The Children Act

Adam Henry is one of the novel’s primary characters and the subject of one of Fiona’s cases, which is how the two characters come into contact. For the majority of the novel, Adam is 17 years old. (He turns 18 near the end of the novel.) He lives with his parents Naomi and Kevin, who have raised him in the Jehovah’s Witness faith and community. Adam has thus grown up believing the religious tenets and biblical teachings his congregation, elders, and parents have passed down to him. When Fiona first hears his case, she and the other members of the legal counsel are skeptical that Adam’s beliefs are his own. They understand that “Adam is close to being an adult, as the law defines it in such instances,” but interrogate the personal nature of his faith (71). They fear that he’s refusing his life-saving blood transfusion simply to please his elders and parents. The court, and thus Fiona, becomes involved in his situation because they fear that his parents are endangering his life.

Adam is an intelligent, artistic, and earnest character. Although he is still a teenager, he knows his own mind. When Fiona meets him, she’s as struck by his self-possession as the other lawyers and Adam’s nurses are. While Adam’s face has been made “long,” “thin,” and “ghoulishly pale” by the leukemia he’s been diagnosed with (103), Fiona also acknowledges that he is beautiful. Furthermore, he is conversationally energetic and displays a keen sense of humor and wit throughout their exchange. Adam does take his faith seriously, but his sense of self isn’t limited to his belief system. His poetic, musical, and linguistic capacities suggest that he is a unique and special individual, and are qualities that also endear him to Fiona. She forms an almost immediate connection to him and becomes protective of his innocence and his talent. Adam also becomes attached to Fiona over the course of her hospital visit. He especially comes to see her as his savior and guide after he recovers his health and leaves the faith.

Adam’s fate at the end of the novel reveals his vulnerability. He writes Fiona repeated letters in the wake of his transfusion and recovery, seeking meaning, purpose, and guidance. He’s left the church, and outside of this sphere, he doesn’t know who he is or what he believes. He goes to Fiona because he respects her and believes that she understands and respects him, too. His interest in her isn’t nefarious or illicit but rather evidence of his innocence, fragility, and longing for adult support. When Fiona denies him this help, she augments his vulnerability and incidentally pushes him back to his parents and church; as a result, he ends up refusing a second transfusion and dying.

Jack is one of the novel’s secondary characters and Fiona’s husband. While Fiona is often thinking about Jack and their marital conflicts throughout the novel, they spend a sparing amount of time in one another’s company. Jack is thus a pseudo-antagonist in Fiona’s story. This is particularly true when the narrator introduces his character in Chapter 1. Fiona is lying alone on the couch at home, but her thoughts are consumed by her and Jack’s recent argument. At 59 years old, Jack feels stuck in his marriage. He’s particularly frustrated with Fiona because they haven’t had sex in some time. Instead of going behind Fiona’s back and pursuing an extramarital affair, Jack broaches the subject with Fiona. He first asks her about reigniting their sex life and then suggests that if she won’t have sex him, he should sleep with someone else. Fiona feels frustrated with Jack’s approach and wishes he just had an affair without telling her; she perceives his complaints as a disruption to her otherwise predictable, static home life. At the same time, the way Jack handles this situation suggests that he cares about Fiona and is putting their marriage before his needs and desires.

While Fiona perceives Jack as a “troublemaker” in her life, the narrator presents Jack in a relatively favorable light. He makes efforts to get close to Fiona and later returns to her after leaving the house to stay with his possible lover, Melanie. He explains to Fiona that as soon as he arrived at Melanie’s house, he realized he was making a mistake. He returns home shortly thereafter and continues to live with Fiona according to her terms. He doesn’t engage Fiona in conversations she doesn’t want to have, gives her space, stays on the couch, and invests in their family when their nieces and nephews come to visit. These dynamics suggest that Jack is a generally decent person and a good husband.

The way Fiona thinks about Jack is more a reflection on herself than on Jack; sometimes her marital considerations thus appear contradictory. For example, in Chapter 1, Fiona acknowledges that Jack has “always been kind, loyal and kind” (8). Moments later, however, she begins to feel as if Jack’s behavior proves his innately unkind spirit. Later, Fiona acknowledges how sensitive Jack is to her moods and how good he is with children, but she immediately becomes frustrated when she muses on how little time they’ve been spending together. Her conflicted feelings for Jack show that she genuinely loves him and is afraid to acknowledge how little she’s invested in him or their life together.

McEwan uses Jack as a literary device to expose the detriments of devoting all of one’s energy to one’s profession. Once Fiona begins to acknowledge the psychological impact her work has had on her, she starts opening up to Jack. The novel’s closing scene depicts the couple lying in bed together with Jack intently listening to Fiona’s story about Adam and promising to love her no matter what.