# Part III: Marriage explained — The Journal of a Disappointed Man > Chapter companion for The Journal of a Disappointed Man by W. N. P. Barbellion. ## What happens The narrator reflects on his marriage, his declining health, and his ongoing confrontation with mortality. He recounts the story of his courtship and marriage in a 'potted novel,' revealing his initial egotism and the revelation that his wife knew of his illness and married him anyway. The chapter includes his meditations on death, his desire for a controlled exit, his fluctuating temperament, and his hope for a beatified afterlife revisiting past joys. He also describes his walks in the countryside, finding solace and defiance in nature despite his physical decline. ## Themes in this chapter ### Mortality and the Brevity of Life The narrator confronts his imminent death, contemplates suicide, and reflects on the fear of fear and the desire for a controlled, artistic death. ### Egotism and Self-Expression The narrator admits his 'superlative egoism and superlative conceit' in his marriage, and describes his temperament graph as a record of self-love and self-disgust. ### The Natural World as Escape The narrator finds solace in walks through the countryside, describing trees, wind, and landscapes with vivid detail, using nature as a counterpoint to his suffering. ### The Search for Meaning and Legacy The narrator hopes for an afterlife where he can relive past ecstasies, and reflects on his unfulfilled desires to travel and experience more of life. ## Character check-ins ### Barbellion Reflects on his marriage, egotism, and illness; expresses fear of fear and desire for a controlled death; describes his temperament as a graph of fluctuations. ### E⸺ The narrator's wife; she knew of his illness and married him for love against advice; shown the crescent moon by the narrator. ### H⸺ B⸺ Sent an affectionate letter that warmed the narrator's heart. ### Dr. H⸺ The doctor who wrote a sealed letter about the narrator's health, which the narrator opened; advised against the marriage. ### Austin Harrison Mentioned as having written only once since August. ## Key lines > This great bully of a universe overwhelms me. The stars make me cower. I am intimidated by the immensity surrounding my own littleness. The narrator feels crushed by the vastness of the universe and his own insignificance. _Expresses his agnosticism and sense of being overwhelmed by existence._ > I hope for something much freer and more satisfying after death, for emancipation of the spirit and above all for the obliteration of this puny self, this little, skulking, sharp-witted ferret. He desires an afterlife that liberates his spirit and erases his petty, cunning ego. _Reflects his longing for transcendence beyond his flawed self._ > It is futile and presumptuous for me to opine anything about the next world. He believes it is pointless and arrogant to speculate about the afterlife. _Highlights his agnostic stance despite his curiosity._ > He was an imaginative youth, and she a tragedy queen. So he fell in love with her because she was melancholy and her past tragic. The narrator fell in love with a woman because of her tragic demeanor and past. _Part of the 'potted novel' summarizing his courtship._ > Marriage, said he sententiously, is an economic trap. He cynically viewed marriage as a financial snare. _Shows his initial reluctance and pragmatic view of marriage._ > Ill-health after all made marriage impossible. His poor health initially prevented him from marrying. _Foreshadows the central conflict of the chapter._ > Too late, she said. Once perhaps … but now. … She initially rejected him, saying the opportunity had passed. _Dramatic moment in the courtship narrative._ > So they married after all, and he was under the impression she had made a good match. He had ill-health perhaps, yet who could doubt his ultimate fame? He married believing she was lucky to have him, despite his illness, because he expected future fame. _Reveals his egotism and self-deception._ > Then the War came, and he had the hardihood to open a sealed letter from his Doctor to the M.O. examining recruits. … Stars and staggers!! So it was she who was the victim in marriage! During the war, he opened a doctor's letter and realized she was the one making a sacrifice by marrying him. _Turning point where he recognizes his wife's selflessness._ > Did she know? … The question dazed him. Well, she did know, and had married him for love, nevertheless, against every friendly counsel, the Doctor’s included. He was stunned to learn she knew about his illness and married him out of love, against all advice. _Climax of his realization about her devotion._ > It is the perfect rapprochement between two souls, one that was honeycombed with self-love and lost in the labyrinthine ways of his own motives and the other straight, direct, almost imperious in love and altogether adorable. Their marriage became a perfect union between his self-absorbed, confused soul and her straightforward, loving one. _Describes the resolution and gratitude he feels._ > I am, I suppose, a whey-faced, lily-livered creature … yet even an infantry subaltern has a chance. He sees himself as weak and cowardly, but notes that even a low-ranking soldier has opportunities. _Reflects his self-deprecation and envy of soldiers._ > My dear friend ⸻ has died and a Memorial Exhibition of his pictures is being held at the Goupil Gallery. The most fascinating man I ever met. A close friend has died, and an exhibition of his art is being shown; he was the most captivating person the narrator knew. _Mourns the loss of a charismatic friend._ > I do not deny that I am curious about the next world, or about the condition of death. I am and always have been. He admits his lifelong curiosity about death and the afterlife. _Introduces his meditation on mortality._ > I wish I possessed the wherewithal to end it at my will. With two or three tabloids in my waistcoat pocket, and my secret locked in my heart, how serenely I would move about among my friends and fellows. He wishes he had poison to end his life on his own terms, which would give him peace. _Expresses his desire for control over his death._ > By means of my tabloids, I could arrange my death in an artistic setting, say underneath a big tree on a summer’s day, with an open Homer in my hand, or more appropriately, a magnifying glass and Miall and Denny’s Cockroach. He imagines staging a picturesque death with a book or scientific tool, blending art and science. _Shows his aesthetic and intellectual approach to dying._ > It would be stage-managing my own demise and surely the last thing in self-conscious elegance! He sees a planned death as the ultimate act of self-aware elegance. _Highlights his egotism even in contemplating death._ > When I come to quit this world I scarcely know which will be the greater regret: the people I have never met, or the places I have never seen. He regrets both the people and places he will never experience. _Expresses his longing for a fuller life._ > In this Journal, my pen is a delicate needle point, tracing out a graph of temperament so as to show its daily fluctuations: grave and gay, up and down, lamentation and revelry, self-love and self-disgust. His journal records the daily ups and downs of his mood, from sorrow to joy, self-admiration to self-hatred. _Describes the purpose and nature of his diary._ > I am something between a Monkey, a Chameleon, and a Jellyfish. He sees himself as imitative, adaptable, and formless. _Self-deprecating summary of his personality._ > I become my own renegade, an amiable dissembler, an ass in short. He betrays his own beliefs in conversation, becoming a pleasant liar and a fool. _Critiques his social cowardice._ > It is a torture to have a sprightly mind blanketed by personal timidity and a feeble presence. He finds it agonizing that his lively intellect is suppressed by his shyness and weak demeanor. _Expresses frustration with his social limitations._ > How happy I shall be if Death is like this: to be living over again and again all my ecstasies, over first times—the first time I found a Bottle Tit’s nest, the first time I succeeded in penetrating into the fastnesses of my El Dorado—Exmoor, the first time I gazed upon the internal anatomy of a Snail, the first time I read Berkeley’s Principles of Human Understanding (what a soul-shaking epoch that was!), and the first time I kissed her! He hopes death will allow him to relive his greatest joys: discovering nature, reading philosophy, and his first kiss. _Expresses his hope for a beatified afterlife of memory._ > I think I will stick it out—I will sit quite still in my chair and defy this skulking footpad—let the paralysis creep into every bone, I will hang on to the last and watch it skulking with my most hideous grimace. He resolves to endure his paralysis defiantly, grimacing at death as it approaches. _Shows his stubborn resistance to his illness._ > The sky was a quick-change artist today. Every time you looked you saw a different picture. The sky changed rapidly, offering new scenes each moment. _Describes the dynamic beauty of the natural world._ > It was a narrow crooked lane, sunk deep in the soil with large smooth surfaces of stone like skulls bulging up in places where the rain had washed away the soil. The lane was deeply embedded, with skull-like stones exposed by erosion. _Vivid imagery blending nature with mortality._ > On the right-hand side was a cottage with the smoke being wrenched away from the chimney top, and on the left a group of stately Firs, chanting a requiem like a cathedral choir. Smoke was torn from a cottage chimney, and fir trees seemed to sing a mournful hymn. _Personifies nature as a choir, adding a somber tone._ > They were a sombre mysterious little crowd intent, I fancied, on some secret ritual of the trees. The firs seemed like a group performing a secret arboreal ceremony. _Imbues the trees with mystery and ritual._ > I pulled aside the window curtain of our front door and peeped out. Just below the densely black projecting gable of the house I saw the crescent moon lying on her back in a bed of purple sky, and I saw our little white frosted garden path curving up towards the garden gate. He looked out the door and saw a crescent moon in a purple sky, with a frosty garden path leading to the gate. _A quiet, intimate moment shared with E⸺._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_journal_of_a_disappointed_man_se/chapters/part-iii-marriage - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_journal_of_a_disappointed_man_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_journal_of_a_disappointed_man_se/chapters