Unique+Literary+Devices

The **style** that John employs while telling this story is quite unique. He opens //The Good Soldier// with the famous line, "This is the saddest story I have ever heard." The novel is then divided into 4 major parts. The first part shares with the reader John's history and some background information on the other three main characters. The other parts deal with the various phases of life the characters experience and John's general thoughts. The entire novel is told back and forth between complex flashbacks and John's personal ramblings. The reader can hear John talking to himself, even though he is addressing an audience when he speaks. He calls the reader, "silent listener," but does not explain why he is suddenly sharing this story with somebody.

Because the tale appears to be so haphazardly strung together, we suspect that John is not a very reliable narrator. This is a ploy the author uses to highlight the **impressionism** of the novel. The story is very limited in scope because it is bound by the limits John's memory, which sometimes leaves gaps for the reader to fill in.

On page 201 John admits,

"I have, I am aware, told this story in a very **rambling** way so that it may be difficult for anyone to find their path through what may be a sort of maze. I cannot help it. I have stuck to my idea of being in a country cottage with a silent listener, hearing between the gusts of the wind and amidst the noises of the distant sea, the story as it comes. And, when one discusses an affair—a long, sad affair—one goes back, one goes forward. One remembers points that one has forgotten and one explains them all the more minutely since one recognizes that one has forgotten to mention them in their proper places and that one may have given, by omitting them, a false impression. I console myself with thinking that this is a real story and that, after all, real stories are probably told best in the way a person telling a story would tell them. They will then seem most real."

Another **motif** that appears in //The Good Soldier// is the day August 4th. This day continually reappears as the date for many important events in John and Florence's life. August 4th is Florence's birthday. It is also the day she married John and the day she poisoned herself. It seems that anytime something life-changing affects John, it happens on August 4th. One reason Ford Madox Ford might have chosen this particular date is because August 4th is also the day Great Britain entered World War I, hence this day becomes a symbol of tragedy and change.

On page 85,

"The death of Mrs. Maidan occurred on the **4th of August**, 1904. And then nothing happened until the 4th of August, 1913. There is the curious coincidence of dates, but I do not know whether that is one of those sinister, as if half-jocular and altogether merciless proceedings on the part of a cruel Providence that we call a coincidence. Because it may just as well have been the superstitious mind of Florence that forced her to certain acts, as if she had been hypnotised. It is, however, certain that the fourth of August always proved a significant date for her."