40 pages • 1 hour read
So Much Water So Close to Home
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Isolation as Protection and Vulnerability
Content Warning: This section of the guide references the graphic murders of women and features ambiguously consensual sex as well as general misogyny.
This theme operates on several levels. The location of the woman’s body is remote, as no signs of other people are present. In a literal sense, the body has been hidden away; in a metaphorical sense, it is removed from society and connection to other people, evidence of the murderer’s disregard for the victim’s life and humanity. Similarly, Stuart and his pals seek out a remote and unpeopled area for their fishing and fun, despite the fact, as Claire points out, opportunities exist much closer to their home. She challenges, “Why do you have to go miles away? (83). The answer is that the men desire to act out a brutish masculinity of drinking and carousing removed from the confines of social norms. The story thus establishes a gendered difference in isolation, which represents vulnerability for women precisely because it affords men the opportunity to behave in ways that make women vulnerable.
These physical isolations parallel the emotional separation between Claire and Stuart. Stuart is unconcerned with the plight of the dead woman and unwilling to listen to Claire, frequently shutting down her attempts at conversation by insisting she is “getting [him] more riled by the minute” (84). Anger is the emotion he primarily expresses, and this only widens the divide between the couple; Claire’s attempts to express her anxiety encounter not reassurance but hostility and blame-shifting that deepen her distress. Claire ultimately concludes that her efforts to connect with Stuart are futile, asserting, “There is nothing I can say to him” (84). From this point onward, she distances herself from her husband, first sleeping “on the far side of the bed” (84), then moving to the couch, and finally ignoring him over breakfast.
The broader potential for male violence also isolates Claire. When she suspects the man in the pickup truck of following her, she locks herself in the car and refuses to leave. This physical isolation is her method of seeking safety, but it only increases her fear and panic. The man pleads with her to exit the car, insisting Claire is “going to choke in there” (86). The world is a stifling place in which Claire’s attempts to insulate herself prove suffocating instead.
The only moments in which it seems like Claire might find connection—the note she writes to her son, her appointment at the salon, the conversation after the funeral—involve either children or other women, who do not pose the same kind of threat that men do. However, even in these cases, distance remains; Claire lies to the nail technician about knowing the murder victim, and her emphasis on the word “love” in the note to her son implies insecurity (he will, after all, grow up to be a man). The only kind of closeness Claire ultimately finds lies in shared victimhood—i.e., her identification with the murdered woman. This contrasts starkly with the camaraderie of Stuart and his friends (or, she imagines, the murderer and his friends), who bond with one another against this backdrop of female victimization.
The Pervasiveness of Doubt and Deception
Claire’s distrust of Stuart is established early in the story. He asserts his innocence in the death of the woman with, “I’m as sorry as anyone else. But she’s dead” (80). Claire’s response (“That’s the point”) indicates that she is skeptical that Stuart has revealed the extent of his knowledge regarding the dead woman (80). Stuart does little to assuage her doubt. His refusal to speak to the news and his annoyance at what he views as their intrusions only suggest that Claire is not alone in her suspicions. Even learning that the murder culprit has been detained does not assuage Claire’s doubts. She insists, “They have friends, these killers. You can’t tell” (87). Stuart and his buddy group remain culpable in her eyes.
Just as importantly, the belief that Stuart is untruthful instils in Claire a distrust of all men (or heightens the distrust she has felt since the discovery of the body of a dead girl near her home when she was young). She is sure that the man in the pickup truck is trying to deceive rather than help her (86). Men, and the world at large, are not to be trusted.
Claire reciprocates this deception with her own tiny lies. After their outing to Everson Creek, Claire explains, “Stuart believes he is letting [her] sleep this morning. But [she] was awake long before the alarm went off” (84). The marriage is one where neither partner is genuine in the face of the other. Similarly, she is untruthful with the hairdresser, leading her to believe that the murder victim was an acquaintance: “‘We weren’t all that close,’ I say. ‘But, you know’” (85). Though she consents to sex with Stuart as the story closes, nothing has occurred to repair the unrest between them. Their coupling is another form of deception, as both characters perpetuate the lack of intimacy that plagues the relationship.
The media’s presence around the edges of the story represents a possible source or arbiter of truth. Both Claire and Stuart continuously turn to the newspaper as a source of truth, each hoping, it seems, that it will provide facts that definitively clear Stuart of wrongdoing. These hopes come to nothing, however. Claire “look[s] at the newspaper and turn[s] it this way and that on the table” (84), but it does not provide her with the assurance she seeks. When she reads about the identification of the victim, what strikes her is the work involved in the process, as though the woman’s identity were manufactured rather than discerned: “[I]t took some examining it, some putting things into it, some cutting, some weighing, some measuring, some putting things back again and sewing them in” (84). Her doubts regarding the media’s identification of the murderer echo this earlier suspicion.
Gender Norms’ Harmful Effects on Women
Traditional gender norms compound the dissonance between Stuart and Claire. They live out the roles that 1970s America prescribes for them—Claire tending to cooking and household chores while Stuart earns a living outside of the home. Stuart is brutish toward Claire, acting out a masculinity that allows for no emotional intimacy or meaningful connection. Women are in Stuart’s mind valuable for their bodies and provide access to physical pleasure. Stuart, as the male, is not only the initiator of sex but also the recipient of its pleasure.
Claire submits without protestation to her subservient position. She fulfills the gatekeeper role, granting Stuart “access” to her body whenever he chooses. She also conforms to the broader societal expectations for female behavior, at least to some degree; she considers it important to improve her outward appearance with a trip to a hair and nail salon prior to the funeral (84-85). Similarly, as a mother, it is she who bears the burden of ensuring the physical and emotional safety of her child with Stuart. This is evident in the note Claire writes, in which she “underlines” the word love (85), as well as near the story’s conclusion when Claire briefly worries Dean is missing (87).
The story abounds with further evidence of women’s status as objects. The murdered woman’s body is found with “no clothes on her at all” (81), implying rape or sexual violence. This vulnerability is on display for Stuart and his buddies to witness. Claire recounts how Arlene Hubley was not merely killed but also beheaded (83), indicating a cold disregard for women’s bodies. That the funeral-goer acquaintance recalls the murdered woman as a child is also telling: “She used to come over and I’d bake cookies for her” (87). The victim is associated with submissiveness and poses no threat.
It is important that no attempts to challenge or step out of prescribed gender confines exist in the story. Indeed, in a world that rewards masculinity, Stuart has no incentive to change. Claire, on the other hand, likely sees any attempt she might make as futile, evidenced in the way she not only concedes to sex at the end of the story but also helps Stuart by “finishing the [unfastening of the] buttons [her]self” (88). To be female is to submit, and the best one might hope for is that the man’s desires be fulfilled quickly and painlessly.
Unlock all 40 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Raymond Carver
