When My Girl Comes Home by V. S. Pritchett
"When My Girl Comes Home" by V. S. Pritchett is a poignant narrative that explores themes of moral ambiguity, societal expectations, and the complexities of human relationships amidst the backdrop of World War II. The story revolves around Hilda Johnson, a woman who marries an Indian and later finds herself in a Japanese war camp. Upon her return to Hincham Street, London, after a long absence, her unexpected marriage to a Japanese officer shocks the community, challenging their preconceptions and moral judgments.
The narrative unfolds through the eyes of Harry Fraser, offering fragmented perspectives from various characters on the street, who projected their hopes and fears onto Hilda during her absence. The residents had hoped for a triumphant return, but their expectations are met with disillusionment as Hilda embodies the complexities of survival during wartime. Pritchett skillfully portrays the internal struggles of the community, revealing their own compromises and moral failings that parallel Hilda's experiences.
Through a blend of character-driven storytelling and shifting narratives, the work delves into the themes of illusion versus reality, leaving readers to grapple with the ambiguity of each character's choices. The disintegration of Hilda's idealized image and the moral authority once held by her mother signify a broader commentary on the human condition in times of conflict and the lasting impact of war on community dynamics.
On this Page
When My Girl Comes Home by V. S. Pritchett
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1961 (collected in The Pritchett Century, 1997)
Type of work: Short story
The Work
“When My Girl Comes Home,” Pritchett’s favorite story, uses a disjointed narrative and shifting ambiguities to reflect the theme of the story. Hilda Johnson was the darling of Hincham Street, London, when she married an Indian and went East. She was reported to be incarcerated in a Japanese war camp under brutal conditions. For two years the entire street forged together and, despite the stone wall of several nations’ bureaucracies, persisted in obtaining information about her—and about her final release. Returning home, she is not pale or wan but well-fed and sleek, even sprightly. Hincham Street is shocked to hear that she married a Japanese officer and thus escaped the deprivations and suffering of a foreigner. Mrs. Johnson had been sewing for years and saving money for her girl’s homecoming; Mrs. Johnson becomes the moral center of the street.
The story portrays a woman who must have used her wiles (Pritchett is vague about many details and the reader must reconstruct the evidence) not only in Japan but also during her return trip, during which she met two Westerners who showered gifts on her. Gloster, one of the men, promises to find her and take her and her mother away to France. Gloster never comes. The tale, containing a multitude of characters, careens from one character to another, but the limited narrator is Harry Fraser, who provides the reader with fragmentary accounts. A real prisoner of the Japanese, Bill Williams, survived through all kinds of deal-making: The reader believes that Hilda did as well. These two form an odd union, involved perhaps in illegalities. Eventually, Williams pursues Hilda in a number of ways, then ransacks her apartment and disappears. Hilda, too, after her mother’s death, leaves her home. Her whereabouts are unknown until one day when the neighbors receive a photograph of her and two men; one of them is Gloster, who has written a book not about Hilda’s experiences in Japan but about Hincham Street.
Hilda’s homecoming, long awaited by the neighbors, disappoints them and causes them to face their moral views of the war, as Hilda did not when she married a Japanese officer. Many on Hincham Street inflicted self-injury, committed perjury, or escaped their duty to serve during World War II in duplicitous ways. Whether in a pub, a chance conversation in the street, or a gathering of friends, the war always paralyzed the citizens when they came to the closed door of their conscience. Hilda and Bill were not the only ones to compromise (to survive in Japan); the people of Hincham Street had done the same then (during the war) and now (after the war) in refusing to confront their moral dilemmas and conscience. Pritchett’s theme of illusion and reality both during and after the war is portrayed with ambiguities. The shifting relationships of the characters do not permit the reader to grasp any clear resolution. The ideal symbol of Hilda is shattered on her return, and the symbol of her mother as a center of moral gravity is splintered when Mrs. Johnson dies. Hincham Street remains shorn of ideals and discomfited by moral festering.
Bibliography
Allen, Walter Ernest. “V. S. Pritchett.” In The Short Story in English. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Baldwin, Dean R. V. S. Pritchett. Boston: Twayne, 1987.
Bloom, Jonathan. The Art of Revision in the Short Stories of V. S. Pritchett and William Trevor. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Bloom, Jonathan. “V. S. Pritchett’s Ministering Angell.” Sewanee Review 112, no. 2 (Spring, 2004): 212-239.
Forkner, Ben, and Philippe Séjourné. “An Interview with V. S. Pritchett.” Journal of the Short Story in English 6 (Spring, 1986): 11-38.
Hughes, Douglas A. “V. S. Pritchett: An Interview.” Studies in Short Fiction 13 (1976): 423-432.
Oumhani, Cécile. “Water in V. S. Pritchett’s Art of Revealing.” Journal of the Short Story in English 6 (Spring, 1986): 75-91.
Peden, William. “V. S. Pritchett.” In The English Short Story, 1880-1945. Boston: Twayne, 1985.
Treglown, Jeremy. V. S. Pritchett: A Working Life. London: Chatto & Windus, 2004.
Wood, James. “An English Chekhov.” The Times Literary Supplement, no. 5153 (January 4, 2002): 12.