Good Soldier

“Good Soldier” by Ford Madox Ford is a novel that is divided up into four parts describing the events of what happened to a couple, John and Florence Dowell when they were acquainted with another couple, Edward and Leonora Ashburnham. In Part I we see the two couple meet in a health spa where they begin to establish a friends ship that would last for nine years. Leonora realizes that Florence and Edward are having an affair but later we discover he had many affairs in the past. At first John thought it wasn’t true be cause he wasn’t aware of Edward’s past but soon he’d realize that it was and their friendship would be over between the couples. Leonora brings along Mrs. Maiden so that Edward would have a good mistress but when she finds out she dies of a heart attack because of how disgusted she is with what is happening.
Part two begins with a brief flashback about John and Florence’s meeting and marriage and their trip to Europe. While they are in Europe Florence begins to develop a fake heart condition which would lead to them staying in Europe. John begins to explain how Florence had an affair that he didn’t know about with an artist named Jimmy. After this affair a couple years later when Edward and Leonora met with the Jimmy and Florence their friendship became tainted because Florence was having an affair with Edward for the whole nine years the couple were friends with one another. When we get back to present time Florence was planning on divorcing herself from John but she saw Edward courting a girl named Nancy in a park. She immediately ran home then poisoned herself because when she got home her husband John was informed of her affair with Jimmy.
Part three is describing how both Edawrd and John are trying to make Nancy fall in love with them after Florence’s death. Leonora, Edward, John, and Nancy all go to Branshaw Manor in England where Leonora would break down and make an educated guess that Edward is in love with Nancy. We learn that Leonora had been putting up with Edwards unfaithfulness but after his last affair with Florence she claims that their love is dead.
In the Last Part of the book Nancy breaks down and tells Leonora that Edward is a horrible husband and that he was trying to get with her even thought that the Ashburnham’s are her ward. John tells Nancy and Leonora to torture Edward and he suffers so greatly that he sends Nancy back to India to live with her father in hoping that she will miss him. When he finds out he is wrong he commits suicide. Leonora meets someone knew who she claims is the perfect man and marries him and when Nancy goes psychotic John takes her in to live with him in the Branshaw Manor permanently after he buys it.
In Good Soldier there are two main themes that stick out normality and reality. Throughout the novel John, the narrator of the novel judges people as either normal or abnormal. He talks a lot about what normal really is because something normal to you may not be normal to someone else. This theme seems to stick out the most and the theme is reality. In Good Soldier John thinks to know the people around him very well and gives people trust but in reality they aren’t what he thinks, for example he trust Edward enough to leave his wife with him but secretly he’s having an affair with John’s wife.
The author’s language was easy to comprehend but still had a good vocabulary. The book was written in a first person narrative in the life of John Dowell and it gave me a good sense of the emotions he felt and others as well in great detail.
There were many issues in this book that pertain to adolescents but one that stands out the most is faithfulness in relationships. In “ Good Soldier ” a lot of the book is about affairs in relationships. Dating in relationships first begins in the adolescent stage of a person’s life. Since people are young, inexperienced, and ignorant some people chose the path to be unfaithful and there are consequences, which are evident in this book.
I have not noticed any similarities thus far with our completion of this course.
I found that the author did a great job of writing this novel and the only way he could have improved his novel is if he gave more points of view rather than just John Dowell’s. I would recommend this book to many teenagers because it demonstrates how severe the consequences can be of being unfaithful and dishonest.
There is plenty of evidence of symbolism in this book and the two most obvious ones are “shuttlecocks” and Martin Luther’s protest. Shuttlecock means to be tossed back in forth like a badminton birdie and when Nancy loses her mind that’s all she can say is “shuttlecocks”. The symbolism behind this is throughout the book many characters go through emotional ups and downs and goes back and forth like a shuttlecock. Florence begins to talk about Martin Luther’s protest and how it represents soberness, honesty and industrious. It is symbolic because Martin Luther’s speech separates two different groups of people just like how Florence is separating herself and Edward from Leonora and John.