The Country Husband

Francis Weed walks away from a plane that crash-lands in a cornfield, and that same evening his family cannot be bothered to hear about it. Something in him wakes up. Within days he is daydreaming about the babysitter, insulting the woman who runs the neighborhood’s social life, and saying things he cannot take back. Cheever sets all of it in Shady Hill, a tidy commuter suburb where no one mentions the war, the past, or anything unpleasant. The result is funny, sad and sharp about what a comfortable life asks a person to forget.

What happens in The Country Husband

Francis Weed, a middle-aged businessman, is flying home from a trip when his plane makes an emergency landing in a cornfield. Everyone walks away. Shaken, he makes his way home to Shady Hill, a prosperous commuter suburb of New York, where his wife, Julia, and their four children are too busy with their own squabbles to listen to his story. After dinner he stands in the garden and hears the usual sounds of the neighborhood. The next evening Francis and Julia go to a party at a neighbor’s house. Francis recognizes the maid. As an infantryman in France during the Second World War, he saw this same woman publicly punished in a village for living with a German officer: her head was shaved and she was stripped naked in front of the townspeople. He says nothing, because in Shady Hill talk of the war, or of anything painful, is simply not done. That night Francis drives home the new babysitter, Anne Murchison, a teenager. She tells him about her father’s drinking, and Francis is overcome by a mix of tenderness and desire. At her door she gives him a quick goodnight kiss. From that night on he is lost in fantasies about her. The world looks fresh to him, and he grows reckless. The next morning, on the train platform, he loses patience with Mrs. Wrightson and rudely tells her to be quiet, a serious offense against the woman who leads Shady Hill society. That evening he finds Anne in his front hall and kisses her while she struggles, and a wandering neighborhood child, Gertrude Flannery, sees it. Then a young neighbor, Clayton Thomas, visits and mentions that he plans to marry Anne once she finishes school, and Francis is crushed. Afterward Julia tells him that Mrs. Wrightson has left the Weeds off the guest list for her anniversary party because of his rudeness, and that since Mrs. Wrightson decides who goes to the assembly dances, Helen’s place there is at risk. Then Julia turns on him with years of grievances. Francis strikes her. She starts to leave, and he begs her to stay. At work the next day, asked to help Clayton find a job, Francis refuses, calls him worthless and a thief (dredging up a theft from Clayton’s boyhood), then is shocked at himself. He goes to a psychiatrist, Dr. Herzog, confesses that he is in love, and is advised to take up woodworking. The story ends with Francis in his cellar building a coffee table while the life of the neighborhood carries on outside.

Where and when The Country Husband happens

Timeline the story arc, beat by beat

1. The crash
   Down in a cornfield

   Francis’s plane makes an emergency landing in a cornfield, and all the passengers walk away.

2. Homecoming
   No one listens

   At home his wife and children are too caught up in their own quarrels to hear about the crash.

3. The party
   The maid from France

   At a neighbor’s party Francis recognizes the maid as a woman he saw shamed in a French village during the war.

4. The drive
   The babysitter

   Driving Anne Murchison home, Francis hears about her father’s drinking and falls for her.

5. The insult
   Rude to Mrs. Wrightson

   On the station platform, Francis rudely tells Mrs. Wrightson, the leader of local society, to be quiet.

6. The quarrel
   Left off the list

   Julia learns the family has been left off Mrs. Wrightson’s anniversary party list, their fight turns violent, and she nearly leaves.

7. The cure
   Woodworking

   A psychiatrist prescribes woodworking, and Francis ends the story building a coffee table in his cellar.

Characters and how they connect

Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them

Themes in The Country Husband what the story is really about

Symbols & motifs

Conflicts

Literary devices

Irony

A man survives a plane crash and gets no attention, yet a rude remark on a train platform shakes his whole household.

Juxtaposition

A memory of wartime cruelty surfaces in the middle of a pleasant suburban party, and the contrast exposes what Shady Hill leaves out.

Shifting third-person narration

The narrator stays close to Francis but also steps back to survey the neighborhood, especially at the end.

Satire

Cheever mocks the suburb’s snobbery and small rules while still treating Francis’s pain seriously.

Lyrical ending

The story closes on a dreamlike, fairy-tale image of kings and elephants that sits strangely against Francis’s quiet cellar.

The ending of The Country Husband, explained

After his violent quarrel with Julia, and after he surprises even himself by running down Clayton Thomas to block his job search, Francis goes to a psychiatrist, Dr. Herzog. He confesses that he is in love, and the doctor’s advice is practical: take up woodworking. The final scene finds Francis in his cellar building a coffee table while the narrator pulls back to show the evening in Shady Hill. A neighbor, Mr. Nixon, shouts at squirrels. Jupiter, the neighbors’ untamed retriever, prances through the tomato vines with the chewed remains of a slipper, just as he ran off with a hat on the first evening. The scene closes on a dreamlike image of kings and elephants that seems to come from nowhere. What the ending means is one of the story’s big questions. One reading sees a quiet recovery. Francis has hurt his wife and a young man, and he chooses his family over a fantasy, turning his restless energy into honest work. Critics in this camp praise the story for showing a decent man pulling back from the edge. A second reading is darker. Woodworking is a way of boxing up real feeling, and Francis has been tamed by the same suburb that never let him talk about the war or the crash. On this view the dog, still running free, has what Francis has lost. A third reading points to the closing image. The fairy-tale kings suggest that wonder and romance still exist, just not in the cellar, and the gap between that splendor and Francis’s coffee table can be read as comic, ironic or sad. More recent readers also note how little the story asks what Anne or Julia want, and how Francis’s self-pity shapes what we are told.

Common misreadings

Test yourself

Francis lives in a neat, wealthy suburb with his wife and four kids. One day his plane has to crash-land in a field, but when he gets home nobody wants to hear about it. He starts to feel restless and develops a crush on the teenage babysitter, which is a bad and foolish idea. He becomes rude to a powerful neighbor, fights with his wife, and is mean to the young man who hopes to marry the babysitter. Finally he sees a doctor, who tells him to take up woodworking. The story asks whether he has found peace or just given up.

Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know

Compare & connect the story universe

Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper

Key questions students ask

• What does the ending of The Country Husband mean
• Why does Francis Weed fall for Anne Murchison
• What is the significance of the maid in The Country Husband
• What does Jupiter the dog symbolize in The Country Husband
• How does John Cheever portray the suburbs in The Country Husband
• Why does Francis insult Mrs. Wrightson