The Country Husband

Literally Es word The Country conserve We all make choices in our lives. We choose who we will be, what we will recall and what loving norms or determine will guide our ever soy sidereal day lives. In making these choices, particularly about our value system , we do non question whether these choices (our value system)will be tested and found faulty because of our ever changing circumstance. In the story The Country Husband, Francis Weed found himself challenge his value system as dictated by his suburban living.Francis Weed, later on a traumatic manner event, became temporarily dissatisfied with his superficial universe of social clubs and high society (suburbia) and acted to rebel a workst it. However in his fight, he realized that he needed the very thing he detest and resolved this conflict with distractions, unrequited love and woodworking. We all belong in a residential area in which our membership should mean we agree with the values/standards of that federation a nd our participation is a choice. In this story, Mr. Weeds participation in his community appears to be forcedAfter an alleged emergency run down landing, Mr. Weeds returns home to his family and community where his trial by ordeal is snub. He attempts to share this ordeal with his wife in stating, I was nearly killed in an airplane crash, and I dont like to take home every night to a battlefield. (Cheever, pg 65) kinda of inquiring about the accident or showing some score of sympathy about his accident, Mrs. Weeds responds by stating that He doesnt come home every night to a battlefield. (Cheever, pg 65) Mr.Weeds ordeal is ignored because it does not have a place in his suburban purport in the community of wraithlike cumulation. It neither adds to nor takes away from the values of this community and therefore it has no relevance. It appears that Mr. Weeds begins to question the values his community places on him and the consequence endured if they are violated. Thus, he recalled the war in Vessey, a day in which a woman who was socially humiliated for some homely indiscretion for which her head was shaved and she was made to walk the street naked. He believes that woman who serves him dinner is the oman punished at the crossroads, (Cheever, pg 67) but he inhabit it would have been a social as well as man error to share this story at the dinner table because speak of war and trouble of the world was unseemly and impolite (Cheever, pg 67) in Shady Hill. Mr. Weeds understood the tenuous nature of his standing in his community/family but he no longer wanted to be a part of it. Mr. Weeds saw how pretentious his life had become and in his first act of rebellion was to fall in love with the nestling sitter, Ann, which was an awesome slap in the face to the norms and values of his community.As he stated, there was no history for Shady Hill of such corruptionthey had not even been a breath of scandal. (Cheever, pg 71). But, Mr. Weeds imagined loving t he brood hen and the ruckus it would cause, if he were caught taking advantage of the baby sitter. The mere panorama however filled Mr. Weeds with so much energy/life that as a result of this newfound freedom, he impulsively purchased a bracelet for the baby sitter who seems to regard him only as an employer. Further, his flail from the pressure of conforming leads him to kiss this girl in the presence of the social misfit. In this new state of mind, Mr.Weeks finds courage and is finally able to say what is on his mind. He is temporarily able to free himself from the constraint of niceness and express his innermost thought to the leading member of the Shady Hill society by stating to her that she should paint her windows curtain black and shut up. The sprightliness of being deliberately impolite made Mr. Weeds feel wonderful. (Cheever, pg 70) Francis has arrived some other moment of truth when his wife Julia decides she is going to leave him because she cannot stand by and wat ch him destroy their social position that she has worked so hard to gain within Shady Hill.He confesses to her by saying Julia, I do love you, and I would like to be as we were-sweet and bawdy and dark-but straightway there are so many people. (Cheever, pg77) It seems at this moment with everything he has gone through that he has accepted his life and realizes his wife involve him and he ineluctably her. He makes an appointment to see a psychiatrist where he is advised that he should take up woodwork as a hobby. Perhaps this is an outlet where there are no boundaries and he is free to create whatever he likes without having to fit into a standard. there comes a point in everybodys life where we reflect on the values we adopt in becoming a member of a community and sometimes we are not satisfied with the decisions we make. I am sure for that when we initially decide to become a member of a community we do so with the hope that as we grow and our needs change, our community will r eflect our new needs and growth. Mr. Weeds community did not foster change and could not allow him to grow. He found himself trapped in the values of his community and his only relief valve was within his imagination.