Appointment in Samarra (Criticism)

Criticism

Caroline M. Levchuck

Caroline M. Levchuck, a writer and editor, has published articles on literature along with nonfiction essays and children's books. In this essay, she focuses on O'Hara's Appointment in Samarra as a portrait of the disintegration of a marriage.

Appointment in Samarra has been viewed in many different ways. John Updike called it a "social panorama," while Ernest Hemingway dubbed it "a Christmas story." O'Hara himself, however, in a letter to his brother Tom prior to the novel's publication, referred to it as "essentially the story of a young married couple and their breakdown in the first year of the depression." Despite themes of fate and inevitability and the failure of parental love, then, Appointment in Samarra may be seen as an intimate look at the failings of a young union. Many of the truths evident in O'Hara's work hold true to this day, an age where divorce is almost as common as marriage.

Rather cleverly, O'Hara does not first present Caroline Walker English and Julian English; rather, he sets up their introduction by framing their relationship and the story itself within the solid book-ends that are Lute and Irma Fliegler's marriage. Lute and his wife share a rather practical union, far less glamorous than that of Caroline and Julian. Their kindness and mutual respect and understanding of one another, however, is evident from page one. Lute awakens in the early morning desiring his wife but, realizing that she is probably too tired to be intimate with him, he decides to allow her to sleep, conceding that "Irma can say no when she is tired." He does caress her lovingly, though, and Irma wakes with a start but acquiesces to his amorous overtures and "for a little while Gibbsville knew no happier people than Luther Fliegler and his wife, Irma." After their romantic coupling, Irma rises from bed to commence with her holiday preparations. While doing so, she ponders Lantenengo Street, on which they live, and its inhabitants and the state of her and Lute's life together. They are not as well-off as Caroline and Julian; after all, Lute works under Julian at the Cadillac dealership. Irma and Lute are not yet members of the exclusive and expensive Lantenengo Country Club, although Irma is anxious to be. Still, she respects her husband's philosophy about such things; Lute believes that they should join when it is within their reach financially. Unfortunately, though, this means that they are missing out on the big Christmas Eve party being held at the club. Despite this, Irma is quite aware of the good man she has found in Lute: "Lute was all right. Dependable and honest as the day is long, and never looked at another woman, even in fun." This realization quells her momentary envy as she ponders the goings-on at the club and she reminds herself that "she wouldn't trade her life for that of Caroline English, not if you paid her."

It is then that the reader is thrust into the glamorous world of the country-club set that includes Caroline and Julian English. Against this backdrop of parties and privilege, O'Hara lays out the relationship of the golden couple. Almost immediately it is clear that Julian does not truly have a grasp on who his wife is as a person. He completely misses the mark in estimating what her reaction to his throwing a drink in Harry Reilly's face would be, guessing wrongly that she would simply exclaim, "Julian!" Despite this, when he realizes the growing gravity of the situation the morning after and is loathe to face the consequences of his actions, his affection for his wife is clear. He tells himself he'd be all right, "if I could just stay here for the rest of my life and never see another soul. Except Caroline. I'd have to have Caroline." This sentiment is sharply contrasted with Caroline's ominous response to Julian's impetuous act and her chilly behavior toward him for the remainder of the novel.

While each has a certain understanding of the mannerisms and preferences of the other, the premise of their very relationship appears to be rather shallow. Caroline is aware of Julian's idiosyncrasies, such as the precise manner in which he prefers his monogram. Julian, for his part, can pre-dict some of Caroline's responses. Yet, there is an entire character living just under the surface that each possesses but of which the other is ignorant. When O'Hara reveals the history of Caroline's love life, it seems implausible that Julian is aware of any of the details of her past heartbreaks. Caroline, for her part, possessed a naiveté about the depth of Julian's feelings for Mary Manners, the Polish girl with whom he shared a doomed romance. Even when Julian was seeing both women at the same time, Caroline was "sure he loved Caroline the most." As evidenced by Julian's thoughts of Mary toward the end of his life, he actually loved Mary the most.

Although wed for nearly five years, Julian and Caroline are childless, having adhered to their initial five-year plan, which one can assume included purposefully not reproducing. Over the course of the story, this point is presented as a minor issue between the two, with Caroline impulsively deciding en route to the Christmas dinner at the club that they shall embark on building a family that very night. When Julian asks if she means it, she tells him insistently, "I never meant anything so much in my life." The fact remains, though, that Caroline never truly seems to be certain of anything. When she first recalls her and Julian's relationship, she says that she didn't fall in love with him until 1926. However, this is contradicted when Caroline, in her ire over Julian's escapade with Helene Holman at the Stage Coach, wishing him dead, refers to a time "when I knew [him] in an Eton collar and a Windsor tie, and I loved [him] then." Of course, Julian wouldn't have worn an Eton collar and a Windsor tie as an adult but rather as a young boy. In her reverie, she also proclaims that Julian has "killed something mighty fine" in her; however, when she'd phoned him at his dealership earlier that morning, she merely chastised him for being cross with their housekeeper, concealing her true feelings about his supposed infidelity and public humiliation. It appears implausible that two people can truly love each other and have a successful marriage when neither is certain of his or her own feelings nor does either make an effort to convey their anger and outrage at the other.

The supposed depth of Julian's feelings, which he conveys with his "need" for Caroline, also are contrasted with his true understanding of Caroline as a person; perhaps, though, lack of understanding might best be the way to view Julian's perception of Caroline. On Christmas evening, as he dances at the club with Caroline's much-younger cousin Constance, her dissimilarities to Caroline bring him to a startling realization about Caroline of which he'd not been previously aware, despite the fact that they'd been married for several years and had known each other their entire lives. In contrasting Caroline with Constance, Julian realizes, "Caroline was an educated girl whose education was behind her and for all time would be part of her background." Excited over this new theory, Julian wishes to "tell Caroline about it, to try it out on her and see if she agreed with it." While he realizes that her reaction will be one of affirmation and she will point out that she's been "telling him that for years," this incident points to the fact that even though he is aware of her reactions, he hasn't much knowledge about who Caroline really is as an individual.

Another sticking point in their marriage is the tensions that surround their romantic couplings. Julian spends a good deal of time angling for "dates" with his wife, something for which she appears to have little desire. Although the book spans only three days, Julian asks Caroline to have relations with him several times and his request is indulged only once. When Julian returns from Reilly's house after trying unsuccessfully to apologize for throwing a drink in the man's face, Caroline comforts him physically and Julian refers to the experience as "the greatest single act of their married life. It was the time she did not fail him." The latter part, which refers to Caroline's acquiescence to his needs, denotes that it was "the time" — in other words, the only time. This, of course, implies that Caroline has failed him on countless other occasions.

Much of the tension that surrounds their sexual relationship may be due to Julian's inflated sense of his physical appeal and his bravado in terms of his ability to physically satisfy a woman. While he may, in fact, satisfy Caroline on a physical level — after all, it is implied that she hadn't ever strayed physically from the marriage — he hasn't the first idea how to fulfill her emotionally. Compounding Julian's shortcomings is Caroline's skewed view of sexuality. When O'Hara details her past experiences, it is clear that she attached a degree of shame to sexuality and possessed a good amount of fear over it even when she was in her mid-twenties; she was embarrassed when suitor Joe Montgomery glimpsed her in her undergarments when they went swimming at the beach. She tells Montgomery later that she wishes to engage in a steamy physical affair and marry in a whirlwind; however, she never makes good on her desire. Further compounding her troubled perception of her own sexuality is the fact that she had been molested by a student while teaching when she was just out of college; and, following her failed fling with Montgomery, she was taken to a live-sex show in Paris and is left frightened by the entire incident. On top of all of these events, Caroline's mother cannot bring herself to speak of anything sexual with her daughter when Caroline comes to her mother for help. She tells Caroline, "I told you when you were married, I told you to take a firm stand on certain things." Caroline replies, "You never told me what things though." All of these things lead Caroline to be so out of touch with her own sexuality that she admits that she wants Julian most when she is not well more "than any other time." This impulse conflicts with the viability of their pairing, and her supposed desire for something when she knows she cannot have it can be taken as proof that while the desire is there, she is afraid of indulging it.

Before the book's end, Caroline fails Julian once again, on another, more crucial level. After his final faux pas at the country club in which he fights with several other members, Julian begs Caroline, "Listen, will you go away with me? Now? This minute? Will you? Will you go away with me?" Caroline refuses his desperate request and remains at her mother's home, effectively sealing the fate of their marriage and Julian's fate as an individual. As they trade parting barbs outside Caroline's mother's home and discuss how to handle the cancellation of that evening's party, Caroline suggests that she tell the invitees that the party is cancelled because Julian or she broke a leg. Julian tells her, "But it's nicer for us to be agreeable and sort of phony about it. You know what I mean?" His words are apropos of not only the situation but of their entire marriage.

After Julian's death, Caroline mourns not for Julian but rather for herself, for her loss, "because he had left her." While she insisted repeatedly throughout the tale that she loved Julian, she likened her love for him to having a cancer, a metaphor that is not likely used by truly happily married people. Certainly, there were moments of tenderness between the pair and an amicability that allowed them to live out their days together in a content state. Unfortunately, though, the pair held each other at arm's length, just as each did to their friends and family around them, swallowing their true feelings until they practically choked on them, withholding genuine affection and understanding until it was impossible to summon any sort of compassion.

At the novel's close, O'Hara affords his readers one last brief glimpse into the happily married lives of the Flieglers. While Lute frets about his financial obligations and their shaky future due to Julian's demise, Irma looks at him with genuine affection and wishes "daytime were a time for kissing [for] she would kiss him now." Their ability to come together in the face of adversity stands in direct opposition to Caroline and Julian who were so easily driven apart by the smallest adversity — a drink being thrown in the face of a tipsy club member.

Appointment in Samarra stands as an example of a marriage whose internal workings fly in the face of the external perceptions of it. The situation was both plausible and true-to-life in 1934 and cements the truth that lies in the old adage, "Times change but people do not." Almost seventy years after its publication, the world is undoubtedly full of married couples having relationships that parallel that of Caroline and Julian's.

Source: Caroline M. Levchuck, in an essay for Novels for Students, Gale Group, 2001.

What Do I Read Next?

• Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, published first in 1877, centers around a sophisticated woman and her demise as she pursues her true love despite the price to her family. She defies high society with her rebellious behavior and mentally disintegrates as a result, ultimately ending her own life.
• Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, published in 1905, relates the tale of a woman and her descent down the social ladder. Fate and inevitability are both themes of this acclaimed classic story.
• Ten North Frederick is O'Hara's award-winning 1955 novel detailing the life and death of another of Gibbsville's prominent citizens, Joseph Benjamin Chapin Trapped by societal constraints, Joe's life is marked by a series of unfulfilled desires and regret.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night (1934) relates the story of the dissolution of a man's marriage and his entire life. Set against a jet-setter Depression-era backdrop, the tale of Dick Diver's destruction shares many common traits with O'Hara's work; in fact, O'Hara heartily endorsed this book as one of his favorites of Fitzgerald's.