Walter Briggs by John Updike
"Walter Briggs" by John Updike is a short narrative that unfolds during a car ride home from Boston, where Jack and his wife, Clare, engage in conversation while their children sleep. As they reminisce about their past, particularly their time together at a YMCA family camp in New Hampshire five years earlier, the couple participates in a memory game, recalling names and details about acquaintances from that period. Their seemingly mundane chat reveals underlying tensions in their relationship, as they grapple with forgotten memories. A significant figure from their past, Walter Briggs, becomes the focal point of their conversation when they struggle to remember his last name. The story explores themes of nostalgia, domestic life, and the complexities of human connections through a lens of personal reflection. The narrative culminates in Jack's poignant recollection of Walter's name, symbolizing the interplay between memory and identity within their shared history. Updike's work captures the essence of everyday life while hinting at deeper emotional currents that may resonate with readers familiar with the intricacies of relationships.
On this Page
Walter Briggs by John Updike
First published: 1959
Type of plot: Domestic realism
Time of work: The late 1950's
Locale: The Boston area
Principal Characters:
Jack , the protagonistClare , his wifeJo , their two-year-old daughterWalter Briggs , a character from their past
The Story
Driving home from Boston (a fifty-minute trip), Jack and his wife, Clare, entertain their daughter Jo with a version of a familiar nursery rhyme while their infant son sleeps. After Jo also falls asleep, they talk about the people they have met at a party, which leads into an extended memory game in which they try to remember names and details about people they had known when, newly married, they had worked together at a YMCA family camp in New Hampshire for a summer five years before. Their conversation, mostly commonplace and trivial, reveals hidden conflicts. One name out of their past that eludes both of them is the surname of a man called Walter who stayed all summer and played bridge every night.
Lying in bed after arriving home, Jack starts recalling poignant details of their early married life at the summer camp, particularly of their cabin and of his habit of reading Miguel de Cervantes's El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (1605, 1615; The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha, 1612-1620; better known as Don Quixote de la Mancha) every evening before dinner. Thinking of his tears at the conclusion of the novel, Jack suddenly recollects the name that had escaped them; he turns to his sleeping wife and says, "Briggs. Walter Briggs."
Bibliography
Bloom, Harold, ed. John Updike: Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Boswell, Marshall. John Updike's Rabbit Tetralogy: Mastered Irony in Motion. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000.
Greiner, Donald. John Updike's Novels. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1984.
Luscher, Robert M. John Updike: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1993.
Miller, D. Quentin. John Updike and the Cold War: Drawing the Iron Curtain. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001.
Newman, Judie. John Updike. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.
Schiff, James A. John Updike Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1998.
Updike, John. Self-Consciousness: Memoirs. New York: Knopf, 1989.
Uphaus, Suzanne Henning. John Updike. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1980.