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Study Guide
American Pastoral Part 3, Chapter 8
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Part 3, Chapter 8
- It's dinnertime, and it's getting dark really slowly. It seems to him that the evening will never end.
- Like he's crawled into it to die.
- They are on the terrace.
- Marcia and Barry Umanoff, and Sheila and Shelly Salzman are also at the dinner.
- Sheila was Merry's speech therapist.
- On this same day, just hours ago, the Swede learns from Merry that Sheila had hidden her for two days after the bombing.
- The Salzmans have never breathed a word of this to the Swede.
- How different everything could be if they had only called him when she arrived at their place.
- But he can't see quite exactly how things would have been different.
- He sits there paralyzed at dinner, trying not to think of Merry.
- And trying not to think of Dawn.
- But these are the only things he can think about.
- And he'll have to do this forever; stay here at dinner trying not to think about those things.
- "Otherwise the world would explode" (8.1).
- Barry Umanoff was in high school with the Swede, and he's the Swede's closest friend from those days.
- Barry teaches law at Columbia University and is the son of a Jewish tailor.
- Lou loves Barry and whenever he and Sylvia are in from Florida, Barry and Marcia come to dinner.
- When Merry had begun spending time in New York, she'd stayed with the Umanoffs a few times.
- (Flashback alert!)
- After the bombing, the Swede goes to Barry for legal advice.
- Barry takes him to Schevitz, another lawyer.
- Schevitz says that the worst thing that could happen to Merry is seven to ten years in jail.
- But, he tells the Swede, they don't even know if Merry is guilty, or if she acted alone.
- Maybe it was an accident.
- She could get a lighter sentence if it was done "in the passion of the antiwar movement" (8.3).
- They don't know anything. They don't have any details.
- If they treat Merry as a juvenile, the worst she could get is about three years in jail.
- That talk with Schevitz used to give the Swede some hope, but now he's heard the truth from Merry herself.
- Marcia Umanoff is "a militant nonconformist," and she knows just how to make the people around her feel uncomfortable.
- She teaches literature in New York.
- A big woman, messy, not that attractive, very outspoken.
- Barry loves her.
- The Swede could understand all of this if Merry was the daughter of Marcia.
- Marcia who has been in jail several times for protesting the war.
- It's hard to understand how Barry married her.
- She's an intellectual who likes to act superior and antagonize people.
- The Swede tolerates her, but Dawn despises her; she knows Marcia doesn't like her because she was once Miss New Jersey.
- Dawn had explained that she'd entered the pageant to win money to help pay for her brother's college education after her father had a heart attack.
- But Marcia still makes fun of it.
- Marcia doesn't hide her disdain for Dawn.
- Dawn doesn't even want Marcia in the house, but the Swede says they can't invite Barry and not Marcia.
- Dawn thinks Marcia was the one hiding Merry, the person who is helping her live underground.
- The Swede doesn't ever buy that it was Marcia.
- He was right; it wasn't Marcia.
- It was Merry's pretty speech therapist, Sheila Salzman, the only mistress the Swede has had.
- They had an affair for the first four months after Merry disappeared.
- Dinner conversation centers around Watergate and Deep Throat, an X rated movie that was very controversial at the time.
- Lou keeps getting on the topic of gloves, too, and Sylvia tries to stop him. Lou is still sitting next to Jessie Orcutt but he's mostly talking to Bill.
- Bill doesn't think there's anything wrong with X-rated movies.
- Lou says that kids are going to see those movies.
- Shelly Salzman, husband of Sheila, says that he thinks it's "adolescents" (8.46), not kids.
- The Swede can't believe Salzman helped hide his daughter from him, and from the FBI; Shelly is always so nice.
- Shelly is the person the Swede went to when Dawn wanted the face lift.
- He'd advised the Swede to do it if that's what Dawn wanted and had told him the doctor in Switzerland was safe.
- This was after the Swede's affair with Sheila, and the Swede had had an urge to confess.
- Shelly is telling Lou that it doesn't really matter if he, Shelly, approves of Deep Throat.
- Sylvia tells Lou to stop "monopolizing the conversation" (8.54), and then Dawn and Marcia start fighting a bit, and Dawn walks out.
- Marcia is on one side of Lou, and Jessie is on the other.
- Lou has moved Jessie's drink to where she can't reach it and is trying to make her eat.
- The Swede is thinking about Sheila.
- He just can't understand how she kept it from him.
- Is everybody as easily fooled as he is?
- He thinks Sheila's an "icy b****" (8.70).
- Suddenly, he's asking Lou if he wants more steak.
- Lou does want steak, so he can try to make Jessie eat it.
- Then the Swede's trying to help his father see that Shelly just doesn't take Deep Throat very seriously.
- With all that's happened today, he can't believe he's playing the middle man between his father and Shelly.
- Marcia is making fun of Lou's concern.
- Orcutt takes Lou's side, saying, "And what is wrong with decency?" (8.82).
- Not able to look at Orcutt, the Swede wonders what it is Dawn finds attractive in him.
- Now, he can't stop thinking of Merry being raped and of Dawn having sex with Orcutt.
- The argument about Deep Throat and decency is still going on.
- Marcia and Dawn are antagonizing each other. Marcia is antagonizing Lou.
- Orcutt is talking about "morality" (8.135)—Orcutt, the guy who puts the finishing touches on destroying the Swede's family.
- Now, the Swede understands that the face lift was for Orcutt.
- The new house is for Dawn and Orcutt to live in, together, abandoning the Swede and Jessie.
- The Swede thinks that Dawn and Orcutt are "predators" (8.139).