The Doctor's Wife by Brian Moore
"The Doctor's Wife" by Brian Moore explores the complexities of marital dissatisfaction and infidelity through the character of Sheila Redden. Married to Dr. Kevin Redden, a provincial doctor characterized as rigid and unimaginative, Sheila initially appears content and looks forward to a romantic getaway in Villefranche. However, when her husband’s medical obligations prevent him from joining her, Sheila's emotional vulnerability leads her to engage in a passionate affair with a younger American graduate student, Tom Lowry. This relationship starkly contrasts her unfulfilling marriage, representing joy and freedom against the backdrop of her husband's oppressive nature and the bleakness of Belfast.
As the story unfolds, Sheila faces a moral crisis following a violent confrontation with Kevin, which ultimately shatters their marriage. Her internal struggle is portrayed with depth, as she grapples with feelings of guilt and the desire for redemption. Despite her newfound love for Tom, Sheila chooses to forgo a life with him, opting instead for an uncertain future in London where she can reflect on her actions and seek penance. Moore crafts Sheila's journey with psychological and spiritual nuances, highlighting her moral integrity and the profound implications of her choices in a complex emotional landscape.
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The Doctor's Wife by Brian Moore
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1976
Type of work: Novel
The Work
The temptation is powerful to compare The Doctor’s Wife to Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857): The protagonists of both novels are married to provincial doctors, have convulsively passionate affairs with younger lovers, and engage in the subterfuges and stratagems that adulterous relationships necessitate. Yet the differences between the heroines are important: Emma Bovary was bored and unhappy in her incompatible marriage long before she encountered Rodolphe and Léon; Moore’s Sheila is seemingly satisfied to be married to Dr. Kevin Redden and looks forward to a second honeymoon, when they plan to revisit Villefranche in the French Riviera.
Sheila’s overworked husband is unable to join her for medical reasons, however, and when she visits her good friend Peg in Paris, she soon finds herself involved, emotionally and, in a few days, sexually, with a wholesome, handsome, charming American graduate student, Tom Lowry, who, at twenty-six, is eleven years her junior. It turns out that Kevin is rigid, anti-intellectual, unadventurous, unimaginative, and just plain unable to understand her. Moore links Dr. Redden with his native Belfast: bleak, rainy, repressive, bitter, bombed, and barricaded. Villefranche stands, in stark contrast, for a lover’s paradise: sunny, sexual, self-indulgent, beautiful, uncomplicated, a world away from the blight of Ireland. Tom follows Sheila there, she discourages her husband from joining her, and soon she and Tom are joyously united.
Kevin Redden’s suspicions darken to irrational rage as he finally confronts his candid wife in her hotel room and ends up raping her. Their marriage is over, but Sheila decides not to accompany the adoring Tom to the United States. She is a person of moral integrity who feels, in a Jamesian mode of moral renunciation, that she must not derive personal profit from her decision to abandon her husband. Moore dramatizes Sheila’s psychological crisis in spiritual terms: She has attained a state of grace during the Villefranche episode, but, according to her Catholic outlook, she must enter purgatory to expiate her venial sins. She chooses an uncertain new life in London, where she can shed her past yet continue her penance for having betrayed both her husband and her lover. Moore, with his sober artistry, has created in Sheila Redden a heroine of a depth, intensity, and subtlety rare in contemporary fiction.
Bibliography
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