This essay is an analysis to Richard Ford’s “Under the Radar”. Ford’s story, despite short, conveys a deep and textured plot and along with perplexing characters. The story revolves around the theme of early marriage, infidelity among professionals and the consequences in the revelation of these actions. There is not a hint of happiness or closure at the end and it leaves the reader free to think up of the ending on their own, with the lingering opinions on mistrust and deception.
“Under the Radar” starts off with a young couple, Marjorie Reeves and her husband, Steven Reeves driving to dinner. Marjorie confesses to Steven of an affair she had with George Nicholson, the host of the dinner, which took place a year ago. Throughout the drive Marjorie does not show a hint of apprehension regarding how her husband would feel at this revelation and on the situation at hand; she confessed on their way to the dinner which would be hosted by the man who she slept with.
Ford did not waste time to indicate Marjorie’s personality. Marjorie immediately shows her callousness and insensitivity by making Steven aware of her infidelity and at such an inappropriate time. She informed him on their way to the man that was once her love and confidently assumed that her husband would simply brush this news off, thinking that it happened a year ago. “On the drive over to the Nicholson’s for dinner—their first time in some time—Marjorie Reeves told her husband, Steven Reeves, that she cheated on him with George Nicholson (their host) a year ago, but that it was all over with now and she hoped he—Steven—would not be mad about it and could go on with life.” (Ford 20).
Ford further reveals Mrs. Reeves enjoys the attention of men and thinks that Mr. Reeves should consider himself a lucky man despite her promiscuous nature: “Marjorie, however, did not think of herself that way, only that she liked men and felt happy and confident around them and assumed Steven thought this was fine and that in the long run it would help his career to have a pretty, spirited wife no one could pigeon hole” (Ford 21).
The wronged husband, Steven takes a moment to fully accept that his wife was having an affair with a man whom he admired. We can see that Steven holds an honest and simple job and is diligent with his tasks: “They weren’t rich, but they’d been lucky. Steven’s job at Packard-Wells was to stay on top of a small segment of a larger segment of a rather small prefabrication intersection that serviced the automobile industry, and where any sudden alternation, or even the rumour of an alteration certain polymer-bonding formulas could tip crucial down-the-line demand patterns, and in that way affect the betting lines and comfort zones of a good many meaningful client positions.” (Ford 20). It is betrayal on his part that he is doing what he can to provide for his wife and despite his devotion to her, she regards it as something trivial.
Comparing Steven Reeves to George Nicholson also sets an insight to Marjorie as well. Steven is a graduate from a simple university while George is a lawyer who graduated from Yale. The two men were clearly different from each other, obvious that the man with whom Marjorie chose as her lover had a higher social status compared to Steven. This can further set insecurity and repressed rage from Steven as his wife nonchalantly addresses her affair.
When Steven hits Marjorie, she did not even give it much of a thought. She apologized, but it did not address about her affair rather it was regarding that she told her husband about it “I was sorry when I told youThough not very sorryOnly sorry because I had to tell you. And now that I’ve told you and you’ve hit me in the face and probably broke my nose, I’m not sorry about anything—except that. Though I’m sorry about being married to you, which I’ll remedy as soon as I can.” (Ford 25).
Marjorie’s callous and insensitive attitude forces the worse out of her husband. Divorce was impending for the young couple. It is hard to believe that Steven would get married to a woman like Marjorie in the first place. She was not sorry what she had done to her husband, or the damage she had wrecked, rather she was sorry she told him and what happened to her pretty face and the stain it made onto her pretty dress.
The marriage seemed empty, with two people communicating little and leaves the reader welcome to assume what would happen right after. These people’s marriages tend to be filled with odd holes and silences, and their extramarital affairs are usually desultory, ships-in-the-night type liaisons. In most cases they do not really know the other person, much less make an emotional connection (Kakutani).
One element of the plot in the story is that the husband feels jealousy for his wife’s lover. The husband imagines that the lover has something that could truly make him happy at the end. There is a hint of differences in social status and how it can influence in an American marraige. Richard Ford focuses on middle-class male characters and protagonists—will help illustrate how violence does indeed appear to contaminate both working class and middle-class men, even as poverty remains, as well be argued, one of the main causes of (male) criminality (Carrera 28).
Richard Ford has a long fascination with the consequences and delves into exploring the effects of infidelity rather than its origins (Duffy 242). The story did not delve too much on the time when Marjorie had an affair with George, it was only mentioned that she had affair with him before and that was it. The story focused on how Steven reacted to it. He no longer felt assured that he really knew the woman he married and he began to have doubts about their relationship as a married couple: “And now, while he didn’t particularly think of these stories was a bit truer, he did realize that he didn’t know his wife at all; and that in fact the entire conception of knowing another person—of trust, of closeness, of marriage itself—while not exactly a lie since it existed someplace if only as an idea (in his parents’ life, at least marginally) was still completely out-of-date, defunct, was something typifying another era, now unfortunately gone.” (Ford 23).
Marjorie and Steven are young. Their marriage seemed hurried since Steven was not familiar with Marjorie’s nature and he regrets it later in the story. Steven was a dedicated husband and wanted to have strong stability in order to start a new family with Marjorie, however, Marjorie seemed to be stuck in the thought that she is still young and carefree, and that marriage was a simple mistake that can be remedied by a possible divorce.
Steven thought that starting a family would be easy, just like how his parents did. Steven’s simplicity was his undoing; the pretty woman and the perfect life he envisioned became something foreign to him. “Meeting a girl, falling in love, marrying her, moving to Connecticut, buying a fucking house, starting a life with her and thinking you really knew anything about her—the last part was a complete fiction, which made all the rest a joke.” (Ford 23).
One possible symbolism in the story is the racoon getting hit by a car. In this part we see more of Marjorie’s insensitivity; after the revelation she orders her husband to check on a dying racoon by the road. The racoon can represent on how the revelation was presented: at random, out of nowhere, it hits Steven and it almost took the life out of him. “The racoon lay on the road twenty yards in front of the Reeveses’ car. It didn’t struggle. It was merely there.” (Ford 23).
Infidelity between the couple focused on the mistrust and the disappointment. Another instance that Steven did not know much about his wife when he hit her. He expected her to cry, but she did not; he had seen her weep before, but not on this certain issue. Steven would not dare hit Marjorie, but her wretched behavior forced it out of him. “She was a girl who cried—when she was unhappy, when he said something insensitive, when she was approaching her period. Crying was natural. Clearly, though, it was a new experience for her to be hit.” (Ford 24).
The actions of the characters were more in focus to narrate their personality. Their actions can make the reader turn the page, eager of what are the possible outcomes. The young couple’s actions leaves the reader to think that everyone is responsible for their actions. Steven and Marjorie are already young adults, but the latter lacks maturity. The actions made by these characters defines who they are.
Extramarital affairs, early marriages and the consequences of such actions are all a product of the decision of a person. There are no outside forces that influences whether or not to get into an affair, only one’s actions and moral. Our actions speaks for us and our morality is what holds our identity.
Works Cited
Carrera, Jose Maria. “Gendering Men: Theorizing Masculinities in American Culture and Literature.” Universitat de Barcelona: Departament de Filologia Anglesa I Alemanya. 2000-2002. Print. 29 July 2016.
Duffy, Brian. “Morality, Identity and Narrative in the Fiction of Richard Ford”. Rodopi21. 2008. Print.
Kakutani, Michiko. “Books of the times; Rootless Yuppies Gazing Inward”. The New York Times. 4 Feb. 2002. Web. 28 July 2016
Ryssal, Kai. “Work in Literature and in Literature and in American Culture.” Work in Literature and American Culture. Marketplace, 22 Apr. 2011. Web. 29 July 2016
