyes of man
as if his father were once more
used to baffle and outwit. He
felt
suddenly
saying: "Not this time, sonny!"
so it turns out.
his son the income but
Sr., has willed
Kelleg,
barred him from interfering with the business.
In Augustus' malicious
is
Don
news he faints dead
At
this
words,
"absolutely
impotent."
while
at
Eleanor
her
cousin's
away
rages
brutality.
the couple returns to
in defeat without
Although
England
having
"so much as got the hammer,"
there is nothing to prevent
their mar
riage. In fact, they do buy a modest house and begin to furnish it.
But suddenly Don decides
that he must return to America:
"I cant
funk it."
who
has
been
the
soul
of
for
Eleanor,
Whereupon
patience
three hundred pages, makes
the classic rejoinder,
"Then you know
it means
good-bye?"
In the
last minute
light of George Moffatt's
rejection of Clara,
and of Dowell's
failure both to consummate
his marriage
to Florence
to
and to propose
is
this
not
conclusion
Nancy,
certainly
surprising.
a letter from a friend of Don's
What
is unusual
is the epilogue,
to
And
Eleanor,
of faith:
and
justifying Don's vacillation
blaming Eleanor for her lack
"Your duty was to be good, to be kind, to be dear to the
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THOMAS MOSER
to as
you've ever seen." The letter continues
own
She
is
emotions.
of
her
that
Eleanor
afraid
sert, preposterously,
should have seen that Don is a "noble and unique invalid whom you
might have nursed to health." Such statements
suggest the extent of
to
Ford's personal
commitment
his passive heroes and his blindness
an invalid,
to the character he has actually created.
Although Don is
is not frustrated
idealism but fear of sexual experience.
his problem
a ludicrous
a
to
Ford has dramatized
noble
hero,
portray
Intending
awareness
one. But the tone of comic
is
suggest
irony which would
the
from
totally missing
epilogue.4
A Call (1910) resembles
all three of the earher novels
Although
noblest
and best man
of passion,
its particular
affinity is with An English Girl. In both
a rival in his own genera
works the passive hero of Dowell's
type has
an
Ashburnham.
As a matter of fact,
active
character
tion,
prefiguring
and
A Call distinctiy
The
Good
Soldier
differs from the
anticipates
earher novels in that it contains no important,
inhibiting figure from
A Call resembles An English Girl in still an
the older generation.
a revised
in
other respect: both novels have epilogues
proposing
of
hero.
the passive
terpretation
in A Call, like those in An English Girl, are of appar
different
Robert Grimshaw,
very
temperaments.
endy
gentle, benevo
and acutely
sensitive to the feelings of others, bears
lent, articulate,
he is
the familiar attributes of the passive hero. Without
profession,
a spectator, content to
rather
life
essentially
looking
lounge through
on the other
like a "brown seal on the watch." Dudley
Leicester,
and utterly oblivious
conventional,
hand, is big, blond, moustached,
to
service in
subtleties. He has the tradition of public
psychological
a
landlord
and a
his blood and shows promise
of becoming
good
the
their apparent differences,
member
of Parliament.
Still, despite
con
two exhibit almost
attitudes
identical
toward passion: when
as
and willing woman,
fronted by a desirable
they retreat, giving
a
reason for the withdrawal
for
the
laws.
society's
respect
Although
Ford
sexual anxiety,
these scenes
suggests
describing
language
rationalizations.
if
his
characters'
accepts
unconvincingly,
clearly,
but demonstrates
that he
loves two women
Robert Grimshaw
want
not
either. Dark, passionate,
unstable Katya Las
does
really
as
his wife, but has private scruples
carides is eager to hve with him
a
he
And
union.
although Robert firmly believes
against
legalized
in their most
her
wants
he
refuses
of
Katya,
"physical possession"
scene. Katya makes
all the advances,
passionate
pulling Robert's
face down on hers, rising to embrace him, whispering,
"Oh, take me!
The rivals
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Towards The Good Soldier
that falls,
the "silent nirvana of passion"
Despite
on Robert, he reiterates his demand
for a wed
to
Ford,
according
responds,
ding ceremony first and to her soft "I'll give you myself,"
"No! No! . .. It's no good."
wearily:
once
to Katya, he feels bound to her, resists his
Having
proposed
her
matches
other love?the
young, pretty,
quaint Pauline?and
Asked why he gave her up
with his best friend, Dudley
Leicester.
Robert
when he "wanted that child so dreadfully,"
lays the blame
on custom: "in our
we have "to do what seems proper
and
class"
day
. . . It's the sort of
to happen to make
and expedient.
thing that's got
we
us the civilized
the
are." Still,
people that
quality of Robert's pas
as he himself describes
sion for Pauline,
it, does not inspire confi
...
to watch her ... I
to touch her
I want
"I don't want
dence:
Take me!
Now!"
like to cry over her. ... I should like to kneel down and put
my face in her lap and cry, and cry, and cry." The context of this
sees here
sensitivity rather
only admirable
speech suggests that Ford
than neurotic
regression.
to be very different from Robert,
Leicester
Ford intends Dudley
to be a perfectly normal Englishman,
yet
"essentially monogamous,"
one
in Dudley's
explicidy
capable of "ardent passion." Nevertheless,
and a
scene, he proves as diffident and inept as Robert,
passionate
a
flame
scene
with
more
involves
Dudley
frightened. The
good deal
not
because
had
married
of his youth, Etta Stackpole. They
Dudley
with everyone, even with Mod
flirtations
Etta's
outrageous
deplored
die, the third footman. Now, with Pauline
away in the country, he
a
at
dinner party beside Etta. Her
finds himself
seated unprotected
she is "red-lipped,
old charms are only too apparent:
deep-voiced,
their
and
uncontrollable."
scented
black-haired,
During
utterly
large,
on his black
her
head
she
will
that
fears
conversation,
lay
Dudley
shoulder and rest her white breasts on the table. Of course, she ma
should
neuvers
him into taking her home.
in Etta's house
in an unintentionally
concludes
The
episode
hilarious
scene, which echoes the climax of An English Girl and gives
into the dark
A Call its name. After Etta has literally pushed Dudley
to answer the insistently ringing telephone.
him
she
orders
hallway,
over the
here is imphcidy
sexual. Leaning
The language employed
out:
Etta
calls
shoulders
her
hair
dishevelled,
banister,
gleaming,
"Don't fumble so ridiculously. Don't you know how to take the thing
to
off the hook?" She further unnerves Dudley
by instructing him
over
voice
of
his
old
Moddle
the
third
the
the
rival,
mimic,
phone,
footman. And when Dudley,
stupidly revealed his identity
having
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THOMAS MOSER
to the mysterious
that Pauline will discover
caller, worries
all, Etta
at
her
hard
A
little
few
later
him,
laughs
simply
laugh.
days
Dudley
goes mad. No doubt the explicit reasons for Dudley's
collapse?ex
cessive concern over Pauline's
f eelings and over
public opinion?are
an
even
more
cause is the terrorizing
vahd.
Yet
pardy
important
of the massive,
to
Etta. It is important, however,
presence
passionate
note that in this scene Ford
f
is,
clearly recognizes how oolish Dudley
f oolishness
in the early por
just as he will recognize Ashburnham's
tions of The Good Soldier.
Because he felt that the first readers of A Call, in its serial version,
had misunderstood
his attitude
toward his passive hero, Ford added
an
some
It
is
it shows that Ford realized
interest
of
because
epilogue.
that he was not
to A
conscious
intentions.
The epilogue
his
fulfilling
Call differs markedly
from that to An English Girl. Whereas,
in the
earher work, Ford asserts his passive hero's nobility, he here calls his
hero a "meddlesome
fool" who ought to have
and inwardly conceited
accurate
left Katya and married Pauhne. These statements,
although
so far as the
come
as a
content
is
of
the
novel
concerned,
implicit
shock because his presentation
of Robert has been generally
sympa
is unconvinc
thetic, even admiring.
Still, even though the epilogue
for Ford's artistry that he should, however
be
ing, it bodes well
aware
his
of
hero's limitations.
latedly, become
The Panel
is
(1912), the last of these pre-1915 novels of passion,
much
Sub-tided
"A Sheer
less seriously
intended
than A Call.
it borrows heavily
from Congreve,
and espe
Sheridan,
Comedy,"
comedy, The Playboy of the West
cially from Ford's favorite modern
ern World.
The Panel does not conform closely to the pattern of the
and no rival rise to threaten
the
novels; no father-figure
previous
its hero,
hero. Nevertheless,
The Panel is important not only because
Major Edward Brent Foster, prefigures Major Edward Ashburnham
in many ways but also because Ford sees Brent as a human being:
often merits
his ineptitude
laughter, he is capable of the
although
to
him.
Brent
Ford
attributes
ob
Ashburnham,
anticipates
passion
and
rank.
Brent's
four
name,
Moreover,
loves,
viously, by
profession,
resemble
those of The Good Soldier. While
albeit explicidy platonic,
first with Mrs. Kerr Howe,
serving in India, he has tender moments
to a "brutish" husband
Mrs.
Basil
of The Good Soldier)
married
(the
sort of little rat," Flossie Delamare
and then with a "half-starved
( the
out of mihtary
Mustered
service,
"poor httie rat," Maisie Maidan).
a
to
Boston
he is unhappily
engaged
wealthy
bluestocking,
Olympia
of Vassar);
but Brent's
(Florence Dowell,
graduate
Peabody
only
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Towards The Good Soldier
serious
love is for Mary
(Nancy Rufford).
Savylle, alias "Nancy"
are two comic episodes,
More important than these resemblances
the first of which
from
shows Ford's capacity for amused detachment
his hero's anxieties about social conventions
the
and about passion,
second his ability to dramatize his hero's sexual involvement with his
beloved. The first episode, covering five
the best
chapters, represents
comic
a
in
this
It
Brent
into
novel.
makes
writing
slight
Joseph An
women.
drews
virtue
four
the
his
Moreover,
eager
against
defending
con
not
out
that
resists
of
Brent
for
imagery suggests
respect
only
vention
and fear of Miss Peabody's
wrath but also out of anxiety
about the mechanics
of course,
of sexual relations. Ford maintains,
proper
variably
The
the women
decorum:
replies
funniest
merely
ask
for a kiss
in
and Brent
no.
Brent's frantic
of this episode
describes
portion
to get Flossie, who is clad in a
out
of his room
pink peignoir,
a secret
to open.
refuses
through
sliding panel that, unfortunately,
Much of the dialogue
and action points to the major's nervous inepti
tude. Brent first
to lend one of her candles to
begs Flossie
help him
find "that blessed
knob." When
Flossie
says that it is the "thist?e
efforts
thing" in the picture frame that does the trick, he implores her to "do
the trick and get back to your room." Having
the
tried "wriggling
a switch," Flossie
button
and
it
and
hke
down
thing"
clicking
"up
gives up, sits down, kicks off her shoes, and extends her stocking feet
to the fire. Then,
like Etta Stackpole with Dudley,
she makes mock
on
can
of
Brent:
I
reminds him of
wait."
She
"Oh,
ery
go
wiggling,
their tender moments
in
Simla
to kiss her.
invites
and
him
together
and pulling,
the sweat running off his
Brent, pressing
Meanwhile,
resorts to his
and even fumbles "in his kit bag
forehead,
penknife
for a httie oil can he always carried with him." At last, Flossie
takes
to
out
a
steal
another
and
him
offers
way,
pity, agrees
good-night
...
kiss: "I don't really think I want
I don't?I
don't
to, Flossie.
believe I can be very well." At the end of the
Brent
remarks
evening,
"four women have asked me to kiss them this
wryly to himself:
night,
and not once have I brought
it off."
The hero's refusal of all these offers recalls, of course, the pre
vious passive heroes and even Dudley,
the "ardent" hero. Moreover,
the imagery of knobs, tools and panels, and Brent's
ineomr
amusing
the unconscious
resemble
dramatizations
of impotence
in
petence
scenes of An English Girl and A Call. But the
the telephone
point is
that even Ford finds his hero occasionally
laughable
(though Ford
no Freudian
intended
more
and,
probably
symbolism)
important,
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THOMAS MOSER
also knows
ence
that the hero
really
can at the
appropriate
time experi
passion.
separates this episode from the final
Although much bad writing
at
is
die end Ford
able to bring together Brent and Mary
scene,
de
the girl he really loves. Appropriately
Savylle,
enough, Ford
scribes their union in terms of the situation and the imagery so well
room
through the slid
managed
previously. Mary steals into Brent's
it
her
hand still on the
"with
closes
stands
behind
and
her,
ing panel,
.
.
.
secret door of
little
"at
the
knob,
panting
looking
slightiy,"
now
resists
Elusive
she
the impulse to
the
novel,
escape."
throughout
as the comic
to
Brent.
He
and
instead
calls
flight
responds warmly,
hero should and as none of the earher heroes has been able to; he
that his lips
kisses "her repeatedly
upon every one of her features
at last,' he
to reach. Tve
it
could be expected
off
gasped.
brought
Tve kissed somebody at last.' "5
years later Ford brought off The Good Soldier, his greatest
But surely his
How he really did it must remain a mystery.
and Ashburnham
trials with earher heroes helped make Dowell
pos
his
with
Ford
is intensely
sible. From the beginning,
sympathetic
in
active
and
the
the
ones,
who,
heroes,
passion,
caught up
passive
to. What
is lacking is artistic
than they deserve
all suffer far more
even dis
as flawed,
to see these characters
the capacity
distance,
not ad
demand
sometimes
whose
human
abled,
sufferings
beings,
miration
but pity and even irony. A Call and The Panel especially
receives
Leicester
of detachment:
hint at the beginnings
Dudley
a
is
comic
Brent
Edward
ironic
hero;
treatment; Major
frankly
mildly
in the epilogue
the passive hero, elicits criticism
Robert Grimshaw,
if not in the novel.
Ford seems finally to have sensed the need to separate his two
more distinctly
than he was able to in A Call. By
character-types
into something
of a eunuch, a male nurse,
frankly making Dowell
is
in the characters of Clem,
he was merely
accepting what
implicit
use
same time, Ford can, in Dowell,
At
Don
the
and
Robert.
George,
awareness
of others if
the passive hero's exphcit virtue of sensitivity,
In con
narrator.
not always of self, to achieve an effective,
complex
is not
trast, Ford makes his active hero truly ardent: if Ashburnham
a stalhon forever neighing
after his neighbor's wife, he is at
exacdy
or
not touch Maisie
least a man of passion. Even
though he does
a
for years, he is nevertheless
can
his
wife
without
do
and
Nancy
be
"It
at
he
when
he
looks
done,"
thinks,
man;
Florence,
just
might
as
does it. Ford insists on Ashburnham
and, moreover,
suffering, Hke
Three
novel.
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Towards The Good Soldier
all the heroes in his serious novels of passion, yet now
as "Miss
same time as
Lonelyhearts,"
Just
imperfect.
West's wonderful
novel, comes to discover that utter
sees him at the
in Nathaniel
utter
banality,
so Ashburnham
can accompany
while
true
sentimentality,
suffering,
as if he were
can mutter
as
nobly enduring pain
great
being flayed
comments
bad verse under his breath. "It was like his sentimentality,"
"to quote Swinburne."
in The Good Soldier may, of
gradual evolution of characters
as
be
the
viewed
course,
simply
salutary result of constant practice
in the craft of fiction. But since Ford had written excellent historical
fiction much earlier, one suspects that the thinness and ineptitude of
his novels of modern
love arose in part from terrifyingly
personal
If this is the
subject-matter which he had long feared to understand.
a
not merely
of literary
case, The Good Soldier represents
triumph
skill but of knowledge,
of
even,
and,
courage.
self-acceptance
Dowell,
The
References
1. For differing interpretations of The Good Soldier see the following: John A.
Meixner, "The Saddest Story," Kenyon Review, XXII (Spring 1960), 234
264;
1957,
2.
See
and Mark
Thomas
"An
The
Interpretation,"
New
Soldier,
York,
For
Moser,
1957,
for
Herndon,
3. Ford
Madox
the
suggestions
Ford,
relations
and
England
between
this paper.
concerning
An
New
the English,
English
Girl
and
"Tietjens in Disguise," Kenyon Review, XXII
5.
Good
Achievement
Conrad:
and Decline,
Cambridge,
Joseph
Albert
Cam
and
Conrad
the Novelist,
II;
Guerard,
J.
Chapter
a consider
like here to acknowledge
Mass.,
1958, pp. 261 ff. I should
bridge,
to Mr. Guerard
omniscient
able debt
and to my
Fordian
friend, Dr. Richard
Mass.,
4.
Schorer,
v-xv.
pp.
In several
Ford
of
the historical
succeeds
in uniting
novels
hero
of
and
the
York,
1907,
later Ford,
253,
337.
see R. W.
Lid,
pp.
(Spring 1960), 265-276.
the period
The
just before
in
either
heroine
actuality
Good
or
Soldier,
in fantasy.
See The Portrait ( 1910), Ladies Whose Bright Eyes ( 1911 ), and The Young
Lovell (1913).
325
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