Stoner

Throughout the winter, Stoner continues to have these out-of-body experiences, “a dissociation that he had never felt before; he knew that he ought to be troubled by it, but he was numb, and he could not convince himself that it mattered” (186). At 43 years old, Stoner starts recognizing himself in the mirror as older.

Katherine Driscoll visits Stoner’s office a year after their seminar together to ask him to review her dissertation. Stoner finds it difficult to get himself to read the dissertation, but when he finally does, he is excited and taken aback by how good it is. He misses his appointment with Katherine, so he goes to her home to give the manuscript of her dissertation back to her. Katherine invites him in, and they discuss her dissertation. Katherine alludes to the conflict that started for Stoner in the seminar she took with him, and when Stoner tells her it’s not important, he realizes for the first time his conflict with Walker and Hollis truly is not important.

Stoner starts visiting Katherine regularly to discuss literature. He falls in love with Katherine but is careful not to betray his real feelings for her because he is sure she’ll never reciprocate his attraction. Stoner feels embarrassed that he spends so much time with her and worries he’s a bother to her, so he backs off for a couple of weeks. But when he finds out she was out sick, he rushes to her apartment and discovers she’s not physically ill but rather sad because she is also in love with Stoner and thought he was avoiding her. Katherine and Stoner begin their affair.

Stoner and Katherine are madly in love with one another. Throughout his affair, Stoner learns the value of love and how love can make a person discover themselves. He realizes he never trusted or loved anyone the way he does Katherine. In between their deep conversations and sex, Katherine and Stoner revive one another’s passion for their work.

Although Stoner knows he’s deceiving his wife, he doesn’t feel bad about his affair. Because he spends more time away from home to be with Katherine, his relationships with Grace and Edith improve. He’s surprised to find out Edith knows about his affair and doesn’t care about it. When the new school year begins, Katherine and Stoner discover that a lot of people have discovered the affair. And yet, no one seems to mind. Stoner and Katherine continue their affair in private and travel together during the Christmas break.

When Finch hears of the affair, he calls Stoner in. Finch doesn’t actually care about the affair, but the affair can make things messy and inappropriate. Finch doesn’t tell Stoner he must stop or be fired. Stoner and Katherine continue their affair.

Months later, Finch calls him in again. Hollis heard about the affair. Hollis wants to fire Katherine. Finch is trying to keep Hollis in line, but there’s nothing he’ll be able to do if Stoner doesn’t give in to Hollis.

Katherine and Stoner have a difficult conversation about breaking up. In a way, they both knew their affair wouldn’t last forever. Stoner won’t leave Edith, for Grace’s sake, and neither of them will give up their careers because that would mean giving up themselves, which would end up hurting their love for one another. Katherine resigns from the university and leaves town directly after their painful break up.

In the summer after his break up with Katherine, Stoner becomes ill and recovers from the illness aged and sad. The Great Depression wreaked havoc on the nation, and Stoner often sees men his age broken down by the stresses of their unemployment and poverty. In 1936, World War II breaks out, and Stoner relives the horrors of watching good men leave academia for war.

Stoner is finally fed up with the teaching schedule Hollis gives him. Rather than teach yet another boring freshman composition class, Stoner decides to teach his freshmen medieval literature, his passion. Stoner assigns a difficult homework assignment the first day of class. As expected, and Stoner planned, the students complain to Hollis. Stoner is called into a meeting with Professor Ehrhardt who is in charge of the freshman English program, but Stoner insists Hollis be in attendance as well. Hollis doesn’t attend the meeting. Ehrhardt is kind and jovial. He asks Stoner to return to teaching the required texts of the freshman program, and Stoner refuses to. When Hollis complains to Finch, Finch laughs at Stoner’s ingenious plot and reminds Hollis there’s nothing either of them can do about a tenured professor’s approach to teaching. Stoner wins the fight and next semester gets reassigned to teaching his favorite graduate courses.

By his late 40s, Stoner looks much older than his age. Stoner’s victory against Hollis and his freshman introductory class in medieval literature become a kind of legend that follows him through the years. But being a myth is not always good; some rumors about Stoner’s past include the version of the affair with Katherine that says he seduced Katherine and abused his power as a professor. Stoner’s reputation is enhanced by his persona in class. As a teacher, he is distanced from his students but passionately obsessed with his subject.

Stoner’s home life gets worse in the years after his affair with Katherine. Without Katherine in his life, Stoner spends more time in his house, which angers Edith and causes tension and arguments. Eventually, Edith resigns herself to the reality and inevitability of Stoner’s presence in the house. Grace becomes more withdrawn, just like her mother. Grace’s body changes a lot throughout adolescence. Grace grows into her beauty and finally has the social life her mother always wanted for her.

Stoner saves up money to send Grace away for college, but Edith insists she stay at home. Grace attends the University of Missouri and continues dating and being popular. Grace becomes pregnant out of wedlock. Edith is so upset she screams, but Stoner speaks to Grace more calmly and speaks to her like an adult. Grace is relieved she can finally speak to her father again. He assures her they’ll support her in whatever she wants to do about the pregnancy.

Edith arranges a wedding between Grace and the man at the university who got her pregnant, even though Grace seems apathetic at best about the man and the idea of marriage and motherhood. In December 1941, Grace gets married and the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II. Grace’s new husband, Edward, joins the military and dies in battle in the Pacific. Grace gives birth to a son in 1942 and names him after his dead father. Despite her husband’s death, Grace stays with her in-laws in St. Louis rather than return home to her own parents. Edith visits her and reports to Stoner that Grace changed a lot.

Grace visits home and stays up late, drinking and talking to Stoner. She confesses that she drinks too much, and Stoner notes she might have an alcohol addiction. Grace also confesses she got pregnant on purpose so she could get out of her family’s home and her hometown. Stoner sees his daughter’s future as a lonely and unhappy one and doesn’t begrudge her having an alcohol addiction.

When World War II ends, universities are reignited by an influx of former soldiers pursuing an education on the GI Bill. Stoner is busy with work. In 1949, he finds out that Katherine’s book was published. He buys a copy and discovers she dedicated the book to him. Despite being almost 60 years old, reading Katherine’s book brings all his feelings and desire for her back.

When Stoner is 64 years old, Finch calls him in to discuss his retirement options. Stoner wants to stay on, but Hollis wants Stoner to retire within the year. Stoner tells Finch Hollis will have to force Stoner out to his face. Finch arranges a meeting with Stoner and Hollis. Hollis and Stoner go back and forth about why Stoner should or should not retire at age 65. Stoner refuses to retire. At age 65, Hollis announces Stoner’s retirement, but Stoner again refuses to retire.

Stoner starts to feel unwell; the pain in his body and his fatigue increase. The doctor finds a potentially cancerous lump in Stoner’s body. Stoner retires so he can go into the hospital and face his fate. Hollis, surprised and unbelieving he won the battle over Stoner’s retirement, insists on promoting Stoner to Professor Emeritus and on throwing a retirement party for him. Stoner doesn’t want to tell anybody, not even Edith, about his cancer, but Finch and Edith find out anyway.

At Stoner’s retirement party, Hollis makes a speech in his honor that Stoner knows is meant to be sarcastic. Stoner makes his own short speech about being grateful for the opportunity to have been a teacher. He and Hollis don’t speak at the party.

Stoner goes in for his surgery. After the surgery, he wants to go home, but the doctor explains the tumor was so large, they were unable to remove it all.

Stoner learns his cancer spread all over his body. Stoner feels himself weakening at home. Grace visits, and they reminisce over her childhood, which she and Stoner spent together. Stoner knows he’s dying. He and Edith chat amiably together of the life they had; the text explains, “They had forgiven themselves for the harm they had done each other, and they were rapt in a regard of what their life together might have been” (282). Finch visits him every day. Stoner thinks about what his own life must look like to others. Stoner realizes he wanted to be a teacher but ended up not being very good at it, wanted love but lost it, wanted a marriage but had an unhappy one, wanted friends but now only has Finch. In Stoner’s final days, he vacillates between pain and joy. He thinks about his life as a failure but then realizes happily it doesn’t matter; it was, nonetheless, a life. He reaches for a book and dies with the book in his hands.