In John Williams novel “Stoner”; Katherine Driscoll is a young instructor who first happens upon William Stoner when she audits his seminar class on Latin tradition and the Renaissance. Driscoll is a young woman in her late 20’s with black hair and a pale slight frame. Although being a student in one of his classes. Stoner does not immediately take notice of her until she speaks to him about her seminar report, and asks him if he will look over her dissertation when finished; which he agrees to. From the time that Katherine gives her report to the class, I believe that Stoner becomes enamoured with her. While listening to her report, Stoner is described as “listening with an excitement that he had not felt in a long time” (pg.
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They both want to know each other and slowly, day-by-day they seem to find what they were looking for; in each other and in themselves. They find solace while being together, and Stoner is finally able to realize that love, is not as he thought it was when he was younger, when he had thought that he was in love with Edith. The narrator goes into great lengths to make this clear when he states that “In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.” (pg., 194) Katherine shows him what true love is, and what happiness can come from knowing another so intimately. This leads Stoner to finally realize that in all of his relationships he has pretty much failed, as illustrated in this passage “And it occurred to him at last, with the finality of knowledge, that he had never known another human being with any intimacy or trust or with the human warmth and commitment.” (pg. 206) This, for Stoner is the only truly deep relationship that has had, something beyond just being friendly with another person. It’s a relationship which allows him to understand the meaning of love, and the beauty there can be had when knowing someone completely in and
They both want to know each other and slowly, day-by-day they seem to find what they were looking for; in each other and in themselves. They find solace while being together, and Stoner is finally able to realize that love, is not as he thought it was when he was younger, when he had thought that he was in love with Edith. The narrator goes into great lengths to make this clear when he states that “In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.” (pg., 194) Katherine shows him what true love is, and what happiness can come from knowing another so intimately. This leads Stoner to finally realize that in all of his relationships he has pretty much failed, as illustrated in this passage “And it occurred to him at last, with the finality of knowledge, that he had never known another human being with any intimacy or trust or with the human warmth and commitment.” (pg. 206) This, for Stoner is the only truly deep relationship that has had, something beyond just being friendly with another person. It’s a relationship which allows him to understand the meaning of love, and the beauty there can be had when knowing someone completely in and