The Children Act

“Self-pity in others embarrassed her, and she wouldn’t have it now. She was having a third drink instead. But she poured only a token measure, added much water and returned to her couch. Yes, it had been the kind of conversation of which she should have taken notes. Important to remember, to measure the insult carefully.”

Fiona tries to dismiss her frustrations with Jack by telling herself she’s above self-pity, an avoidance mechanism that exposes her fear of vulnerability. She is numbing her emotions by drinking—pouring herself “a third drink” instead of pitying herself—because she doesn’t want to confront the conflicts brewing in her personal life. Furthermore, she tries to regard her marital conflict via a legal lens, wishing she had “taken notes” so she could “measure [Jack’s] insult” more accurately. Her internal and external behavior in this passage captures her attempts to ward off intimacy and vulnerability by an over-adherence to the law.

“She should be angrier, she should be talking to an old friend—she had several—she should be striding into the bedroom, demanding to know more. But she felt shrunken to a geometrical point of anxious purpose. Her judgment must be ready for printing by tomorrow’s deadline, she must work. Her personal life was nothing.”

The narrator’s use of anaphora and repetition affect an urgent, insistent, and avoidant tone. Fiona is telling herself that she isn’t behaving appropriately towards her husband, affected by the repetition of “she should” at the passage’s start. However, she ignores these instinctual responses to her and Jack’s conflicts and delves back into work instead. The latter two lines convey her work to convince herself that her marital and domestic concerns are less important than her work concerns. She indeed minimizes herself to “a geometrical point” and her personal life to “nothing.”

“For a while, some part of her had gone cold, along with poor Matthew. […] Never mind that with his bloated head and squeezing heart he was doomed to die. She was no less irrational than the archbishop, and had come to regard the shrinking within herself as her due. The feeling had passed, but it left scar tissue in the memory, even after seven weeks and a day.”

Fiona’s reflections on the conjoined twins’ case introduce the novel’s theme of The Psychological Impact of Judicial Responsibility. Fiona doesn’t want to believe that her work has any effect on her, but simply remembering Matthew and Mark’s case reignites her sorrow, guilt, and distress. The narrator uses vivid and figurative language to enact Fiona’s emotional state—diction like “cold,” “poor,” “bloated,” and “doomed” convey notions of loss and remorse, both of which Fiona feels as a result of her work.

“It didn’t trouble her, Jack’s withdrawal. Their exchange had been heading toward excruciating frankness. No denying the relief at being delivered onto the neutral ground, the treeless heath, of other people’s problems. Religion again. It had its consolations.”

Fiona delves into work to avoid her personal life, relationships, and emotions. She tells herself that “Jack’s withdrawal” means nothing to her because she has trained herself to disregard this facet of her life. She instead prioritizes “other people’s problems” because she can examine them at a remove. The compartmentalization of her personal and professional lives foreshadows the coming conflict in Fiona’s story.

“Her hope was that she didn’t look too much like a woman in crisis. She kept her mind off her situation by playing to her inner ear a piece she had learned by heart. Above the rush-hour din it was her ideal self she heard, the pianist she could never become, performing faultlessly Bach’s second partita.”

Fiona’s attachment to music reveals her true longing. Fiona plays a Bach song in her head to tamp down her upset over Jack and marriage. The music temporarily dulls “the rush-hour din” and lets her inhabit “her ideal self.” The passage thus suggests that, through music, Fiona can access a more liberated version of herself.

“Yes, her childlessness was a fugue in itself, a flight—this was the habitual theme she was trying now to resist—a flight from her proper destiny. Her failure to become a woman, as her mother understood the term.”

Fiona’s meditations on motherhood and children capture her fear of acknowledging her own disappointment. At the same time, Fiona likens “her childlessness” to “a fugue” and “a flight.” In psychiatry, a fugue state is associated with the departure from one’s true self. Fiona’s use of this metaphor therefore implies that becoming a mother is not only what her mother wanted for her but was the “destiny” she imagined for herself. In putting off having children, Fiona secretly believes that she has denied herself—or fled—the fate she was meant to have.

“She could have phoned one of three friends, but she could not bear to hear herself explain her situation and make it irreversibly real. Too soon for sympathy or advice, too soon to hear Jack damned by loyal chums. Instead, she passed the evening in an empty state, a condition of numbness.”

Fiona’s emotional and physical isolation in this scene shows how her profession has isolated her. Fiona is used to hiding her true feelings from others because she has spent years cultivating a professional persona. She fears that confiding in her “loyal chums” would force her to compromise her stoic, contained reputation. At the same time, Fiona’s alternative leaves her “empty” and “numb,” suggesting that without a rich personal life, Fiona is alienated.

“His views are those of his parents. They’re not his own. His objection to being transfused is based on the doctrines of a religious cult for which he may well become a pointless martyr.”

The opposing counsel’s assessment of Adam Henry’s situation introduces The Tension Between Different Moral Codes. According to the legal system, Adam’s parents’ decision to refuse his blood transfusion is amoral. The court deems his religion a “cult” and thus an oppressive and imprisoning system. Fiona doesn’t outwardly embrace these notions at the start of the case, but her final ruling implies that she also sees morality through this lens.

“Given the unique circumstances of this case, I’ve decided that I would like to hear from Adam Henry himself. It’s not his knowledge of scripture that interests me so much as his understanding of his situation, and of what he confronts should I rule against the hospital. Also, he should know that he is not in the hands of an impersonal bureaucracy. I shall explain to him that I am the one who will be making the decision in his best interests.”

Fiona attempts to personalize her legal position and judicial role when she goes to visit Adam. She insists that Adam isn’t “in the hands of an impersonal bureaucracy,” but later belies this idea when she pulls away from him. Fiona’s moral code is dubious and contradictory—she’s ultimately guided by the law, even though she wants to believe otherwise. Her words in this scene suggest that she is a woman of moral character but foreshadow how she’ll betray and endanger Adam outside the court.

“In the decades that followed she was lucky in her health, and only ever in hospital during visiting hours. But she was marked for good. Whatever suffering and fear she saw in family and friends could not dislodge an improbable association of hospitals with kindness, with being noted as special and sheltered from the worst. So now, inappropriately, as the twenty-six-story Edith Cavel Wandsworth General rose above the misty okay trees […] she experienced a moment of pleasurable anticipation.”

Fiona’s regard for and relationship with the hospital setting convey her distinctly selfish desire to be seen as good. Fiona likes hospitals because she associates them with “kindness.” For her, this has meant visiting sick individuals and thus making outward displays of sympathy and care. She feels “a moment of pleasurable anticipation” when she arrives at the hospital to see Adam because she perceives the visit as a chance to reinforce her innate moral goodness once more.

“Spread about him on the sheets and spilling out into the shadows were books, pamphlets, a violin bow, a laptop, headphones, orange peel, sweet wrappers, a box of tissues, a sock, a notebook and many lined pages covered in writing. Ordinary teenage squalor, familiar to her from family visits.”

The image of Adam on his bed with his belongings humanizes his character. When Fiona sees him in this state and setting, he’s no longer a case subject but a living individual with feelings and needs. At the same time, this descriptive passage conveys Fiona’s immediate connection with Adam. She likens his “teenage squalor” to her family members’ familiar messes when they come to visit. This association shows how quickly she is attaching herself to Adam. She already knows her judicial position has limitations, but she’s still letting herself regard him as a family member.

“‘Would it please God to have you blind or stupid and on dialysis for the rest of your life?’ Her question overstepped the mark, the legal mark. She glanced across to where Marina sat in her shadowy corner. She was using the magazine to support a notebook and was writing by feel alone. She did not look up.”

Fiona’s self-awareness during her hospital visit with Adam conveys the moral complications of her role in his case. Fiona knows she is “overstepping the legal mark” in talking to Adam the way she is talking. Her attention to Marina underscores both her self-consciousness and fear of being reprimanded for broaching the parameters of her role. However, because Marina doesn’t “look up,” Fiona feels free to continue interacting with Adam in the same manner. These dynamics foreshadow how Fiona and Adam’s relationship will grow increasingly complicated over time.

“The blasphemous notion came to her that it didn’t much matter either way whether the boy lived or died. Everything would be much the same. Profound sorrow, bitter regret perhaps, fond memories, then life would plunge on and all three would mean less and less as those who loved him aged and died, until they meant nothing at all.”

The way that Fiona flippantly regards Adam’s fate in this passage reveals her unacknowledged shame surrounding her judicial role. Fiona knows that she has the power to either let Adam live or die—a decision that psychologically weighs on her. However, by undermining the importance of this decision (privately deciding that it doesn’t “much matter either way”), she is freeing herself from moral responsibility and thus guilt and shame.

“With touching solemnity, he raised the violin to his chin and looked up at her. When he began to play she was pleased to hear herself find the higher notes easily. She had always been secretly proud of her voice, and never had much chance to use it outside the Gray’s Inn choir, back when she was still a member. This time the violinist remembered his C sharp.”

Fiona’s internal monologue during her and Adam’s song reveals a more selfish side of Fiona’s character. Fiona outwardly behaves as if she is doing Adam a favor by staying with him and listening to him play the violin. However, she sings with Adam for her own enjoyment and self-actualization. She feels trapped and repressed and is using Adam as a way to temporarily free herself.

“This has been no easy matter to resolve. I have given due weight to A’s age, to the respect due to faith and to the dignity of the individual embedded in the right to refuse treatment. In my judgment, his life is more precious than his dignity.”

Fiona’s final ruling on Adam’s case conveys her belief that she is a generally moral person. She uses clear, direct language, which affects a resolved, pious tone. She is thus ruling in the name of alleged human “dignity,” a declaration that has religious undertones that ironically resonate with Adam’s “faith.” She uses this language and tone because she must convince herself of her justice and righteousness to survive the psychological strain of her position, illustrating the psychological impact of judicial responsibility.

“And she was still undecided, she didn’t trust her current mood. If he had given her more time after he left, she would have reached a clear decision and worked constructively to end the marriage or rebuild it. So she abandoned herself to work in the usual way and set herself to survive a day at a time the subdued drama of her half-life with Jack.”

The way Fiona thinks about and describes her ongoing marital situation with Jack conveys her disinterest in investing in her personal life. She uses diction including “undecided,” “constructively,” “rebuild,” “subdued,” and “half-life,” which affect an unemotional tone. Fiona is detaching herself from Jack the same way she has learned to detach herself from work.

“You never told me what you believed in, but I loved it when you came and sat with me and we did ‘Down by the Salley Gardens.’ I still look at that poem every day. I love being ‘young and foolish’ and if it wasn’t for you I’d be neither, I’d be dead! I wrote you lots of stupid letters and I think about you all the time and really want to see you and talk again.”

Adam uses a heartfelt and earnest tone in his letter to Fiona to convey his longing for connection and guidance. He feels attached to Fiona because, without her, he’d “be dead.” While he’s admitting to being “young and foolish,” his letter also conveys his honesty, openness, and authenticity. Adam is expressing a basic need to be heard and understood—a form of vulnerability Fiona fears.

“She had never lost the impression of having come abroad to find herself in a Baltic city-state of curious optimism and pride. The air was keener, the light a spacious luminescent gray, the natives friendly but with sharper edges, self-conscious, or self-ironic like actors in a comedy.”

Fiona’s response to the Newcastle setting suggests that she wants to be free and become a different person. She likes this setting because everything about it feels “keener,” more curious, optimistic, and “sharper.” She hopes that she, too, can be different while she is here. At the same time, she refers to the Newcastle natives as “actors in a comedy,” which implies a lack of authenticity or realness; this latter line foreshadows Fiona’s inability to be authentic and change when Adam visits her there.

“You didn’t. You were calm, you listened, you asked questions, you made some comments. That was the point. It’s this thing you have. It added up to something. You don’t have to say it. A way of thinking and talking. If you don’t know what I mean, go and listen to the elders.”

Adam’s use of repetition and clear, direct language conveys his longing to be heard. He is indeed complimenting Fiona in this scene of dialogue, but he is also imploring her to help him. His tone conveys both his vulnerability and his need for an archetypal guide in a newly unfamiliar world. He is giving Fiona the opportunity to be someone better and truer, a chance she ultimately refuses.

“Lightly, she took the lapel of his thin jacket between her fingers and drew him toward her. Her intention was to kiss him on the cheek, but as she reached up and he stopped a little and their faces came close, he turned his head and their lips met. She could have drawn back, she could have stepped right away from him. Instead, she lingered, defenseless before the moment.”

Fiona and Adam’s kiss marks a turning point in her story and reveals her emotional confusion. Fiona is convinced that she has behaved professionally with Adam while simultaneously looking out for his best interests. In this scene, she does neither. In kissing Adam, she is breaching the terms of her judiciary role and is taking advantage of his vulnerability.

“She was not prone to wild impulses and she didn’t understand her own behavior. She realized there was much more to confront in her confused mix of feelings, but for now it was the horror of what might have come about, the ludicrous and shameful transgression of professional ethics, that occupied her.”

Fiona tries to hide from her guilt over kissing Adam by focusing on work concerns yet again. She obsesses over her “shameful transgression of professional ethics” instead of reflecting on the truly vulnerable position she’s put Adam in. Her selfishness in this passage foreshadows the ultimately fatal repercussions of her actions.

“But it was only kindness not to send him a letter. He’d write by return, he’d be at her door and she’d have to turn him away again. She folded the sheet back into its envelope, took it to her bedroom and stored it in the drawer of her bedside table. He would soon move on.”

The image of Fiona tucking Adam’s poem into her nightstand underscores her avoidant and fearful nature. Fiona is trying to convince herself that she’s doing the right thing in ignoring Adam’s letters. However, hiding the poem reveals her shame. She doesn’t want to be held responsible for Adam’s circumstances and tries to dismiss him, assuring herself that she doesn’t matter to him and that he’ll soon forget her. In doing so, she is ultimately breaking her moral code and endangering Adam.

“The couple sensed that they were holding their audience, and their performance rose further. Fiona also knew she was moving at a stately pace toward something terrible. It was true, it wasn’t true. She would know only when the music ceased and she confronted it.”

Playing “Down by the Salley Gardens” at the concert reignites Fiona’s ineffable connection with Adam. The two connected over the song in the hospital, and playing it again reminds Fiona of him. At the same time, when Fiona plays the piano, she enters a realm outside of reality—it is in this ethereal realm that she has the revelation about Adam’s fate. The final line of the passage also marks a turning point in Fiona’s character arc; she is acknowledging her need to confront and reconcile with her role in Adam’s life and death.