60 pages • 2-hour read
Buckeye
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Part 1, Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of antigay bias, emotional abuse, sexual violence, and sexual content.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary
Margaret Anderson (later Salt) was born in 1918 and was dropped off at an orphanage in the small town of Doyle, Ohio, nine months later, under the care of the director, Lydia Vert. The girls at the orphanage were sometimes adopted but more often placed in temporary foster homes. Margaret cycled in and out of several foster homes during her youth. Her experiences in these homes weren’t terrible, but they also weren’t good. Each time Margaret returned to the orphanage, she was pleased to see Lydia again. Lydia did her best not to get attached to the girls, but Margaret was different: The two developed a close bond that only deepened with time.
As the years passed, Margaret’s intelligence became evident to Lydia. Lydia nurtured Margaret’s love of reading and increasingly relied on her help managing the orphanage. By the time Margaret reached adolescence, she had even begun to assist Lydia with the more difficult aspects of the home’s office work.
Lydia can no longer remember how she functioned without Margaret, but both of their lives change after Lydia and her friend Wendell take Margaret to Columbus, Ohio, for her birthday. Margaret begins dreaming of life in the big city. She pesters Lydia until she finally agrees to let Margaret move. She helps her find a room in a reputable rooming house and finds a potential job for her, asking only that she call regularly. Everything Margaret knows about adult life and cities comes from movies, and she is thrilled to be on a new adventure.
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary
Margaret cannot get over the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. During her first few days in Columbus, she enjoys walking around, looking at neon signs, and eating her meals in diners. She has a shock, however, when she goes to the cafeteria that Lydia found for her to work in. Its owner invites her out to lunch and then to see an apartment he was thinking of purchasing. There, he begins kissing her. Lydia explained the basic mechanics of sex to Margaret and warned her not to do anything she didn’t want to do, but in the moment, Margaret convinces herself that she wants to have sex. Afterward, he reveals that he is married, and Margaret is unhappy and regretful. She is sure that the experience has tainted her fresh start.
Margaret begins work and does her best to move on. She dislikes the drudgery of everyday life at the cafeteria, but she enjoys the paychecks and begins wearing nicer clothes and makeup. She dates more, has sex with a few different men, and begins to enjoy that, too.
Eventually, one of her co-workers introduces her to Felix Salt, a handsome man who is quiet, well-behaved, and kind. Felix doesn’t seem interested in sex, which disappoints Margaret, but she likes his company well enough. After a few months, he proposes. Margaret doesn’t know if she actually loves him, but she says yes.
Margaret and Felix settle into the routine of married life. They have very little physical chemistry; they have sex only rarely, and it is not particularly enjoyable. Margaret quits her job, learns to cook, and takes art classes at the museum. Felix wants a child, but Margaret gently explains that she is not yet ready. She is still not sure if she loves him. When Felix gets promoted at Tuck and Sons, the company he works for, he tells Margaret that the promotion requires a move to the small town of Bonhomie. Margaret is not sure that she wants to move.
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary
Felix and Margaret move to Bonhomie in the autumn of 1937. Felix supervises a large group of people at Tuck and Sons and enjoys the many hours he spends at work. Margaret spends much of her time alone at home. In Columbus, life felt thrilling, but life in Bonhomie is stifling. There are no museums, and the community college offers no courses in art, only practical, hands-on subjects. She is lonely and discovers that the women in town mostly talk about parenting. Margaret still does not want a baby. Life with Felix is happy enough, but they have sex less and less frequently.
Felix tells Margaret that the issue with their sex life is him and not her. Felix hides a secret: He does enjoy sex, but only with men. He had a clandestine relationship with his college roommate, and there have been many other one-night stands over the years. Using hateful slurs, his father openly accused him of being gay, which resulted in Felix pretending to be engaged (to a woman who was also gay) for six months. The relief that his father felt at Felix’s engagement resulted in him helping Felix get a coveted position at Tuck and Sons, but afterward, Felix spoke to his parents less.
One day, Felix surprises Margaret by announcing his intention to go into the military as an officer. Because he is colorblind, the Navy is his only option. When he leaves for basic training, Margaret has no idea how she will manage life alone.
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary
With Felix gone, Margaret has little to do and no one to talk to. She begins attending small gatherings with other “war wives,” as they call themselves. Some of the women help her decorate her home, and Margaret enjoys selecting new paint colors and wallpaper. She begins attending a small dancing group with the women and finally feels a sense of community in Bonhomie. Felix returns briefly before shipping out. He likes the alterations she’s made to the house but cautions her about spending too much. They successfully have sex, and then he leaves, and Margaret is alone again.
She continues to socialize and consoles herself with a series of new purchases for the house. Felix’s letters are fewer and farther between but also become less personal. Margaret admits to herself that they were never truly close. While the other women in her social set agree that war is lonely for the wives, Margaret also thinks that marriage itself is lonely. One morning in 1945, she leaves the house to attend a talk for war wives. She finds the streets eerily empty and notices how many people sit silently in their cars, listening to their radios.
Part 1, Chapters 5-8 Analysis
Characterization takes center stage during these chapters as Margaret and Felix Salt are introduced. Margaret is initially introduced through the lens of her youth in an orphanage, during which the narrative highlights her intelligence and the fact that, even while still in high school, she began to help out with the orphanage’s administrative work. This quality will become important, especially after Margaret moves to Bonhomie: Used to working and big-city life, she isn’t satisfied with what she calls the drudgery of being a housewife. With this introduction, the narrative sets up the conflict between Margaret’s current conventional life and the one she wishes she were living.
Sexuality is also important to Margaret, a characteristic that becomes a key piece in the novel’s exploration of Individualism Versus Conformity in Small Communities. When she lives in Columbus, Margaret dates a series of men with sex, rather than relationships, in mind. Premarital sex was, during that time period, taboo, and as a woman, Margaret’s interest in sex for its own sake would have been perceived as transgressive. However, Margaret values individualism over conformity and would rather chart the course of her own life than fall into pre-prescribed patterns. Her sexuality will also become important after her marriage to Felix: Part of Margaret’s unhappiness in their relationship is rooted in how much she values sex and physical connection and feels the lack of it in her marriage. She wants a marriage in which sexuality plays a large role, but Felix hopes for a sedate union in which the platonic relationship matters more than the physical. As the previous chapters demonstrate the dynamic between Cal and Becky, these chapters establish the tensions in Margaret and Felix’s marriage.
Margaret also values individualism over conformity in her attitude toward motherhood. She has no interest in having children and realizes that this puts her at odds with most of the other women her age, especially after she and Felix move to Bonhomie. While she does feel lonely in the town, she also realizes that she cannot fake the one quality that most of her peers have in common, and she becomes isolated. This isolation furthers her unhappiness both in life and in marriage, and it becomes evident that the seeds of her affair with Cal have already been planted. In addition to her lack of desire to have a child, Margaret also differs from her peers in Bonhomie in her interests: Margaret loves art and enjoyed the cultural opportunities that life in Columbus afforded. She finds Bonhomie stifling and experiences further social difficulties because she is perceived as “snooty” by small-town women.
Felix contrasts with Margaret in several key ways. He does value conformity, in large part because he feels that he must hide his sexuality from his friends, peers, family, and even Margaret. His considerate, well-mannered personality is in part the result of his desire for camouflage and invisibility. Felix and Margaret are, like Becky and Cal, ill-suited for marriage to each other. This is only partly due to Felix’s sexuality, however. It is also important that Felix and Margaret want entirely different lives: Felix hopes to capture the American dream through hard work in a white-collar job and is happy to settle in a sedate, small town. Margaret would have enjoyed the chance to date more and explore single life, and she certainly would prefer to live in a large city. She values art, culture, and opportunity more than she does tradition, marriage, and the insularity of small communities. The fact that they don’t share these innermost thoughts with each other helps to establish how the theme of The Impact of Secrets on Marriage and Family will play out in the Salt family.
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