Guy Dawnish (The Pretext)

Guy Dawnish is a young Gentleman from England who is in Wentworth for 2 years (Lewis, 1968, p. 638) to be “qualifying to be an electric engineer” (Lewis, 1968, p. 638). He has a wealthy and ‘famous’ familiar background which can be noticed in his “light unconscious talk” (Lewis, 1968, p. 638). During his stay in Wentworth, he became a good friend of Mrs. and Mr. Ransom and supposedly fell in love with Mrs. Margaret Ransom though it is never confirmed in the whole short story.

At the beginning of the story Guy Dawnish left the house of the Ransoms right before Mrs. Margaret Ransom runs in her room and starts blushing because of him. At first the reader does not learn anything about Guy Dawnish at all because the short story takes a closer look on Mrs. Margaret Ransom, but after a few paragraphs there is an inner retrospective of Mrs. Margaret Ransom which explains what happened until the time the short story takes place and where more information about Guy Dawnish is included.

The narrator states that the visit at the beginning of the story is not the first. There had been many others, almost daily, because, as it is said above, Guy Dawnish is a good friend of the Ransoms. He was put under Mr. Robert Ransoms care by “an eminent Q. C.” (=Queen’s Counsel; Lewis, 1968, p. 634) who Mr. Robert Ransom got to know on a trip to England. During his stay in Wentworth, he trains for two years in the neighboring electrical works at Smedden in hope of a secretaryship in the London Smedden Company (Lewis, 1968, p. 638). As shown through only the perspective of Mrs. Margaret Ransom there was and is nothing wrong with the frequent visits of Guy Dawnish because “he was in a sense her property” (Lewis, 1968, p. 634). At this point the reader only finds out about the feelings of Mrs. Margaret Ransom towards Guy Dawnish but not if those feelings are on both sides. It is just stated that Mrs. Ransom is exceptionally kind to him and that nobody at Wentworth suspected or assumed it could be anything else than friendship (Lewis, 1968, p. 634). Here again the social convictions and circumstances of Wentworth play a role because the prudery and the importance of marriage assure that between women and men there can be either marriage or friendship.

Another fact about Guy Dawnish is that he had been approached by the Brant girl. However, this was without success (Lewis, 1968, p. 636). Moreover, he brought pictures of his life in England to Wentworth and showed them to Mrs. Margaret Ransom. As she takes another look at them in the short story the reader finds out more about Guy Dawnish. His uncle Lord Askern lives in Wiltshire at a place called Guise Abbey (Lewis, 1968, p. 637). He spent his childhood there under his grandfather’s rule. On one of these pictures depict Guy Dawnish “’punting’” (Lewis, 1968, p. 637) a girl with a hat that hides her face. It turns out that this is Gwendolen Matcher who is on another picture as well and Guy Dawnish’s fiancée. Guy Dawnish did not spend much time talking about her and quickly changed the subject when he looked at the pictures with Mrs. Margaret Ransom ("‘And who is that handsome girl?’ Margaret had said, detaining the photograph as he pushed it aside, and struck by the fact that, of the whole group, he had left only this member unnamed. ‘Oh, only Gwendolen Matcher—I've always known her. Look at this: the almshouses at Guise. Aren't they jolly?’” (Lewis, 1968, p. 638)) what can be seen as a hint that he actually has feelings for her because he does not want to hurt Mrs. Margaret Ransom. He seems very happy with Gwendolen Matcher what gives the reader the impression that there must be something special about the “girl in a flapping hat” (Lewis, 1968, p. 637). As mentioned above, it later turns out that she is his fiancée and he dissolves the engagement because of Mrs. Margaret Ransom, either because he actually loves her or he uses her as a pretext.

Moreover, the photographs show the already mentioned background of Guy Dawnish. He seems to “have been born into all sorts of connections, political, historical, official” (“Someone in the family had ‘asked for the Chiltern Hundreds’—one uncle was an Elder Brother of the Trinity House—someone else was the Master of a College—someone was in command at Devonport—the Army, the Navy, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the most vulnerable seats of learning […]” Lewis, 1968, p. 638). Expressed through “this young man’s light unconscious talk” (Lewis, 1968, p. 638), his background “made the Ransom situation at Wentworth as featureless at [sic] the top shelf of a dark closet.” (Lewis, 1968, p. 638) as Mrs. Margaret Ransom puts it. But in the short story this is not seen as a negative characteristic. It makes him even more sympathetic, at least for Mrs. Margaret Ransom.

Besides his wealthy uncles, Guy Dawnish has an aunt, Lady Caroline Duckett, who he appreciates very much. She plays an important role later in the short story.

On the evening of the speeches, Guy Dawnish leaves Hamblin Hall with Mrs. Margaret Ransom. Through this action he seems nice and like a gentleman on the one hand, but on the other, he does that with the intention of being alone with a married woman (Lewis, 1968, p. 640 - 44), but the reader is almost not aware of that because she/he is influenced by the sympathetic and endearing way Mrs. Margaret Ransom has introduced him. During their escape he still shows his manners by giving his female companion a glass of water and leading her to a spot near a river with cool air and a bench to sit on (Lewis, 1968, p. 641). While sitting there with Mrs. Margaret Ransom, it is the first time Guy Dawnish runs out of words and loses his capability of handling pauses between a conversation (Lewis, 1968, p. 642). He even reaches for the hands of Mrs. Margaret Ransom but lets them go after she says that she wants him not to tell her what he wanted to say. This is the part which stays unresolved and where the reader can just guess if Guy Dawnish wants to confess his love.

After the climax of the short story, he avoids being alone with Mrs. Margaret Ransom. On the evening of saying goodbye to the Ransoms he seems “ill at ease, ejaculatory, yet somehow more mature, more obscurely in command of himself.” (Lewis, 1968, p. 645). This could be an allusion to the disappointment he could feel because he could not say what he wanted to before his departure. From the moment of his departure the actions of Guy Dawnish are only explained by other characters so it is not clear to the reader whether it is true or not.

Guy Dawnish stays in contact with the Ransoms through exchanging letters in which he speaks of the friendship between him and Mrs. Margaret Ransom, but his writing becomes less frequent. Through a letter from a friend of Mrs. Margaret Ransom and an announcement in the newspaper the reader finds out that Guy Dawnish dissolved his engagement with Gwendolen Matcher because of an “unfortunate attachment” (Lewis, 1968, p. 647) he made in Wentworth. Guy Dawnish’s aunt Lady Caroline Duckett then visits Mrs. Margaret Ransom and tries to make her convince him of not dissolving the engagement. She thinks he must have fallen in love with Mrs. Margaret Ransom’s daughter-in-law or her own daughter and cannot believe that Mrs. Margaret Ransom herself could be the reason for the dissolved engagement. Lady Caroline Duckett then states that Guy Dawnish must have used Mrs. Margaret Ransom as a pretext but it is never confirmed (Lewis, 1968, p. 650 - 53).

The real feelings of Guy Dawnish are never actually shown and the reader is left with an open end. There are two ways to interpret the behavior of Guy Dawnish which are discussed in White (1991).

Edith Wharton went to England or rather London quite a few times where she made many acquaintances and had lots of unspectacular but also a few very interesting and pleasant conversations which may has served as a model for the character traits of Guy Dawnish (Wharton, 1964, p. 216 - 20). The character itself is, as mentioned in the introduction, a real-life character whose name was Jack Pollok, who used the flirt with a married woman as a reason to break up an engagement with another woman (Lee, 2007, p. 216).

Sources:

Lee, H. (2008). Edith Wharton. London: Vintage.

Lewis, R. W. B. (1968). The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Wharton, E. (1964). A Backward Glance. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

White, B. A. (1991). Edith Wharton. A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne Publishers.