The Wood Beyond the World · Chapter
I: Of Golden Walter and His Father explained
Golden Walter, a young man of Langton on Holm, is unhappy in his marriage to a beautiful but unfaithful wife.
What happens
Golden Walter, a young man of Langton on Holm, is unhappy in his marriage to a beautiful but unfaithful wife. He asks his father, the wealthy merchant Bartholomew Golden, for permission to sail away on the ship Katherine. His father agrees, and Walter prepares to depart.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Betrayal
Walter's wife's unfaithfulness and her hatred toward him drive the central conflict of the chapter.
Journey and Transformation
Walter decides to leave his home and sail to unknown lands, seeking to become a new man.
Characters to notice
- Golden Walter
The protagonist, a young man of 25, fair-faced and yellow-haired, who is troubled by his wife's infidelity and seeks to leave home.
- Bartholomew Golden
Walter's father, a wealthy merchant and head of the Lineage of the Goldings, who agrees to let Walter sail on the Katherine.
Key passages
“He was but of five and twenty winters, a fair-faced man, yellow-haired, tall and strong; rather wiser than foolisher than young men are mostly wont; a valiant youth, and a kind; not of many words but courteous of speech; no roisterer, nought masterful, but peaceable and knowing how to forbear: in a fray a perilous foe, and a trusty war-fellow.”
Walter is described as a handsome, strong, and generally wise young man, brave and kind, quiet but polite, not aggressive but a dangerous fighter and loyal companion.
Introduces the protagonist's character and virtues.
“But when they had been wedded some six months he found by manifest tokens, that his fairness was not so much to her but that she must seek to the foulness of one worser than he in all ways; wherefore his rest departed from him, whereas he hated her for her untruth and her hatred of him; yet would the sound of her voice, as she came and went in the house, make his heart beat; and the sight of her stirred desire within him, so that he longed for her to be sweet and kind with him, and deemed that, might it be so, he should forget all the evil gone by.”
After six months of marriage, Walter discovers his wife's infidelity with a man inferior to him, causing him inner turmoil: he hates her betrayal yet still desires her affection.
Reveals the emotional conflict caused by his wife's unfaithfulness.
“The shortest word is best, father, and this it is, that I would depart in the said ship and see other lands.”
Walter tells his father directly that he wants to leave on the ship and travel abroad.
Walter's decision to leave home.