Time of the Child

In Chapter 2, the third-person narrator shifts away from Jack’s perspective and inhabits Jude’s consciousness instead. In Chapter 3, the narrator then shifts away from Jude to trace Ronnie’s experience. These formal shifts widen the narrative scope and recontextualize the novel’s thematic explorations within the other primary characters’ lives, including The Interplay Between Statis and Change. Jude’s experiences capture how familial trauma and financial burdens can cause feelings of powerlessness, while Ronnie’s experiences convey how stasis can be a chosen way of life. In Chapter 1, Jude feels like a burden to his father because his brother, Patrick, died instead of him. At the same time, Jude feels helpless in his seemingly unchangeable circumstances because he is beholden to his father despite his father’s paternal and monetary negligence. Like Jack, he feels trapped by life in Faha and doubts that anything will disrupt his banal life. By way of contrast, Ronnie’s experiences in Chapter 2 convey how predictability and ritual can offer the individual a sense of security. Unlike Jack and Jude, Ronnie has come to terms with her life in Faha and has reconciled with how the place has shaped her identity. Despite the parallels and divergences between these primary characters’ storylines, Jack, Jude, and Ronnie are all transformed by the sudden appearance of the infant outside the church. The novel uses this plot twist to show how love and miracles can influence individuals in distinct ways.

The structure, form, and mood of Chapter 2 depict Jude’s monotonous reality. Throughout most of the chapter, Jude wanders from place to place on his own. The narrator asserts that Jude is “thrall to the thrill of his own speed” when he’s running because the movement makes him feel free (75). However, after he parts ways with Pat and the cows in town, Jude moseys about in a less energetic manner. He wanders around the fairgrounds, studies the various market stalls and dealers, passes the local shops, traipses through the fields, visits the cemetery, returns to town, and finally ends up back at the church. The author thus devotes most of the chapter to describing what Jude sees as he walks and the thoughts his observations conjure. The chapter has a claustrophobic atmosphere and elliptical structure, formal features that mirror Jude’s internal and external experiences. Jude feels that he does not have a destination but rather follows his feet. The town feels entrapping and thus ensnares him in repetitive movements and obsessive recollections of the past. Therefore, the final line of the chapter acts as a plot twist because it disrupts Jude’s otherwise predictable day at the fair. When he returns to the church, Jude isn’t expecting anything significant to happen to him. Indeed, his father’s irresponsibility has squashed his belief that today something good will happen. However, Jude finds the infant that same night. The event awakens Jude’s character, instigates the narrative shift into Chapter 3, foreshadows more changes for the Faha townspeople, and captures how unexpected events can transform the individual’s outlook.

The baby’s appearance in Ronnie’s life disrupts her sense of self and causes her to question what she wants and needs. At the start of Chapter 3, Charlotte repeatedly tells Ronnie that she needs to leave Faha and find a husband. For some time, Ronnie has understood Charlotte’s perspective on Faha—that the parish is a prison and that “her visits [are] as though to inmates”—but feels powerless to “convince her sister of a contrary truth” (144): She finds her life there freeing and rewarding. She dismisses Ronnie’s allusions to finding a man and moving away because Ronnie has learned to derive comfort from predictability. The baby is a sign of life’s unpredictability and therefore challenges Ronnie’s otherwise reliable, repetitive day-to-day life. As a result, Ronnie is forced to question who she wants to be and her ability to see The Redemptive Power of Love. The narrator’s description of Ronnie’s first interaction with the child captures the baby’s transformative powers:

She had not held a child so young. Already she was in a state of wonder. The infant was just another, not remarkable except for the countless ways each of us is. But looking into her face Ronnie felt she had never seen one before. The girl’s flesh had a flawlessness that took her breath. In sleep the pale, purple eyelids with lashes minute, the closed lips smaller than her little fingertip, yet holding expression. It was the common rapture of tall parents, but in those first moments Ronnie Troy felt she was remembering something essential she had forgotten (134-35).

The baby immediately opens Ronnie’s heart in a new way. The narrator’s descriptive detail emphasizes Ronnie’s awe at the baby’s presence. She knows that a child’s birth isn’t inherently exceptional, but this baby immediately arrests Ronnie and compels her to reflect on the wonder of life and love. The baby’s arrival thus alters the once-fixed rituals that Ronnie established. At the same time, Ronnie quickly finds that this change isn’t negative and has awakened her to a new aspect of human experience: maternal instinct. 

In turn, the child changes Ronnie’s home life with Jack. As father and daughter create an initial plan to care for the baby together—Ronnie staying home with her while Jack acquires a bottle—Williams further develops The Strength of Familial Bonds. In an unforeseen situation, the parent and child must rely on each other to care for and protect the infant. Whereas father and daughter initially struggled to connect earlier in the novel, the author shows that the baby’s arrival begins to bring the characters together, strengthening their relationship. In this way, the baby’s arrival instigates change in both characters, contributing to their developing character arcs.