Boston Adventure by Jean Stafford
**Overview of "Boston Adventure" by Jean Stafford**
"Boston Adventure" is Jean Stafford's first and most popular novel, distinguished for its exploration of the inner life of its protagonist, Sonia Marburg. Set against the backdrop of Boston's contrasting social landscapes, the narrative is divided into two parts: "Hotel Barstow," where Sonia observes the affluent lives she longs for, and "Pinckney Street," an exclusive area where she finds herself taken in by a wealthy benefactor, Miss Lucy Pride. Sonia's journey is marked by her challenging upbringing as the daughter of immigrant parents struggling with their own failures, and she grapples with feelings of unworthiness and longing for a better life.
As Sonia transitions to life on Pinckney Street, she gradually adopts Miss Pride's ideals and lifestyle, often at the cost of her own identity. The novel delves into themes of societal expectations, personal sacrifice, and the complexities of human relationships, particularly highlighted through Sonia's interactions with the upper class and her ultimately tragic realization of the underlying cruelty within that society. The narrative captures the nuances of class disparity and the price of ambition, offering readers a poignant look at aspirations and disillusionment in early 20th-century America.
Boston Adventure by Jean Stafford
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1944
Type of work: Novel
The Work
Boston Adventure, Stafford’s first novel, was also her most popular work. Although critics do not consider it her best novel, they do point out how effectively Stafford presents the inner life of the protagonist, much in the manner of the nineteenth century novelists Henry James and Marcel Proust.
The story is divided into two parts, each of which has been given the title of a place. Book 1 is called “Hotel Barstow,” after the summer place on the North Shore across from Boston, where Sonia Marburg, the poverty-stricken protagonist, sees the wealthy Bostonians whose lives she yearns to imitate. Book 2 is titled “Pinckney Street,” after the exclusive area in Beacon Hill to which Sonia is taken by a benefactor.
Sonia has good reason to want to escape from the place of her birth. The daughter of two immigrants who have failed to achieve the American Dream, she spends her childhood in a drafty shack, listening to her parents’ quarrels, which are interrupted only by their bouts of drunkenness. Her beautiful but bad-tempered Russian mother, who works as a chambermaid at Hotel Barstow, hates her husband, a German shoemaker she met on the boat trip to America, because he cannot give her the luxury he promised. From her earliest consciousness, Sonia feels unwanted; indeed, her father tells her that she should never have been born.
Sonia cannot help contrasting the chaotic atmosphere of her home with the order of the Hotel Barstow room occupied by an aristocratic Boston spinster, Lucy Pride. Because of her tranquil demeanor and her self-possession, Miss Pride becomes a symbol of an ideal way of life. When her father asks Sonia what she would like to be, she replies simply that she would like to live on Pinckney Street.
Ironically, it is the disintegration of Sonia’s family that makes her dream a possibility. Her father walks out; her little brother, who is born shortly afterward, wanders away from home and dies in a snowstorm; and her mother, who has gradually declined into insanity, is institutionalized. At this point, Miss Pride, who has always taken an interest in Sonia, offers her a position as a secretary, tuition for the training she needs, and, most important, her own room in the mansion on Pinckney Street. The final sentence of this section has a significance that at the time Sonia does not grasp. Dropping in unexpectedly, Miss Pride has found her protégé reading the newspaper comic strips. Politely, she suggests that she does not expect to find such reading in her home. This comment should alert Sonia to the fact that whatever she gains by moving to Pinckney Street will be at the loss of her own identity.
In book 2, Sonia becomes the person Miss Pride wishes her to be, tailoring not only her reading habits but also her clothes and her conversation to her employer’s pattern. Even though she is half in love with a young doctor, Philip McAllister, Sonia accepts the fact that Miss Pride has reserved him for her niece, the lovely, independent Hopestill (“Hope”) Mather, whom Philip adores. Sonia soon becomes privy to this subtle society’s secret codes, understanding what may be inferred from a word, a gesture, or a casual reference. This skill leads her to a shocking discovery: Hope is pregnant by a notorious philanderer and intends to maintain her respectability by marrying Philip. After the wedding, when it becomes evident that Philip, now undeceived, is taking a subtle revenge upon her, Hope deliberately causes her horse to throw her, losing both her baby and her own life. Now aware of the real viciousness beneath the surface of Beacon Hill society, Sonia sadly realizes that by promising to remain with Miss Pride until her death, she, too, has sold herself into bondage.
Bibliography
Austenfeid, Thomas Carl. American Women Writers and the Nazis: Ethics and Politics in Boyle, Porter, Stafford, and Hellman. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001.
Goodman, Charlotte Margolis. Jean Stafford: The Savage Heart. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.
Hulbert, Ann. The Interior Castle: The Art and Life of Jean Stafford. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
Roberts, David. Jean Stafford: A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1988.
Rosowski, Susan J. Birthing a Nation: Gender, Creativity, and the West in American Literature. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.
Ryan, Maureen. Innocence and Estrangement in the Fiction of Jean Stafford. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.
Walsh, Mary Ellen Williams. Jean Stafford. Boston: Twayne, 1985.
Wilson, Mary Ann. Jean Stafford: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1996.