The Country Husband by John Cheever

First published: 1954

The Work

“The Country Husband” exemplifies John Cheever’s interpretation of life, values, and futile rebellion among neighbors and families. In Shady Hill, a suburb within commuting distance of New York, wives are concerned with dinners, social gatherings, and social status; daughters are absorbed in romance magazines; children bicker on household battlefields; and husbands delude themselves with fantasies of romance as they struggle merely to be acknowledged.

Clayton Thomas, who is engaged to Anne Murchison, a baby-sitter, offers a summary of Shady Hill: “What seems to me really wrong with Shady Hill is that it doesn’t have any future. So much energy is spent in perpetuating the place—in keeping out undesirables, and so forth—that the only idea of the future anyone has is just more and more commuting trains and more parties.”

Francis Weed, the story’s central character, seems to agree, for he thinks that there is “no turpitude.” Life seems “arranged with more propriety even than in the Kingdom of Heaven.” The story begins as Francis survives a plane’s emergency landing, but upon his return to Shady Hill, he can find no one to listen to his harrowing experience. The superficiality of life in Shady Hill becomes especially clear when Francis sees a maid at a party and realizes that he saw her in France during World War II: She was publicly humiliated for being a collaborator with the Germans. Shady Hill residents consider drama, memory, and war to be not nice; Francis does not recount the story.

Wanting to go beyond social limitations, Francis seeks romance with Anne Murchison. He fantasizes but is grounded in the world of his wife, who plans a session for family photographs. Rejecting Shady Hill, Francis turns a chance meeting with Mrs. Wrightson, the neighborhood ruler of social affairs, into an occasion for a rude outburst. When Julia, Francis’ wife, confronts Francis about his behavior, Francis hits her across the face, yet her threat to abandon him dissolves into a pledge to stay “a little while longer.” Obsessing about Anne, Francis becomes crudely jealous of Clayton and, when asked to provide a helpful reference, besmears his name.

In the end, Francis seeks psychological help from Dr. Herzog, who instructs Francis to find solace in doing woodworking projects in his basement. Ironically, Francis, who at the outset bemoans the sterility of Shady Hill, ultimately betrays Clayton, the one resident aware of the community’s weaknesses, and retreats to the community’s superficiality. In the end, Jupiter, a romping dog who rambles through gardens, has more freedom and happiness than Francis, yet the dog’s destiny, Francis knows, is to be poisoned by an irritated householder.

Bibliography

Bosha, Francis J., ed. The Critical Response to John Cheever. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994.

Collins, Robert G., ed. Critical Essays on John Cheever. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.

Hunt, George W. John Cheever: The Hobgoblin Company of Love. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1983.

Meanor, Patrick. John Cheever Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1995.