What I'm Going to Do, I Think: Analysis of Major Characters
"What I'm Going to Do, I Think: Analysis of Major Characters" explores the complex relationships and emotional struggles of its characters, primarily focusing on Chris Van Eenanam and Ellen Strohe. Chris, a twenty-three-year-old mathematics graduate student, grapples with his identity and unresolved conflicts, particularly in the context of his marriage to Ellen. Ellen, who is twenty-one and pregnant, faces her own uncertainties about motherhood and the stability of their relationship, exacerbated by her traumatic upbringing and need for consistency.
The dynamics between them are further complicated by family influences, including Ellen's grandfather, Aloysius Strohe, a wealthy and domineering figure who disapproves of Chris's character and ambitions. Meanwhile, Grandma Strohe, with her rigid moralism, adds pressure to Ellen's predicament. The story also introduces Orin Clausen, a neighboring farmer, who represents the rural values and life that Chris seeks to escape, and his sister-in-law, Anna, who embodies the loneliness stemming from rural isolation.
Through these characters, the narrative delves into themes of identity, marital expectations, and the impact of family on personal relationships, providing a rich landscape for understanding the challenges faced by the young couple as they navigate their future together.
What I'm Going to Do, I Think: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Larry Woiwode
First published: 1969
Genre: Novel
Locale: Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Pyramid Bluffs, Michigan; and Chicago, Illinois
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: 1964
Christofer (Chris) Van Eenanam, a graduate student in mathematics at the University of Chicago. At the age of twenty-three, he is still deeply unsure of his identity. His inability to resolve the conflicts within his personality, partially caused by the loss of his Catholic faith, undermines his relationship with Ellen Strohe even after their marriage. His feelings about her, and about virtually everything important to him, are deep but inconsistent. Always having to prove himself to himself, he is unable to provide Ellen the attention and understanding that she needs. After a tumultuous three-year relationship, begun when they were university students, they are married when Ellen becomes pregnant. The novel begins as they arrive at her grandparents' lodge in northern Michigan, where they spend their honeymoon. During the summer, as Chris repairs the lodge, he struggles with his ambivalent feelings about being a husband and prospective father.
Ellen Sidone Anne Strohe Van Eenanam, Chris's pregnant wife. The twenty-one-year-old woman, brought up by her grandparents after the deaths of her parents in an accident, needs reliability and consistency in a lover to bring her out of her shell. She, too, is unsure of her feelings about the marriage and about being a mother. Her pregnancy only increases her self-absorption, and Chris's ambivalence precludes his being sufficiently helpful.
Aloysius James Strohe, Ellen's grandfather, a wealthy brewery owner. A domineering, crafty, possessive, and insightful old man, Strohe recognizes the weakness in Chris but fails in his attempts to get Ellen to renounce him. His virtues are those of the Germanic, self-made, practical man. He has no patience with the equivocal personality of Chris or his interest in the abstractions of mathematics. He lets the young couple stay at the lodge in expectation that the experience will separate them.
Grandma Strohe, Ellen's Christian Scientist grandmother. Her inflexible morality allows no space for human error. She never forgives or forgets. Her rejection of Chris is absolute, and her cruelty to Ellen in the name of religion is reprehensible.
Orin Clausen, a neighboring farmer, a coarse, provincial man with the rural mistrust of the unknown and the urban. Chris earns Orin's respect by putting in a hard day's work stacking Orin's hay bales, but Orin reminds Chris of the life as a farmer that Chris went to school to escape.
Anna Clausen, Orin's widowed sister-in-law, another example of rural isolation and its subsequent loneliness. Anna lives with her brother-in-law in a state of mutual antipathy as business partners. The young couple could give her pleasure merely by paying her a visit, but, caught up in themselves, they never do so.