The Catherine Wheel by Jean Stafford
"The Catherine Wheel" is a novel by Jean Stafford that explores complex themes of love, betrayal, and the consequences of personal choices. The narrative revolves around two main characters: Katharine Congreve, a wealthy unmarried woman from Boston, and Andrew Shipley, a twelve-year-old boy. Set against the backdrop of Katharine’s country house in northern New England during a pivotal summer, both characters grapple with intense inner conflicts. Andrew feels abandoned by his friend Victor, who is preoccupied with his sick brother, while Katharine wrestles with her feelings for John Shipley, Andrew's father, contemplating a relationship rooted in revenge rather than love.
As the story unfolds, Andrew and Katharine mistakenly believe that the other is aware of their secrets, leading to greater emotional turmoil. The title, referencing the fleeting nature of life's pleasures like fireworks, reflects the transient joys and deep regrets experienced by the protagonists. The novel culminates in a tragic ending during a party that echoes a past disaster, resulting in a moment of sacrifice that raises questions about love and loss. Ultimately, "The Catherine Wheel" invites readers to consider the depth of human emotions and the painful realizations that often come too late.
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Subject Terms
The Catherine Wheel by Jean Stafford
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1952
Type of work: Novel
The Work
As the epigraph indicates, the title of The Catherine Wheel was taken from a passage in Murder in the Cathedral (1935), a play by T. S. Eliot that compares the things of this world to children’s pleasures, as ephemeral as firework displays. In her final novel, Stafford again shows the tragic results that occur when individuals become so intoxicated with their own imagined needs that they are willing to sacrifice other people, as well as their own integrities, in order to fulfill them.
The story is told alternately by two protagonists, Katharine Congreve, a wealthy, unmarried woman from Boston, and Andrew Shipley, a twelve-year-old boy, the son of John Shipley, the man whom Katherine loved and lost twenty years before. For years, Andrew and his older twin sisters have spent their summers at Katharine’s country house in northern New England, never dreaming that their hostess is anything more than the longtime friend of both their parents and the first cousin of their mother, Maeve Maxwell Shipley. To the children, Katharine is the ultimate aunt, an understanding friend and confidant as well as a magician who can always suggest an exciting remedy for boredom.
This summer, however, both Andrew and Katharine are experiencing serious inner conflicts. After a difficult year at home, Andrew has looked forward to spending the summer with his best friend, Victor Smithwick, a fascinating local boy. This year, however, Victor is acting as nurse for his ailing older brother Charles, and he has no time for Andrew. Andrew feels betrayed, and out of hurt and anger he begins to pray for Charles’s death. Meanwhile, Katharine is seriously considering betraying the children who trust her. Discovering in his middle years that he has done nothing with his talents, John Shipley has convinced himself that if he divorces his wife and marries Katharine, he can have a new beginning. Although she has lost her respect for John, Katharine is tempted to take him, not out of love but out of a desire for revenge.
Because both of these essentially decent and sensitive protagonists feel so deeply guilty about their thoughts, each of them mistakenly thinks that the other knows his or her secret. Because they are extremely fond of each other, the result is an intensification of their misery. Even Stafford admitted that the tragic ending of The Catherine Wheel was rather contrived. At a party modeled on a disastrous one of twenty years before, Katharine insists on a display of the spinning fireworks that spell out her name. When one of them sets Charles’s clothing on fire, Katharine saves him, sacrificing her own life and begging the question of her love affair. At the end of the book, however, there is a moving scene in which Stafford has her protagonists realize, too late, that they have taken the wrong direction in their lives. The emotions that Katharine and Andrew should have cherished and nurtured were their deep feelings for each other.
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.