42 pages • 1-hour read
Independence Day
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Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary
Frank brings the Markhams to the house he wants to show them, which belongs to Ted Houlihan, a retired engineer who has recently lost his wife. Along the way, Frank muses on aspects of his job as a realtor. The house is in Penn’s Neck, which places it somewhat out of the way and a bit removed from Haddam, but Frank tells the couple that it represents their best chance yet. At first sight, Phyllis likes what she sees. The ever-negative Joe does not like it. Frank loses patience with Joe, but after another heart-to-heart conversation, he finally convinces Joe to go inside and take a look.
Upon entering, Joe doesn’t even stop to meet Ted Houlihan, the owner of the home. Along with Ted, Frank and Phyllis look over the house. Phyllis likes what she sees until she discovers that the property is next to a prison. Ted and Frank quickly try to assuage her fears and insist that the prison is more like a country club where white-collar criminals serve mild sentences. It is not a maximum-security federal prison. This does not calm Phyllis. Meanwhile, Joe’s presence is heard throughout the house as he checks over everything by hand. He finally meets Ted, and the two men go outside where they seemingly get along well. Frank realizes that Joe is finally coming around, but this time it is Phyllis who gets cold feet. Now, Phyllis and Frank have a heart-to-heart. Frank tries to reason with Phyllis and remind her that he is on her side. Phyllis hints at more personal issues and ultimately still feels uneasy about the prison. At last, the showing concludes, and Frank suspects that Ted is a little untrustworthy. Joe seems entirely motivated to make an offer despite Phyllis’s unease. Frank drives the couple back to the Sleepy Hollow Motel, along the way trying to discern where the two stand in regard to the Houlihan residence. As Phyllis exits Frank’s car, she gives him a tap on the shoulder—a sign that, most likely, the Markhams will not make an offer.
Chapter 4 Summary
Frank recounts the backstory of how he became a realtor. Prior to his divorce, Frank was a sportswriter. After his marriage dissolved, he left his job, left New Jersey, and then left the country, moving to France. While there, he corresponded with a younger woman, an aspiring doctor named Catherine Flaherty, whom he convinced to join him in France. Eventually, Frank realized that he was living a fantasy in France with Catherine, and he decided to move back home to Haddam. Once home, Frank conducted a series of introspections and discovered that real estate might be a good line of work for him.
As Frank recalls the flashback, he mentions a phone call he received from Ann in which she notified him that she was getting married. This news surprised Frank, as he had been feeling that, with a new perspective and newfound wisdom, he might try to reconcile with Ann. Frank describes Ann’s soon-to-be husband, Charley O’Dell, and the betrayal he felt at Ann’s decision to remarry. Frank details the conversation with Ann and suggests that the reason they were divorced had much to do with their inability to come to terms with the death of their son Ralph. Soon after this news of Ann’s marriage, Frank decided to sell his house in Haddam—the one that had been his and Ann’s home—and move into the home that Ann had purchased after their divorce. It is clear that Frank wants to be with Ann, but she has moved on from him. She also figured Frank would be remarried first, hinting at prior infidelities on Frank’s part. Ann’s marriage put Frank into a minor tailspin until he stumbled into the real-estate business. He took a few crash courses, and within months, he began selling houses.
The narrative returns to the present, and Frank makes another stop by the McLeod residence to see if he can get the rent check. Once again, the house looks like nobody is home, until he sees one of the children inside. He approaches the door and convinces the child to call for his mom or dad. Betty McLeod answers the door, clearly put out by Frank’s presence and the reason why he is there. An elderly neighbor from across the street, someone Frank knows, does not recognize him and calls the police. Frank is approached by the officer who interrogates him to a small extent. Once the reason for Frank’s presence at the McLeod residence is verified, the officer leaves him alone.
Chapters 3-4 Analysis
The narrative continues exploring the theme which closed the previous chapter. Taking the theme a step further, Frank reflects more broadly on what the Markhams are experiencing, which he calls “the realty dreads” (57). Frank posits that what the Markhams are feeling is not truly related to home buying. It is something larger and more universal, which he identifies with as well. Frank says that this dread does not have its source in a fear of losing money or getting ripped off on a purchase. Instead, he claims that its origin is “in the cold, unwelcome, built-in-America realization that we’re just like the other schmo, wishing his wishes, lusting his stunted lusts, quaking over his idiot frights and fantasies, all of us popped out from the same unchinkable mold” (57). In purchasing a home, what the Markhams and others really fear is that they will lose the part of themselves that makes them unique. Like the bland homes that pervade suburbia all across America, the Markhams will become just like everyone else, and they will just submerge into their suburban existence.
Frank also provides more explanation for his “existence period.” When recounting his discussion with Phyllis, he is unable to truly empathize with her, though he wants to. He says, “We know little and can find out precious little more about others, even though we stand in their presence, […] only in a flash or a gasp or the slam of a car door to see them disappear and be gone forever. Perfect strangers” (76). To some, this simple fact might seem sad and something that could be changed with more willingness to engage people. However, it is not to Frank. He sees it as something out of his control entirely, and in his typically stoic way, he claims, “It is one of the themes of the Existence Period that interest can mingle successfully with uninterest in this way, intimacy with transience, caring with the obdurate uncaring” (57). At the heart of his comment is a willingness he has to take things in stride, good or bad. He sees no sentimentality in the way people float into and out of each other’s lives. For him, it is a reality, and it works for him.
Frank continues to discuss how his views on life have evolved. When he returns to Haddam after his brief sojourn in France, he begins to feel more like he fits in. He says of his earlier days, “When I was in town writing sports, as a married, then latter, divorced man, I’d always fancied myself a spectral presence, like a ship cruising foggy banks, hoping to hang near and in hearing distance of the beach but without ever bashing into it” (93). There is a sense here that Frank may have had some social anxiety prior to his divorce. In his rash behavior subsequent to the divorce, he has unlocked a new side of himself. He remains somewhat emotionally closed off to people around him, but he is not anti-social. Instead, he fits into the townie life of Haddam, albeit in his own way and with his own style of trepidation.
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