John Cheever's Short Story 'The Country Husband'

The Light Past the Curtain
Meagan Hoekman
February 20, 2016
ENGl

With today’s success and wealth, many homes replicate the same characteristics as the Weed family shows in John Cheever’s short story “The Country Husband”. Looking in on the outside we see near perfection. We visualize physical evidence of perfected families, the same friendly, suburb neighborhood, white-picket fence, and kids playing in the backyard. Further on through Cheever’s interpretation we actually see what goes on inside theses houses are anything but the stereotypical perfection. The Weed’s family household fits anything but this stereotype. Through the eyes of Francis, we see him struggling with different emotions contemplating on his family, …show more content…
He becomes irritable with his wife’s self absorbed life and even goes as far as to striking her, he lusts over the babysitter Anne, knowing it would only cause problems, gets in the way of Clayton’s opportunity of getting a job, as well as rude verbal comments towards Mrs. Wrightson. After realizing that his behavior is anomalous he tries righting the situation by going to see a psychiatrist.
After the airplane crash Francis was expecting sympathy from his family, but instead he received a completely different reaction. No one in his family gave any interest in his frightening accident or took him serious. They shrugged it off as if it was just any other ordinary day. “The day after the airplane crash the Weeds were to have dinner with the Farquarsons” (Cheever 75). No one seemed to think that the airplane crash was a big deal. Francis mentioned the crash a few times but only to be cut off by the household chaos. The children began fighting with each other and Julia becomes upset over her husband’s accusation of her household becoming a battlefield. “Francis says that he must be understood; he was nearly killed in an airplane crash, and he doesn’t like to come home every night …show more content…
Francis lashes out on him because he learns that Clayton plans to become engaged to Anne as soon as she completed school. With Francis’s love for Anne, this is unquestionably an issue for him. He becomes full of hatred towards Clayton, knowing his wishes for Anne and his relationship was nothing more than a fantasy. He quickly becomes jealous of Clayton. He realizes Clayton was a clever young man and had Shady Hill’s true deception figured out. Clayton was leaving Shady Hill to follow his dreams and leave what he thought to be was a never ending trap. He disapproved of the way the town inferred the future to be. He thought Shady Hill had no future, the town focused so much on keeping undesirables out and the only future Shady Hill had was more parties and commuting trains (82). Francis envied him simply for the fact that Clayton is following through and doing exactly what Francis thought and dreamed of but could never get himself to do. Francis immediately becomes biased towards the situation and points out that Clayton is lazy, irresponsible, affected, and smelly. This attitude is expressed as childish and immature. Francis is battling an inner struggle and lashes out in an unsophisticated and unlike adult manner. When Trace gives him the opportunity to help Clayton get a job he bluntly denies it. He