The Good Soldier

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The Good Soldier is a 1915 novel by English novelist and editor Ford Madox Ford. It is set just before World War I and chronicles the tragedies of the lives of two seemingly perfect couples. The novel is told using a series of flashbacks in non-chronological order, a literary technique pioneered by Ford. The novel was loosely based on two incidents of adultery and on Ford's messy personal life.

1 Plot summary
2 Major characters
3 Major themes
4 Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
5 Trivia
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Good Soldier is narrated by the character John Dowell, half of one of the couples whose dissolving relationships form the subject of the novel. Dowell tells the stories of those dissolutions as well as the deaths of three characters and the madness of a fourth, in a rambling, non-chronological fashion that leaves gaps for the reader to fill.

The novel opens with the famous line, “This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” Dowell explains that for nine years he, his wife Florence and their friends Captain Edward Ashburnham (the “good soldier” of the book’s title) and his wife Leonora had an ostensibly normal friendship while Edward and Florence sought treatment for their heart ailments at a spa in Nauheim, Germany.

As it turns out, nothing in the relationships or in the characters is as it first seems. Florence’s heart ailment is a fiction she perpetrated on John to force them to stay in Europe so that she could continue her affair with an American thug named Jimmy. Edward and Leonora have a loveless, imbalanced marriage broken by his constant infidelities (both of body and heart) and Leonora’s attempts to control Edward’s affairs (both financial and romantic). Dowell is a fool and is coming to realize how much of a fool he is, as Florence and Edward had an affair under his nose for nine years without John knowing until Florence was dead.

Florence’s affair with Edward leads her to commit suicide when she realizes that Edward is falling in love with his and Leonora’s young ward, Nancy Rufford, the daughter of Leonora's closest friend. Florence sees the two in an intimate conversation and rushes back into the resort, where she sees John talking to a man she knows (and who knows of her affair with Jimmy) but whom John doesn’t know. Assuming that her relationship with Edward and her marriage to John are over, Florence takes prussic acid – which she has carried for years in a vial that supposedly held her heart medicine – and dies.

With that story told, Dowell moves on to tell the story of Edward and Leonora’s relationship, which appears normal but which is a power struggle that Leonora wins. Dowell runs through several of Edward’s affairs and peccadilloes, including his possibly innocent attempt to comfort a crying servant on a train in India; his affair with the married Maisie Maidan, the one character in the book whose heart problem was unquestionably real and his bizarre tryst in Paris and Antibes with a kept woman known as La Dolciquita. Edward’s philandering ends up costing them a fortune in bribes, blackmail and gifts for his lovers, leading Leonora to take control of Edward’s financial affairs. She lords this power over him as a way to emasculate him and tries to control his romantic/sexual relationships.

Edward’s last affair is his most scandalous, yet at the same time his most genuine, as he develops feelings for their young ward, Nancy. Nancy came to live with them after leaving a convent where her parents had sent her; her mother was a violent alcoholic and her stepfather (it is later revealed that this man is not Nancy’s biological father) may have abused her. Bouncing between jealous rage and a desire for order, Leonora offers to divorce Edward so he can marry Nancy but tells Nancy what an awful husband Edward has been, wrecking Nancy’s affections for him. Edward, tearing himself apart because he sees how his infidelity has hurt Leonora, arranges to have Nancy sent to India to live with her father, even though he acknowledges that without Nancy in his life, he will die. Days after her departure, Edward dies and when Nancy reaches Aden and sees the obituary in the paper, she becomes catatonic.

The novel’s last section has Dowell writing from Edward’s old estate in England, where he takes care of Nancy, whom he had at one point offered to marry. Nancy is only capable of repeating two things – a Latin phrase meaning “I believe in an omnipotent God” and the word “shuttlecocks.” Dowell states that the story is sad because no one got what he wanted: Leonora wanted Edward but lost him and marries the normal (but dull) Rodney Bayham; Edward wanted Nancy but lost her; Dowell wanted a wife but has twice ended up a nurse to a sick woman, one a fake.

As if in an afterthought, Dowell closes the novel by telling the story of Edward’s suicide. Edward receives a telegram from Nancy that reads, “Safe Brindisi. Having a rattling good time. Nancy.” He asks Dowell to take the telegram to his wife, pulls out his pen knife, says that it’s time he had some rest and slits his own throat.

[edit] Major characters

John Dowell: The narrator, husband to Florence. Dowell is an American Quaker, a gullible and passionless man who can not read the emotions of the people around him.

Florence Dowell: John Dowell’s wife and a scheming, manipulative, unfaithful woman who uses Dowell for his money while pursuing her affairs on the side. She fakes a heart ailment to get what she wants out of her husband and has a lengthy affair with Edward Ashburnham.

Edward Ashburnham: Friend of the Dowells and husband of Leonora. Ashburnham is a hopeless romantic who keeps falling in love with the women he meets; he is at Nauheim for the treatment of a heart problem but it’s unclear whether the ailment is real. He is Dowell’s opposite, a virile, physical, passionate man.

Leonora Ashburnham: Edward’s wife by a marriage that was more or less arranged by their fathers. Leonora comes to resent Edward’s philandering as much for its effect on her life as on her marriage and asserts more and more control over Edward until he dies.

Nancy Rufford: The young ward of the Ashburnhams, Nancy and Edward fall in love after he tires of Florence. Nancy eventually goes to India to live with her father but goes mad en route when she learns of Edward’s death.

Maisie Maidan: One of Edward’s earlier affairs, Maisie was a young, pretty, married woman whom Edward steals or buys from her husband and brings back to Europe. Maisie has a true heart defect and it takes her life as she tries to flee from Edward.

[edit] Major themes

The novel’s overarching theme is that of John Dowell trying to recalibrate his sense of right and wrong. He feels bad for the philandering Edward, and claims that he could be just like Edward if he had Edward’s physicality. But it is clear that the differences between the two go beyond mere physical differences; Edward is emotional and passionate, whereas Dowell is methodical and passionless. Edward neglects his faithful wife but feels tremendous guilt over it; Dowell dotes on his faithless wife but shows little emotion upon her suicide.

Heart defects are a major recurring theme in the novel with obvious symbolic value. Florence and Edward both claim to have heart defects, but their heart defects are emotional rather than physical. The word “shuttlecocks,” uttered by Nancy, also serves as a symbol for the way she, Edward, and Leonora felt at the treatment of the other two.

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

The novel was adapted for television by Granada Television in 1981. It starred Jeremy Brett, Vickery Turner, Robin Ellis and Susan Fleetwood. It was directed by Kevin Billington and written by Julian Mitchell. In the US it aired as part of the Masterpiece Theatre series.

[edit] Trivia

The novel’s original title was The Saddest Story, but after the onset of World War I, the publishers asked Ford for a new title. Ford suggested (perhaps sarcastically) The Good Soldier, and the name stuck.

The date August 4th is significant in the novel, as it is the date of Florence’s birth, marriage, suicide, and other important events in her life. Although the novel was written before the war’s start, August 4th was also the date on which Germany invaded Belgium, initiating World War I.