A common thread running through The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is the disparity between our façades and our real selves, as well as the disparity between what we tell ourselves about the reality of our situations and what is actually real. The main character, Dowell, must come to terms with the realization that no one is who he believes them to be. Dowell has constructed a reality for himself, one which has kept him afloat. But when his reality is shattered by truly getting to know the people around him, he must redefine what it means to be ordinary. The book essentially asks the question, ‘What is normal, anyway?’ Another question asked by the book—one which the main character must grapple with—is ‘What is a good person?’
At the onset of the novel, Dowell’s world is well defined. He classifies people into neat boxes, much like a checklist. You are good or you are bad. You are normal or you are abnormal. For Dowell, a normal person is one who is conservative, obeys the rules society has laid out for us and is devoid of passion. Decisions are made rationally, within the confines of what is acceptable behavior according to the mores and norms of society. For Dowell, the social contract trumps all. If one is unwilling to abide by the very fabric of our society—the unspoken rules we all agree to—then nothing is secure. If you do not follow the rules and the morality which we all claim to espouse, then you are bad. For Dowell, the classification of people should be quite simple.
In juxtaposition with Dowell’s very dispassionate and detached ideas about how one should behave, think, and feel is the recurring image of the heart. The book revolves around two couples, who according to the narrator in the opening, are ‘normal’ friends. The heart serves as a motif woven throughout the story itself. In fact, the two couples meet because of their literal hearts, or at least, because of their supposed heart ailments. Dowell’s wife, Florence, and the husband of their couple friend, Edward, are being treated at a spa in Germany for heart conditions. And it is the feelings of the heart, which lead to the downfall of the characters in the book. This is a perfect opposing feature to allow the story’s conflict and theme to fully blossom. Dowell’s view of the world is laid asunder due to the heart. It is because of our feelings that life does not work in the manner Dowell wishes it did. The irony is deep and terrifically rendered for the main character, whose world would be complete if people would simply ignore their hearts altogether.
But as Dowell begins to fully develop the stories he shares with the reader, a different view emerges. The two ‘normal’ couples are anything but. And the ‘normal friendship’ is neither normal nor quite a friendship. Dowell has deluded himself in believing a reality he prefers, rather than dealing with the reality at hand. And the heart ailment, which leads the two couples to meet is questionable at best. Dowell’s wife, Florence, is faking her condition. Edward’s condition is ambiguous. He may or may not have an ailment. And its level of seriousness appears questionable as well. We learn that Dowell’s wife, Florence, has lied about her condition in order to facilitate a dalliance with Edward.
There are elements of the autobiographical in The Good Soldier. The painful betrayal and realized that people are not who you believe them to appear to be lifted directly from Ford’s personal life. In fact, it is widely assumed that both Lenora, Edward’s cold and controlling wife, and Florence, Dowell’s scheming, manipulative wife, are modeled from Ford’s own life. Elsie Hueffner and Violet Hunt respectively are believed to be the real-life inspirations for these female characters (Gardnier 70). Violet Hunt was a “sexually and professionally emancipated English novelist” (Pesman 656). Hunt was known to have multiple lovers. She and Ford never married but were involved for a decade. However, for Ford to be involved with anyone, the woman would have to have been “abnormal” by Dowell’s standards. Ford’s wife, Elsie Martindale, would not agree to grant him a divorce; thus, his subsequent liaisons with women put them at risk for being “beyond conventional morality” (Pesman 656).
Dowell is a classic unreliable narrator. His perception of the events and people around him are inaccurate and capricious. He sees people as he wishes to see them, rather than as they are. Additionally, he initially recounts events in one manner, only to later divulge details that reveal his initial telling as an untruth. So while it would be simple to write off the other characters as the villains in this piece, one must not overlook Dowell’s own dishonesty. One could argue that his dishonesty is all the more treacherous since he is dishonest with himself as well. Dowell appears to either lack the ability to ably read the emotions of those around him, or the willingness or do so. In fact, he admits to the reader: “I know nothing—nothing in the world—of the hearts of men” (Ford 38). But either way, his account of those around him is at times generous and at other times, he is bordering upon unkind. In one breath he tells us of his affection for Edward, how they are so much alike. In the next, he shows contempt for Edward’s predilection toward romantic novels. “So, you see, he would have plenty to gurgle about to a woman…and with his intense, optimistic belief that the woman he was making love to at the moment was the one he was destined, at last, to be eternally constant to…” (Ford 55). Thus, his own truth appears to be fleeting and mercurial.
It seems Dowell’s puzzle is to try to understand the human heart. He cannot seem to understand complex emotions or feelings that do not fit in with his own view of the world. When trying to understand a story told to him by his wife about a failed attempt to take a lover, he remarks: “I don’t know: was that last remark of hers the remark of a harlot, or is it what every decent woman, country family or not country family, thinks at the bottom of her heart? Or thinks all the time for the matter of that? Who knows?” (Ford 39). Dowell seems genuinely puzzled by the idea that women might experience true passion, a desire for a passionate experience, and genuine regret regarding the chances not taken. This mirrors Ford’s own personal struggle with dissecting emotional experiences, as explained in the introduction to The Good Soldier, “Ford succeeds in demonstrating the ways in which a rich, American Quaker finds himself utterly ill-equipped to transverse his own confounding subterranean levels of emotion because of his layers upon layers of acculturated personal reserve that shield him from the world” (Baker and Womack 13). Ford himself struggled with his own emotionality—and apparently that of others around him—and he paints Dowell with the same brush.
When Dowell comes face to face with the idea that the people he knows and loves might not be “good people,” he is pained to react and respond. Lacking an emotional toolbox to handle this truth, he relies instead upon his chosen role as a martyr and selects another sickly romantic partner. For Dowell, emotional relationships work best when he is the caregiver and his intended is the recipient. There is less mess when his romantic partner is reduced to the most simplistic of needs.
As much as it appears that Ford has drawn on his own experiences to create Florence, who is the cause of so much woe due to her refusal to embrace morality, it would seem that like his own unreliable narrator, Ford himself has some difficulty accurately recalling events—or at least seeing them clearly. Hunt returned from a trip abroad with Ford and began referring to herself as ‘Mrs. Hueffner.’ (Ford’s given name is Ford Madox Hueffer. He later changed his name to Ford Madox Ford after his relationship with Hunt.) It is well known that Hunt did not appreciate the “unorthodox domestic situation” and “was desperate to acquire some respectability” (Pesman 656). Additionally, in Ford’s real life, it was his own infidelity that ended his relationship with Hunt, not the other way around. While recovering from a nervous breakdown during his time in the service, he met and became involved with Stella Bowen. Violet Hunt had been awaiting his return, which would never come to be due to his shift in romantic interest. This was an apparent pattern for Ford, who left his wife for Hunt. So what is an irony for Dowell is also that for Ford: while he struggles to understand his own emotions and those of the people around him, it is his emotions which are constantly dismantling his romantic life.
So while the writer himself cannot seem to reconcile the facts with his own romanticized view of his life—in which he is the hero of his own narrative—he creates a character, who indulges in this same behavior. Is this a psychological admission of his own tendency toward rewriting history? In reality, Ford neglected to even mention Hunt in his memoirs. It is as though he white-washed his past so that her painful memory no longer occupied space. Are we to believe that like Dowell, who simply chooses to believe his own truth, Ford writes his history as he wishes it? This is a tendency we see not just in Ford’s romantic life, but in his professional life as well. When referencing his mentor, Joseph Conrad, “he would later exaggerate his success in comparison with Conrad’s significant place in the twentieth-century fictive canon” (Baker and Womack 10).
Ford certainly saw The Good Soldier as a significant contribution to the literary world. But he apparently also saw this telling of ‘an affair’ as a significant emotional event as well. His initial title for the book was The Saddest Story. This title was ultimately rejected in favor of a more salable title. It is assumed the choice of The Good Soldier was made in part due to the impending war. At any rate, the change of the title of the book pained Ford. A fact about which he wrote Stella Bowen—a letter which appears before the text of The Good Soldier. “To my horror six months later the book appeared under that title [The Good Soldier]. I have never ceased to regret it but, since the War, I have received so much evidence that the book has been read under that name that I hesitate to make a change for fear of causing confusion” (Ford 32). Ford opens his novel with the following line: “This is the saddest story I ever heard” (Ford 34). Knowing the autobiographical nature of the book renders Ford virtually emotionally naked. But his phrasing makes the statement all the more interesting. He states this as though this is a story that happened to someone else. It is as though even as a writer, speaking through a fictional character, the emotional wreckage is too powerful to allow him to stand and look it square in the eye. He must distance himself from it.
The powerful themes in this book ask the reader to examine the lies they tell themselves and the carefully constructed personas they have created for the people closest to them. Who among us could withstand the true examination of their own heart and the hearts of the people they love? If any of us really knew anyone else—and really knew ourselves—how would we define “good people”? Would there be anyone left to bestow that title upon?
References
Baker, William, and Kenneth Womack. Introduction to The Good Soldier. Canada: Broadview Press, 2003.
Ford, Ford Madox, Baker, William, and Kenneth Womack. The Good Soldier. Canada: Broadview Press, 2003.
Gardnier, Judith Kegan. “Rhy Recalls Ford: Quartet and The Good Soldier.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 1.1 (1982): 67-81. Web.
Pesman, Ros. “Ford Madox Ford’s Women.” Women’s History Review 8.4 (1999): 655-670.