31 pages • 1 hour read
John CheeverThe Country Husband
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1962A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Plane Crash in the Cornfield
The plane crash at the beginning of the story symbolizes Francis Weed’s emotional awakening and his desire for a more meaningful existence. It represents a jarring interruption of his mundane suburban life; in the moments before the crash, the plane’s cabin even has “an atmosphere of intense and misplaced domesticity” (38). The crash forces open this unnaturally domestic space when the flight attendants open the emergency doors and the outside world comes pouring in as rain. This serves as a metaphor for Francis being forcefully thrust into a new perspective that causes him to question the superficiality of his surroundings and seek a deeper sense of purpose. It also symbolizes the trauma of World War II that many Americans sought to repress, as evidenced by Francis’s friends and family being unwilling to acknowledge the reality of what he went through.
The cornfield where the plane crashes has similar significance. The neat, uniform rows of corn represent the conformity and artificiality of Shady Hill, and it serves as a metaphorical backdrop for the struggles Francis faces in reconciling his desire for authenticity with the stifling conformity of his environment.
Jupiter the Dog
Jupiter the retriever represents a sense of freedom and vitality that contrasts with the restrained lives of the characters in Shady Hill, developing the theme of Suburban Conformity and Disillusionment in Marriage. He possesses a carefree, rambunctious spirit, roaming freely and enjoying life without the constraints imposed by society, which he not only ignores but also flouts:
Jupiter went where he pleased, ransacking wastebaskets, clotheslines, garbage pails, and shoe bags. He broke up garden parties and tennis matches, and got mixed up in the processional at Christ Church on Sunday, barking at the men in red dresses (40).
The dog’s unfiltered actions and ability to give into his every instinct contrast with the carefully maintained social facades and pretenses of the human characters; he represents the passions and desires that people must repress to thrive in Shady Hill. Jupiter’s authenticity underscores the theme of the loss of individuality and the struggle to maintain one’s true self within a conformist society. The fact that many residents want to do away with him shows what an existential threat such freedom poses to suburban enclaves like Shady Hill.
Woodworking
Francis’s newfound hobby of woodworking symbolizes his desire to create something tangible and meaningful in his life. The act of woodworking becomes a metaphor for Francis’s attempt to carve an authentic existence out of the raw, superficial material of Shady Hill and through it find personal redemption. Readers also learn that he was once lost in “the north woods” (47), which left him feeling as distressed and hopeless as he did after the plane crash and his dalliance with Anne. The attempt to gain mastery over the material in which he was lost parallels his quest to gain mastery over these feelings of ennui and achieve some sense of peace or self-actualization. The description of the smell of the wood as “holy” also evokes Christianity and Jesus’s occupation as a carpenter. By linguistically linking woodworking to spiritual pursuits, Cheever further links it to Francis’s search for a higher purpose and evokes The Possibility of Redemption and Change.
War
Cheever employs the motif of war to underscore the trauma that lingers in the post-war American psyche, using Francis to explore both the overt and subtle impact of it on one man’s life.
Francis fought in the war, but he has repressed the memories of it “so successfully” that he has lost touch with his true emotions. This detachment, while necessary to thrive in the community of Shady Hill, ultimately leads him to seek fulfillment and stimulation outside the confines of his familial unit. After the plane crash jars Francis into his new, more contemplative mindset, war imagery bubbles up in descriptions of Francis’s home life, suggesting that the memories he has been repressing are surfacing. He hears Julia’s announcement that dinner is ready as “the war cries of Scottish chieftains” (38), sees his children as “combatants,” and views his home as a “battlefield.” Seeing the maid at the Farquarsons’ party sparks a more overt memory of his time at war that leaves him feeling further alienated from his family and neighbors. References to WWII and to war generally later appear in Francis’s conversation with Clayton, whose partial wartime orphaning has made him an outcast in the determinedly cheerful neighborhood, and in Francis’s argument with Julia, whose comments “thrust[] hilt-deep” (46). Only through the hobby of woodworking—of making something, as opposed to participating in the destruction of war—can he begin the process of mending his spirit.
Related Titles
By John Cheever
