their marriage).

This points up a third and more significant conflict, which has to do with moral certainty and absolute truth. Most readers would interpret Walter's actions as erratic at best and despicable at worst. His repeated sense that he is acting as part of "God's plan" is at once clearly self serving and, to the extent that he really believes it, an indication of his blindness to the pain he is causing others.

On the other hand, the story remains open to the possibility that Walter might be right—that he is following the spirit. Walter clearly expects his friends to understand that "following God's plan" is "for the best" for everyone involved, but this moral certainty is at odds with the emotional certainty that he is destroying lives. In a sense, he is using "doing the right thing" as an excuse to "do the wrong thing." All this points to a deeper psychological conflict within Walter.

Other readers might have different thoughts about this, but in my opinion, the central idea of Christopher Miner's short story “Rhonda and Her Children” is hypocrisy supported by self-justification at the expensive of others.

Let's examine what that means. Look at the character of Walter. He has known Rhonda for fewer than four months. He realizes that he has feelings for Rhonda only three days before he leaves his wife to start a relationship with Rhonda. Yet look what he focuses on. He tells Margot (his wife's friend) that Rhonda is “such a fine woman and a Christian mother to her two boys” (250). So what? What does that have to do with leaving his wife for another woman? Does he have to divorce his wife because Rhonda is a good mother and a fine woman? No, he does not. He is making excuses, trying to justify his actions (more to himself than to Margot).

Notice what else Walter says during his conversation with Margo. He asks Margot to talk to Lynda. “You know she's never been good at expressing herself,” he comments, “but that's no excuse for acting like a child...” (250). Who is really acting like a child here, Walter or Lynda? Lynda is stunned by her husband's departure. She doesn't know what to say to him, so she remains silent, mostly in shock. Is this acting like a child? Would Walter rather she scream at him? He probably would have called that childish behavior, too. Now think about how Walter is acting, walking out on a marriage of twenty-seven years on a whim because he thinks he loves another women and likes her children. Is this not childish behavior, throwing away a relationship of decades for a few moments of pleasure? This is childish, and Walter is a hypocrite.

Walter also provides himself to be a hypocrite when he continually speaks of God and following God's will. He tells his friend, referring to divorcing Lynda,

Gene, there are some things I don't have to ask God about and that's one of them. Lynda's upset but I assured her I was faithful (247).

If Walter really had a relationship with God, if he really knew and respected God's law of love (which means willing the best for others and helping them attain that best even at the expense of oneself), he would never have so abruptly walked out on Lynda. He would have stopped, thought, prayed, and realized that he needed to keep his passions in check and use his reason. And look at his assertion that he is faithful! He may not have slept with Rhonda yet, but he has just left his wife for her. That is not faithful. Walter is a hypocrite.

A little later in the story, Walter speaks to Gene about Rhonda. He declares that Rhonda is “an honest person” and a “real Christian” and “good mother” (428). He and Rhonda can pray together, he asserts, something he could never do with Lynda. Are any of these true justifications for Walter leaving his wife for another woman? Not at all. He could very well have invited Lynda to pray with him. He could have looked at his own wife and noticed her positive traits. And is Rhonda really an honest person, cheating on her husband with another man? Is she a “real Christian” even though she does not follow God's law? Is she really a good mother, giving this kind of example to her children? No, Rhonda is just as much of a hypocrite as Walter is.

Rhonda, however, tries to justify herself just as much as Walter does. When she calls Gene, she talks about how good Walter is with the boys. Is that a reason for her to walk out on her husband? She leaves the house with the boys when her husband tells the kids that

if they didn't want to eat dinner at his house then they could all find somewhere else to spend the night (251).

What parent hasn't said that to a child who is being fussy about what is on his or her plate? Rhonda is looking for an excuse to leave, but all she finds is a very shaky one.

By this time in the story, Gene has had enough of the self-justifying hypocrisy of Walter and Rhonda, and he tells them to leave his house. Walter, a hypocrite to the end, asks him if he thinks he is doing what God wants. Gene does not bother to respond.

Christopher Miner's short story “Rhonda and Her Children” is told from the point of view of Walter's friend Gene. Walter stays at Gene's house after he leaves his wife, Lynda, for Rhonda, a woman he knows from work and for whom he suddenly decides he has feelings.

To better understand how Gene's point of view works, let's first try to imagine how the story might be if it were told from other points of view. What if Lynda tells the story? We might hear a lot of confusion and pain and probably some anger (although she seems mostly numb). Her husband leaves her with no warning after twenty-seven years of marriage for a woman he hardly knows, and he seems to think he's following God's will.

What if Rhonda tells the story? She might concentrate on how horrible her husband is and how “nice” Walter is to her and her children. She, too, might focus on the “Christian” thing to do in this situation, trying, like Walter, to convince herself that her actions are right and good (even when clearly they are not).

How about if Walter tells the story? We already hear quite a bit of what he thinks about the whole matter since he speaks to Gene about it at length. If the story were told of Walter's point of view, we would probably hear a lot more of his internal attempts at justification as he tries desperately to assure himself that he is doing the most “loving” thing for everyone involved. We might also hear a bit of whining about how no one understands him and how Lynda is just so unfair.

But the author does not choose any of these points of view. He chooses to tell the story from Gene's perspective, for Gene, who is quite observant, can give us a feel for the thoughts and emotions of each character while remaining more or less objective (at least until the end). He reports what he sees and hears without any commentary of his own. For instance, he recounts how Lynda simply sits at the table when Walter returns home for a change of clothes. She just stares at the “leftover dinner plates” without moving (248). This shows us a quite a lot about Lynda's state of mind.

Gene can listen in on overheard conversations, like Walter's telephone call to Margot, Lynda's friend. He can report what he hears without commenting, allowing us to judge Walter's words for ourselves. Gene can even speak objectively about his own conversation with Rhonda, merely recording her words and letting us make our own interpretations.

By the end of the story, however, even Gene's objectivity slips. He has, apparently, been trying not to make judgments about his friend's situation, but when Rhonda and her children show up at his house and try to move right in, Gene has had enough. He tells them all to leave. He doesn't let us in on what he is thinking, but we readers can probably determine that for ourselves because Gene is likely as tired of the hypocritical Walter and Rhonda as we are. But he doesn't tell us; he allows us to come to that conclusion ourselves, and in that, he makes for a highly effective narrator.

The point of view in the story is nominally first person. Gene, the narrator, is clearly known to the characters (the first words of the story are "Walter asked me to pray for him"). Walter comes to the narrator's house and sleeps on the couch. The story is told through the eyes of this "friend."

The tone of this narrator, however, is more in keeping with an omniscient narrator. That is, the narrator reports what Walter does and says in a detached way, as if they are not concerned or involved with the action Gene is reporting. This causes a kind of implied irony in the text. For example, when Walter's wife, Lynda, shows up at the apartment, Gene reports that he asked her "if she would like to come in and sit down," a request that she ignores. This is clearly a kind of nightmare situation for Gene, who in Lynda's eyes must be seen as complicit somehow in the breakup of her marriage, but these emotions are left to the reader to imagine. The narrator does not report them. However, it is clear that the events of the day have made Gene to decide to throw Walter out, which is how the story ends.

Even though, in a technical sense, the story is first person, it is thematically about omniscience, specifically God's omniscience. Walter's decision to suddenly leave Lynda is connected to his belief that this is part of "God's plan," and indeed everything that happens in the story, including Gene asking him to leave, is understood by Walter as part of this master narrative. In a way, Gene's detached narrative style highlights the difference between Walter's certainty and the emotional damage he causes.