The story of a disillusionment with respect to a misunderstood marriage, this novel of psychological realism is cast in the form of the recollections—with the full force of hindsight—of John Dowell, a wealthy American who has lost his wife, Florence, and his best friend, the wealthy Englishman Edward Ashburnham; John has only recently learned from Leonora Ashburnham that both deaths were suicides.
Dowell has purchased the late Edward’s estate in England and is caring for Nancy, the emotionally crippled ward Edward has left behind; Edward’s widow, Leonora, has remarried.
Dowell begins his narrative after these events have transpired and he has arrived at the Ashburnham estate. He has been bereaved long enough to recover equanimity, but he has only just discovered the truth about Florence and Edward: they had been carrying on an affair for nine years, and many of Florence’s travels—ostensibly to improve her health—were disguises for assignations between the lovers.
Dowell reflects on the origin and development of the association between the two couples, which he had thought to be a perfectly ideal friendship among four like-minded people of shared values.
The Dowells and the Ashburnhams had met at the German spa of Nauheim. Florence and John were “trapped” on the Continent: Florence had a heart condition (a metaphor for her weak capacity to love her husband), and after crossing to Europe on an ocean liner for their honeymoon, doctors had declared her too weak to make the journey back to the United States.
The Dowells are wealthy and at leisure: they can live anywhere they want, and so they enter into a routine of traveling to various resort locations. When they meet the Ashburnhams, John feels that four people have never been so near to being of one mind; ironically, he is the only one clueless as to what is on the minds of the other members of the group.
Leonora Ashburnham is experienced in the ways of extramarital affairs because of her husband’s repeated infidelities, and so she has no delusions about her sham of a marriage. Edward’s profligacy has put his fortune in jeopardy, and Leonora has demanded to manage the family finances and that Edward give up his flings. Since her Catholic upbringing has left Leonora with a mild distaste for human sexuality, this arrangement suits them for a time. But they are neither as wealthy nor as devoted as they appear to be.
But the real shock to Dowell is the discovery of the extent of his wife’s deceit. Their marriage had never been consummated because of her alleged heart condition; Dowell believed her to be a virgin too fragile to enter into the full expression of adult passion. In fact, she had had a series of affairs before her marriage; her appetite for sex was healthy; but she didn’t find her husband sexually interesting.
She seduces Edward in spite of Leonora’s vigilance, and for her part, Leonora is glad that Edward has found a paramour who is not after his money nor likely to cause a scandal. The affair also gives her considerable power, since Florence fears what would happen should John ever discover her perfidiousness as a wife. Leonora is perfectly positioned to make this information known to John, and so the affair remains under her partial control.
This perfect friendship ends when Florence dies at Nauheim, clutching a bottle of medicine John believes to be her heart pills. The circumstances of her death, however, represent a case of overdetermination: one of her former lovers shows up at the spa, leaving her in greater fear that her husband will discover her secrets, but she also realizes that Edward has fallen in love with his ward, Nancy.
Leonora has a hand in bringing Edward’s life and Nancy’s sanity to a crisis—she surrenders to spitefulness and manipulation—and then remarries a man not unlike Edward in his infidelity to his wife.
John Dowell purchases Edward’s home and settles in England, where he cares for the unbalanced Nancy—he, too, has reestablished the pattern of his life, serving as a caregiver to a disabled woman. His one consolation is the knowledge that Nancy’s illness is not a lie.
Ford Madox Ford creates a memorable narrative voice in the character of the decent but perhaps somewhat repressed John Dowell, allowing his narration to slide into unreliability. Because John does not know the depths of his own mind and the outer reaches of his own personality, he cannot present a completely accurate, thorough, and orderly account of events. Readers will often infer the truth before John is able to figure it out. His decency cannot always disguise the anger at the bottom of his feelings about his former wife and friend.
Becoming acquainted with him, readers also gain experience in seeing the larger story behind the surface meanings of a narration. The Good Soldier is written in a lucid and accessible style, but it plumbs the murky depths of the human heart.
Bibliography
Cassell, Richard A. Ford Madox Ford: A Study of His Novels. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1961.
Lid, R. W. Ford Madox Ford: The Essence of His Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964.
Stang, Sondra J. Ford Madox Ford. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1977.
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