Interior Monologue Analysis

The indirect interior monologue we get next is essential. There is something seriously affecting Henry— his faith is being tested— and what he once found comforting is now not. He is worried and this worry is mentioned twice in one paragraph. Henry also admits his sadness. Now compare this segment to the exchange between him and his wife. He does not tell her of this sadness, his worry or his confusion. He clearly thinks about her own lack of faith, but does not ask her about that either. Instead, we have what seems a normal Sunday morning. Henry is going off to church, content, happy. But Henry’s interior shows readers that this is not the case at all. This is a man who is layered, multifaceted and we would not know about these layers if
Henry starts, “‘Olive’, he says, and she turns. ‘You’re not going to leave me are you?’ (Strout 29). Readers hear Olive’s response, which is then followed by a bit of interiority, and ends with dialogue: “‘Oh for God’s sake, Henry. You could make a women sick’...How could he ever tell her— he could not— that all these years of feeling guilty about Denise have carried with them the kernel of still having her? He cannot even bear this thought… ‘Daisy has a fellow,’ he says, ‘We need to have them over soon’ (Strout 29).There is a lot to unpack in the ending scene. Let’s take a look starting from the
He admits to us that he knows his wife’s deepest secret: she has loved another man during their marriage. This may lead us to think that all this time he has known her better than we thought, but our focus in the first story is not Henry understanding Olive, but Olive understanding and knowing Henry. So the importance lies within what Henry is thinking at the moment and what he actually says out loud. After facing this truth, he tells us his own: he has felt, all these years, a ‘gripping sickening need’ for Denise. So here we have the chance for a conversation that brings these two truths to surface. We have an opportunity for the two to not have the same static conversation, but a moment of honesty. Instead, Henry asks Olive if she is going to leave him. This statement does bring a brave vulnerability to surface, but Henry has just told us that Olive had loved Jim O’Casey. Jim O’Casey is dead, so Olive wouldn’t be leaving Henry for him. Henry also told us his desire for Denise was there before and is still there now. He could act upon this and leave Olive. Denise is alive after all. Even though he makes no mention of this out loud (understandably so), his speech here gives Olive no idea of his true struggles. Looking at what Olive says in response, it shows how pathetic she thinks he is: ‘You could make a woman sick’. And how does Henry respond to this cruelty? He nods,