50 pages • 1 hour read
Anita ShreveThe Pilot's Wife
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
A Good Marriage
Kathryn’s idea of a “good marriage” runs throughout the novel. She believes that the distance which developed between her and Jack over the years was normal, “a state of gentle decline” (107). The fact that they still had a “good marriage” becomes an assertion that she repeats, even as evidence increasingly proves otherwise.
As the revelations about Jack’s secret life continue to unfold, Katherine begins to see that her assertion is wrong, yet clings to it when talking to others. In her conversation with Father Paul LeFevre, she insists: “It was a good marriage. [...] We were close. I would say that we were in love for a long time, longer than most couples” (147). When he presses her about her meaning, she elucidates: “We passed out of being in love to just loving” (147).
In the end, Kathryn will see how hollow her assertions of a “good marriage” are. Her idea of a happy union shifts: “She had, in fact, thought they had a good marriage. She’d told Robert they had had a good marriage. She felt foolish, exposed for a fool, and she wondered if she didn’t mind that most of all” (226). Throughout the course of the novel, her continued assertions begin to seem more like a rationalization, a desire to believe more than an actual belief. In the end, Kathryn’s notion that she and Jack had a close connection has been completely dismantled.
Envelope of Time
Shreve places importance on time, paying particular attention to the peculiar ways that time moves when one is undergoing a traumatic experience. Specifically, she uses an envelope to describe seeing one’s present experience folded over the routines and habits of years. This motif arises in the very first chapter of the novel; the first time Kathryn speaks about Jack in the past tense, she experiences a moment of confusion: “She wondered if time were opening up an envelope and would swallow her—for a day or a week or a month or possibly forever” (15). Kathryn is faced with the disorientation of standing in her kitchen, surrounded by memories of Jack in this same space, and now faced with a very different experience in a familiar setting.
Later, when Kathryn drives by a familiar landmark and remembers Jack’s comment about it, she realizes that everything is layered with the contrast of her past life with her current reality: “The envelope of time, she thought, was starting in earnest to swallow her” (79). This feeling persists in Kathryn periodically throughout the novel. The next time, Kathryn opens a beer to eat with a lobster dinner, only to discover that it was “12:20. Time out of time. Once again, the envelope began to open. It was a Friday. Normally, she would be at school, fifth period” (168).
The stark contrast between a normal workday in the past and her present, in which she has lost all sense of routine, is the envelope. The third time she experiences the contrast is perhaps the most significant: When Kathryn meets Muire, “the envelope of time ripped open, and Kathryn dropped in. She struggled not to have to lean against the door with the shock of the woman, of the boy’s face” (211). The reality of Muire’s existence is surprising enough, but the envelope opens again because of the startling resemblance between Muire’s child and Mattie, her own daughter, as a baby. Shreve uses the envelope to describe the experience of having your life, pre-trauma, show itself in stark contrast to your post-traumatic life.
Chenille Scarf
Kathryn’s chenille scarf, a gift from Jack and worn during her fateful meeting with Muire, is a symbol of her family and their life together. After she meets Muire, Kathryn is still processing all that she has learned, and sits on a park bench to think it over. She begins picking at her scarf, which “in her travels, had begun to come unraveled at the corner” (242). Kathryn is at her lowest point in the novel, with revelations about Jack’s other life undermining the very foundations of her own.
She begins undoing the scarf, first telling herself that she will just reknit the corner when she gets home, but finds the act of taking the stitches out “oddly satisfying.” The scarf represents her life and unraveling it is terrible, but she is already looking forward to recreating it. In the end, she leaves the yarn behind entirely. She tucks the yarn pile beneath a park bench, realizing: “She would have to recast all her memories now” (242). In knitting, casting is the act of putting stitches on the needle for a new project. This illustrates Kathryn’s recognition that she will have to reconsider all of her memories, in light of what she has discovered, and create a new history of her life with Jack, from scratch.
When she returns to the hotel and Robert asks her where she has been, she explains: “I walked to a rose garden and unraveled a scarf [...] My life, I meant to say” (245). Kathryn’s life has been unraveling throughout the book as Jack’s secrets are revealed. When she unravels the scarf, she both acknowledges the unraveling and leaves it behind, beginning to take steps to move on with her life.
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By Anita Shreve
