Patient Hugh Jessie’s Husband

Jessie is a middle age married woman. She feels something is missing in her happy marriage and she feels it more after she arrives at her home land, Egret Island. Egret Island is located along the coast of South California. Egret Island is a place where she spent her childhood and a place where she tried to leave her past about her father’s death. In the story, Jessie returns to her hometown to take care of her mother, who is suffered from strange mental attitude. Her mother deliberately cuts her own finger. In her days in her hometown, she meets a monk who opens her mind and she is falling in love with him. In Egret island there is a holy spot named the mermaid chair. The people there believe that the chair is very sacred. It protects the people in Egret Island who mostly work as fisherman. Mermaid chair is a holy chair that represents oppression and freedom. Mermaid chair is a metaphor of Jessie life, mermaid chair is symbolized as freedom because it is part of the sea. In the novel, Jessie is described as a woman who is searching freedom from her monotonous daily life as a wife. Jessie is a woman who needs to release her boredom as a housewife and mother. She believes that she has to do something for her life, something that she never dares to do. At forty-two I’d never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem- my chronic inability to astonish myself. p. 2 In reality, a woman in the age of 41-47 years old is the crisis that most individual undergoes. It is called mid-life crisis or mid-life transition. For example, in a real life, there are many broken marriages happen in the celebrity’s life. The main problem is in each individual, which is an affair. Once again, the main problem is in each individual personality. Mid-life crisis is the condition in which an individual takes a big role to be able to make a choice for his life. According to Daniel J. Levinson 1978: 191-192, the Mid-life crisis also brings significant changes in the internal aspects of a man’s life structure. In this study, Jessie as the main character of the novel is still trying to live in her marriage crisis and to face the individual crisis. According to Hurlock 1974: 19, an individual’s personality pattern is in the product of learning during the course of social relationship with people both within and outside his home. In the novel, there are three characters who influence Jessie’s personality. Those characters are her mother Nelle, her husband Hugh and the monk Whit. The existence of those people influences Jessie’s way of thinking about life and self awakening. Self awakening means Jessie’s encouragement to understand and find her own life. Her mother, Nelle is the most silent character; however, this character gives a strong influence on Jessie’s character. In the novel Nelle is described as a good secret keeper, she keeps the case about her husband’s death from Jessie for thirty three years. Her silence results in Jessie’s depression. Jessie keeps blaming herself for something she did not do, harmed her father. ‘It wasn’t the pipe that caused it,’ I said to her.’ It was never the pipe’ I stood up, shaking my head How do you suddenly revise images and understandings you’ve carried in the cells of your body for thirty- three years? p. 339 Her mother’s silence opens Jessie’s mind about telling a truth. She realizes that her mother’s silence about her father’s death leaves a great impact on her life. From her experience, Jessie learns that secret makes her suffer from self-blaming, just like her experience. She understands that her husband is blaming himself for her