his club; he knew that his wife would not mind his absence from her. When he got home, however, he found her in his room. They kissed and for a moment forgot they had agreed not to live as man and wife. Then the moment passed, and Bianca fled to her room. Needing someone to talk to, Hilary went down to Mr. Stone’s room and had a cup of cocoa.

The daughter of Stephen and Cecilia Dallison, Thyme, also tried to help the Hughs family. Her interest was the Hughs’s tiny baby. She also noted that Ivy had new clothes and guessed that her uncle had bought them for the girl. The word quickly ran through the family, and Stephen, trying to make Hilary see how the others looked at the situation, told him that Bianca was bound to be jealous, even though they did not live as man and wife. Hilary felt that the celibacy she imposed on him had taken away any grounds for jealousy she might have.

That same afternoon, Hughs went to the Dallison home and tried to tell Bianca about her husband’s affair with Ivy. Although she refused to listen, the incident roused her emotions and suspicions. At least, her pride was hurt. That evening, Hilary and Bianca tried to talk over the matter, but all they succeeded in doing was hurting each other. Bianca refused to believe that her husband was innocent of any intentions toward the model and had simply bought the girl some clothing because he felt sorry for her.

With his sister-in-law’s help, Hilary found another room for Ivy. Hoping to solve the problem of Bianca’s jealousy, he also told her not to come to his house to copy for Mr. Stone. When Hughs returned home that night and learned that Ivy had left his house, he beat his wife and wounded her with a bayonet. As a result, he was put into prison for several weeks. During the time he was in prison, the Hughs’s baby died; Mrs. Hughs had been too upset to nurse him.

At the same time, old Mr. Stone became very ill and unhappy. He missed the company of the model as well as the copying she had done for him. In an effort to help her father, Bianca sought out Ivy and had her return to be with the old man part of every day. Because of his child’s death and the girl’s return to work at Hilary’s house, it seemed as if the problem would still be unsolved when Hughs returned from prison.

To avoid a repetition of the whole distasteful situation, Hilary resolved to go to Europe. Although Ivy was in love with him and wished to go along, he made up his mind that he would go alone. His wife, because of her conscience, resolved to help the girl in Hilary’s absence. When she went to the girl’s room, however, she found her belongings packed. It dawned on her that in spite of his resolve her husband was taking the model with him. Bianca left the house in a fury just as her husband arrived. Her jealousy and anger, however, were wasted; after she left, when Ivy kissed him, Hilary realized that he could never live for long with a girl from the lower classes. Flinging all the money he had with him on the bed, he left alone. He took a room in London and then sent a letter to Bianca through his brother Stephen. He told her of his decision to stop seeing Ivy and his further decision not to return to an unsatisfying marriage.

Critical Evaluation:

In both his novels and his plays, John Galsworthy reflected the social problems of his age. His conscience was bothered by the lack of understanding shown by the members of his own class, the intellectual and moneyed upper-middle class. In this novel, as in the others, his social satire is expressed by a delineation of the complacency of the upper classes rather than by an analysis of the lower classes and their situation. Here also, as in other works, his diagnosis is not profound, nor does he attempt to offer any remedy for the problems he shows. Some readers may feel that this volume shows how Galsworthy’s efforts to understand his age and his indignation at what he finds lead to no satisfactory solution in the end. FRATERNITY, however, is generally regarded as one of Galsworthy’s best works of fiction, aside from that series of upper-middle class novels upon which his fame rests, THE FORSYTE SAGA.

FRATERNITY, the third of a four-volume series satirizing affluent society—in the words of the author, “my long four volume image of England’s upper crust”—deals with the subject of cultured aesthetic intellectuals of London. They are filled with idealism, but their self-consciousness and complacency prevent them from acting in any substantial manner.

The novel’s earlier, rejected title, “Shadows,” and the later title that became affixed to it are both appropriate, for Galsworthy presents two levels of society, the artistic intellectuals and the wretched slum dwellers, each of which are “shadows” of the other, as revealed throughout the novel by the shifting point of view. At the same time, the upper-class Dallison family is going through the superficial motions of conceptualizing a “fraternity” of all men, much like the supposed vision in Mr. Stone’s apocalyptic “Book of Universal Brotherhood.”

All the Dallisons’ altruistic notions remain in the abstract, however, for the family represents “a section of society...who speculated on ideas,” and their self-consciousness and fidelity to convention paralyze them from taking any affirmative action. While most of the family flatter themselves by simply thinking about equality in society yet shrinking in fear from the thought that it might ever happen, three characters make a move forward but suffer for their transgression.

Hilary Dallison’s attraction to and sympathy for Ivy Barton overtly manifests itself as a gesture to lift her out of her poor existence. Beyond this, however, Hilary is also paradoxically attracted by her sexuality while repulsed with fear at the risk to his own status in actually bringing about any union of the two levels of society. In response to this dilemma, he relies upon the expediency of a monetary gift to her and flees from the impending necessity to make a decision and commit himself to action. Fear motivates Hilary’s behavior and defeats Thyme’s attempt at unification with the lower strata of society. When she goes among them, she feels the strength and security of her station drain off and flow into them, and she fears the transformation that creates the “unreality of her intruding presence.” As for the elder Mr. Stone, finally, fear was not his defeat as it was for the other two; rather, his overzealous commitment to the idea of a universal brotherhood and his agonized efforts to put into concrete terms the essence and elements of that concept drove him to defeat in madness, perhaps because readers are meant to feel that the consummation of his plan is an impossibility.

While FRATERNITY most clearly exposes the moral paralysis among the cultured upper classes, the slum dwellers are also paralyzed by their immersion in dreams, never to be fulfilled, and resignation to a poverty-stricken existence. Joshua Creed typifies the character of the slum dweller; while he ekes out a living selling newspapers in the slum, his thoughts are directed to the far-off, attractive Mayfair. His one expectation is death, and his only ambition is to be “respectable,” both during and at the end of his life.

Galsworthy supplies no answers or solutions to the dilemma he has presented in FRATERNITY. Through the Dallisons’ frustrations, complacency, sensitivity, and self-consciousness, his main purpose was to show how the intellectual segment of the country had been paralyzed by too many years of money and ease; they are unable to act in any decisive manner for the real benefit of anyone or even to resolve their own moral questions and dilemmas.