Husbands & Lovers

Mallory is the novel’s round, dynamic protagonist, and she changes from a person who lacks self-confidence into one who is self-possessed, with a realistic view of her strengths and abilities. She fell in love with Monk Adams in high school, and he got her a job as a nanny for his half-siblings one summer during college. At this time, she told him that “he was the sun to [her] earth” (230), a metaphor that suggests he is supremely important to her while she is merely one of the many people in his figurative orbit. Being raped by Monk’s father and making the decision to leave Monk and keep her pregnancy a secret heightens Mallory’s sense of shame and guilt. She feels that the “original sin was still [hers]. Would always be [hers]” (259). This alludes to the “original sin” in the Biblical story of Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, which—in Christian belief—is responsible for humanity’s lack of innocence. The allusion emphasizes how intense Mallory’s feeling of guilt is both for the rape itself, despite it not being her fault, and the decisions she makes afterward.