The Paris Wife

“Sometimes, after playing an hour of passable Chopin, I’d collapse onto the sofa or the carpet, feeling whatever energy I’d had while playing leave my body. It was terrible to feel so empty, as if I were nothing.”

Before meeting Ernest, Hadley’s inner life is characterized by inertia and a sense of profound emptiness, establishing her character arc as a search for identity and contributing to the theme of Defining the Self in a Man’s World. She describes her musical efforts as merely “passable,” emphasizing how it isn’t the driving force in her life, and the subsequent physical and emotional collapse after playing highlights her lack of purpose and identity beyond this tenuous framework. This passage establishes the baseline for her character, positioning her as a woman waiting for an external force—Ernest—to animate her life and give it meaning.

“They were up over our heads, in the eaves, chewing away in racks full of mulberry leaves. That’s the only thing you could hear. No shell fire, no nothing. It was terrible.”

In this moment of vulnerability, Ernest shares a memory that reveals the nature of his war trauma through specific, unsettling sensory detail. The focus turns away from the violence of battle to focus on the unnerving, incessant sound of silkworms chewing, which supplants the expected sounds of war. This use of auditory imagery conveys a psychological disturbance more effectively than a direct account of combat, suggesting that the quiet, unnatural moments were as harrowing as the overt danger.

“Let’s always tell each other the truth. We can choose that, can’t we?”

Spoken during a moment of profound intimacy, Ernest’s question is an example of dramatic irony that foreshadows the central conflict of the novel. This dialogue establishes a pact of honesty that becomes the standard against which their future betrayals are measured. The line explicitly lays the foundation for the theme of The Gradual Erosion of Trust and Intimacy, as their inability to adhere to this simple choice ultimately leads to their separation.

“I would gladly have climbed out of my skin and into his that night, because I believed that was what love meant. […] I just felt us collapsing into one another, until there was no difference between us.”

This passage captures Hadley’s conception of love as a complete merging of identities, a core element of the starting point of her character arc. Her desire to “climb out of my skin and into his” is a powerful metaphor for the total surrender of self that she offers in the relationship. This articulation of her perspective is critical to the theme of defining the self in a man’s world, as the narrative will ultimately test and dismantle this idealized belief in romantic fusion.

“He felt a surge of panic about it, as if he were a fish thrashing in a taut net, fighting it instinctively.”

In a rare shift to Ernest’s third-person perspective, this simile reveals his deep-seated ambivalence about marriage on the eve of his wedding. The imagery of a trapped fish contrasts sharply with Hadley’s view of their union, highlighting a fundamental conflict between his need for freedom and the perceived constraints of commitment. This moment provides crucial insight into his psychology and foreshadows how his artistic and personal desires will strain their bond, speaking directly to The Competing Demands of Love and Artistic Ambition.

“Did this sadness belong to Ernest in the fatal way my father’s belonged to him?”

After witnessing Ernest’s depression, Hadley directly links his mental state to her own family trauma—her father’s death by suicide. This rhetorical question serves as a moment of stark foreshadowing, framing Ernest’s mental state within a context of predestined tragedy. By drawing this parallel, the narration suggests that Ernest’s depression is a core part of his character, introducing a sense of inevitability to the couple’s future hardships.

“‘We’ll remember this. Someday we’ll say this accordion was the sound of our first year in Paris.’

‘The accordion and the whores and the retching,’ he said. ‘That’s our music.’”

This exchange contrasts Hadley’s attempt at romantic framing with Ernest’s stark realism, establishing their differing perspectives on their challenging new life. The auditory imagery of the accordion, a sound motif for their early days, is undercut by Ernest’s blunt additions, which redefine their shared experience—“our music”—as something gritty and disillusioned rather than sentimental. This dialogue highlights the tension between the idealized symbol of Paris and the harsh reality of their impoverished circumstances.

“I felt a twinge of regret that I wasn’t a writer or painter, someone special enough to be invited to talk with Gertrude, to sit near her in front of the fire, as Ernest did now, and speak of important things.”

Hadley’s internal monologue at Gertrude Stein’s salon reveals her growing sense of inadequacy and exclusion within the expatriate artistic community. The physical and intellectual separation of guests—the artists (men and Stein) discussing “important things” while the “wives” are sequestered—functions as a recurring illustration of the era’s prescribed roles. This reflection directly engages with the theme of defining the self in a man’s world, marking a point where Hadley begins to question her identity outside of her supportive role to Ernest.

“[A]fter the blush of my own company wore off, I became so aware of Ernest’s absence it was as if the lack of him had moved into the apartment with me.”

During Ernest’s first long work assignment, Hadley’s profound loneliness is conveyed through personification, wherein “the lack of him” becomes a tangible, occupying presence. This literary device emphasizes the depth of her emotional dependence and suggests the continuing underdevelopment of her individual self, which feels incomplete when she is alone. The passage underscores her internal conflict between valuing her independence and recognizing how completely her happiness has become tied to his presence.

“If you really want to know, it’s making love. There’s something about it that makes me feel emptied out afterward, and lonely too.”

This stark confession from Ernest marks a significant fracture in the couple’s intimacy and signals a turning point in the novel’s development of the gradual erosion of trust and intimacy. His feeling of being “emptied out” by a unifying act reveals emotional withdrawal, suggesting that the all-consuming nature of his artistic ambition is incompatible with shared vulnerability. The sentiment isolates him within the marriage and leaves Hadley to confront a loneliness that exists even when they are physically together.

“What does it matter if you know your being with another will kill your wife, if you have no wife? You don’t have Paris, either, or anything else.”

Narrated from Ernest’s perspective during his assignment in Turkey, this passage uses rhetorical questions to reveal his psychological rationalization for infidelity. The disorienting experience of returning to a battleground allows him to mentally erase his commitments, detaching from his identity as a husband by claiming “you have no wife.” This moment of internal monologue demonstrates how his pursuit of raw material for his writing results in a reframing of himself and his experience that directly facilitates a deep personal betrayal.

“I imagined the thief hurrying to an empty alleyway, opening the case and then shutting it immediately. He’d have dropped it where he stood or pitched it into a rubbish pile.”

After losing the valise containing all of Ernest’s work, Hadley’s internal reflection employs bleak imagery to convey the magnitude of the disaster. The lost valise, a symbol of Ernest’s ambition and Hadley’s attempt to share his artistic life, is imagined as worthless trash, underscoring the tragic irony that its priceless contents are valuable only to its author. This moment highlights the catastrophic outcome of Hadley’s supportive intentions and her attempt to take a more active role with that support.

“I’ll tell you what Strater says. He says no other writer or even painter—no one who makes something with all their soul—could ever have left that valise on the train. Because they’d have known what it meant.”

Ernest uses a friend’s reported words to deliver a devastating accusation, framing Hadley’s mistake not as an accident but as a fundamental failure to comprehend the sacredness of his art to him. This dialogue crystallizes the central theme of the competing demands of love and artistic ambition by creating a distinction between the artist and the non-artist and placing her firmly in the latter category. The charge transforms her error into a perceived betrayal of his “soul,” creating an irreparable wound in their trust.

“Families can be vicious, but ours won’t be.”

Speaking with Ernest in Pamplona, Hadley expresses a hopeful, idealistic vision for their future family. The statement functions as dramatic irony, as the narrative has already foreshadowed the arrival of another woman and the eventual dissolution of their marriage. This moment captures their youthful certainty and contrasts sharply with the “vicious” familial dynamics they will eventually create, undermining their belief that they can escape the patterns they have observed in others.

“I was choosing him, the writer, in Paris. We would never again live a conventional life.”

This quote marks a pivotal moment of self-definition for Hadley as she convinces Ernest to leave Toronto and sacrifice financial security for his art. The parallel phrasing of “choosing him, the writer” underscores how his artistic identity has become inseparable from his personal one in her mind. This conscious decision illustrates how far she still has to go toward defining the self in a man’s world, as Hadley actively subsumes her own needs and desires to serve his all-consuming ambition.

“He would never again be unknown. We would never again be this happy.”

Reflecting on the moment Ernest receives the acceptance letter for In Our Time, Hadley employs prolepsis, a narrative device that reveals future events. The stark, parallel structure of the two sentences creates a causal link between Ernest’s public success and their private unhappiness. This concise statement distills the theme of the competing demands of love and artistic ambition, suggesting that the achievement of one necessitates the destruction of the other.

“‘Are you and Hem all right? He wouldn’t be stupid enough to throw you over for that title in a nice-fitting sweater, would he?’ I flinched.”

Don Stewart’s direct question is the first instance of an outsider explicitly acknowledging the visible strain in Hadley and Ernest’s marriage. Hadley’s physical reaction—a single verb, “flinched”—externalizes the internal pain she has been trying to manage. This moment marks a shift, moving the couple’s eroding intimacy from a private anxiety to a public concern, confirming for both Hadley and the reader that the damage is becoming apparent to others.

“He’d seen the good story in Pamplona when I’d felt only disaster and human messiness. He’d shaped it and made it something more; something that would last forever. I was incredibly proud of him and also felt hurt and shut out by the book.”

After reading the manuscript of what will become The Sun Also Rises, Hadley articulates the central paradox of her relationship with Ernest. The antithetical structure of the final sentence balances her pride in his genius with her pain at being erased from his art, which has transformed their shared “disaster” into his singular creation. This reflection fully captures the conflict between artistic ambition and intimacy, demonstrating how Ernest’s ability to turn life into lasting art simultaneously validates and invalidates her own experience.

“I could love him like crazy and work very hard to understand and support him, but I couldn’t be fresh eyes and a fresh smile after five years. I couldn’t be new.”

This moment of introspection reveals Hadley’s painful understanding of her marriage’s core vulnerability. She recognizes that the issue is not a failure of love or support, but rather the inexorable loss of novelty and the need for “fresh” validation, which Ernest craves for both his life and his writing. The simple, repeated negation in “couldn’t be” highlights a sense of helplessness, illustrating the gradual erosion of trust and intimacy as a process rooted in an insatiable desire for the “new” that she, as a constant presence, can no longer provide.

“That’s when it struck me that Pauline was being very brave about me, about inviting me to be near her for days on end when she was very much in love with my husband. […] Ernest and I were the garden, and we could only destroy her, and it was already happening.”

This quote marks Hadley’s moment of devastating realization, shifting her perspective from suspicion to certainty. The metaphor of “the garden” represents the idyllic, enclosed world of her marriage, an Edenic space that is now, paradoxically, a source of destruction for an outsider. This passage highlights Hadley’s empathy even amidst her own pain, framing the affair not just as a betrayal but as a tragic, destructive force for all three individuals involved.

“He didn’t know how love managed to be a garden one moment and war the next. He was at war now, his loyalty tested at every turn. […] Now, there were only lies and compromises.”

This quote, from a chapter written in Ernest’s perspective, establishes the central conflict of the novel’s final section. The shift in metaphor from “garden” to “war” illustrates the complete deterioration of his and Hadley’s relationship, which is now defined by strategy and survival rather than nurturing and growth. This internal monologue reveals his torment and rationalization, connecting to the theme of the gradual erosion of trust and intimacy as love devolves into a state of conflict.

“I was feeling so languid and so drugged, I didn’t even know Pauline was in the room until she’d slipped under the sheets on Ernest’s side of the bed. […] I never opened my eyes. […] The bed was sand, I told myself. The sheets were sand. I was still in the dream.”

During a siesta in Antibes, Hadley feigns sleep as Pauline joins Ernest in their marital bed. Hadley’s psychological state is conveyed through sensory details and metaphor; she recasts the physical reality of the bed and sheets into “sand” to create emotional distance from the unbearable violation. Her retreat into a dreamlike trance is a powerful depiction of her helplessness when faced with the final and most intimate breach of her marriage.

“When I finally looked down, here were these two wet heads in the slow-moving waves. They looked playful and natural as seals there, and suddenly I knew I wouldn’t jump and it had nothing to do with fear or embarrassment. I wouldn’t jump because I didn’t want to join them.”

After Pauline and Ernest urge Hadley to dive from a rock ledge into the sea, she refuses. Her decision is a pivotal moment in her character arc, a conscious act of separation and a reclamation of her own will. The animal imagery comparing Ernest and Pauline to “seals” highlights their comfortable unison and marks them as a separate entity, solidifying Hadley’s choice to define herself outside of their toxic triangle.