The Equations of Love: Analysis of Major Characters

Author: Ethel Wilson

First published: 1952

Genre: Novel

Locale: Vancouver, other parts of British Columbia, and Toronto

Plot: Psychological realism

Time: The mid-twentieth century

Myrtle Johnson, a middle-aged domestic servant who is married to Mort. Myrtle, an unattractive woman, controls not only Mort but also her employer, as well as most people with whom she has frequent contact. She does this by portraying herself as the eternal victim and by manipulating others into assuming guilt for her current complaint or discomfort. With eyelids half closed and a smirk on her lips, she manages to make others feel insecure and unworthy, regardless of their achievement or good fortune. When the police bring the news to her that Mort and his drunken friend have accidentally drowned together, Myrtle, assuming that Mort also was drunk, becomes furious that her husband has disgraced her. Her cousin, Victoria May Tritt, who saw Mort and his friend immediately before the accident, redeems Mort in Myrtle's eyes by telling her the truth, that Mort definitely was not drunk. Myrtle uses the story of Mort as a hero who attempted to save his friend to retain her position of dominance over those who remain in her circle.

Mortimer (Mort) Johnson, Myrtle's enslaved husband. In middle age, he is short and stocky, once strong but now flabby, with kind brown eyes. Mort works, when he will, as a laborer. He is the type who calls himself a landscaper when he is hired to dig soil, a plumber when he is paid to haul pipe, and a horse-breaker when his work is near a stable. He is sensitive to his lowly position in life and works at a job no longer than he can retain his delusion of importance. When Mort's friend Eddie stumbles off the end of a dock into dark water, Mort jumps in to save him. He is pulled under by the struggling Eddie. Both men drown in a matter of a few minutes, before anyone is aware of their desperate situation.

Victoria May Tritt, an unmarried cousin of Myrtle Johnson. Victoria May lives alone in Vancouver and has a job in a small notions shop. In her room, while sitting in a straight chair under a bare bulb that hangs from the center of the room's ceiling, she reads the film magazine that she buys once a week. Victoria is very lonely, having no one except Myrtle, of whom she is afraid. Her timidity prevents her from seeking any real solution to her loneliness. Instead, she creates a comforting, familiar routine for herself, and the mechanics of her daily existence become virtually all there is to her life. It takes considerable gathering of courage for her even to drop in on the Johnsons for a visit. She considers the Johnsons, who are the only couple she knows, to be the ideal. It is Victoria May who is witness to Mort's sobriety on the night of his tragic death, and it is she who reports his “heroism” to Myrtle.

Lilly Waller, a youngster, abandoned first by her mother and then by her father, who grows up a vagrant in the streets of Vancouver. Lilly learns as a child to gain advantage from her look of innocence and neglect, and she also discovers that through fabrication and deceit, she can conveniently avoid what might be the unpleasant results of her behavior. Thrown out of her foster home for staying out all night, she rents a room and takes a job as a waitress in a Chinatown restaurant, where she is pursued by an Asian named Yow. Later, Lilly runs away to work (under the name of May Bates) in a mining camp café, moves in with a transient miner, and becomes pregnant with his child. Even before he leaves to return to his wife and family, Lilly decides to assume a new identity. She will be the widowed Mrs. Walter Hughes and will make a new, respectable life for herself and her baby daughter, Eleanor. Wanting more for Eleanor than for her to be a maid's daughter, Lilly finds new employment as a housekeeper in a small hospital in the Fraser Valley. She remains there for more than twenty-five years as the respectable Mrs. Hughes, having told her daughter and all who inquire that her husband, whose family had been people of means, had died at their ranch as a result of injuries inflicted by one of his stallions. Yow's appearance causes Lilly to run away to Toronto, where she plans a complete change in her appearance, after which she can return to Vancouver and live near Eleanor, who has married and has three sons. Lilly obtains a wig, applies cosmetics, and effects a complete change in her style of clothing. In Toronto, she meets the recently widowed and very lonely Mr. Sprockett from Winnipeg. He proposes to Lilly on their second evening of dining together. Lilly accepts but tearily insists on revealing to him her deepest secret (lest, she says, he might learn the truth and think less of her for deceiving him): that the hair that he sees on her head has not grown there but is, instead, an “adaptation.” Mr. Sprockett is impressed with Lilly's candor, and they begin plans for their wedding.

Eleanor, the illegitimate daughter of Lilly. Sweet, forthcoming, and demonstrative, she is unlike her mother in looks and in temperament. Eleanor, a romantic, relishes the life around her and appears in sharp contrast to Lilly, who has, through necessity, become withdrawn, stiff, and inhibited. Eleanor is reared by Lilly to emulate the good manners and soft-spoken ways of Mrs. Butler, whom Lilly had served during Eleanor's earliest years. Eleanor completes her schooling in the Fraser Valley, then is accepted to nurse training at a hospital in Vancouver, where she meets Paul Lowry, a young lawyer. They marry and establish a home where Lilly visits infrequently, as she is uncomfortable with their refined ways. Eleanor is what Lilly has made her: a respectable, educated young matron.