Stoner - A Life Lived to Fail

"That on the ashes on his youth doth lie, 

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourisht by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long. "

This passage, taken from a Shakespeare sonnet, becomes a decisive turning point for the protagonist William Stoner as he falls in love with literature and love itself. Until then, Stoner was merely a farmer’s son, living a life of fulfilling assigned tasks. It is this verse that ignites his passion for literature and love. Perhaps Stoner’s life after falling in love can be seen as his personal journey to find his own answer to this sonnet. He searches for the good things in life — truth, goodness, beauty, and love. Yet, as the passage hints, all these efforts are consumed by time and death, leaving only ashes behind. Nevertheless, throughout his life, Stoner never lets go of the small ember remaining on those ashes. It is from this faint spark that we feel his life to be strong and beautiful.

The Dispossessed

From the perspective of society’s common standards, Stoner’s life appears to be one of failure. He fell in love at first sight with Edith and married her, but unaware that love requires preparation and time, their marriage became a prolonged imprisonment. Though he poured affection into his daughter Grace, the conflict between husband and wife pulled her into a pit of depression. He fell in love with a student named Katherine but succumbed to the pressures of public opinion and let go of her hand. He shared friendships with colleagues Gordon Finch and David Master, yet their distance remained unresolved. With passion as a professor, he taught students, but few remembered him, and he left no notable academic achievements. His attempts to form loving relationships — as a lover, student, child, and colleague — were ultimately all taken away by the many boundaries set by society.

Yet the reason William Stoner suffers the pain of being deprived is that he is a being who pursues and desires something. As David Master describes, Stoner is like Don Quixote, a dreamer and therefore a fragile person. He always believes there is something better, something more to learn in life, but in the end realizes that nothing can be fully possessed. Because he is an idealist, he is vulnerable to the world’s dirtiness, unfairness, and evil. He is so upright and idealistic that he cannot bend to fight against these things. Coupled with his submissive nature, he does not even have the courage to resist and simply lets himself be consumed.

This fate is not solely Stoner’s. Anyone, before death, is destined never to fully grasp what they desire. Thus, the university becomes a hospice for these powerless, dissatisfied, and fragile people. Gordon Finch wishes to solve the world’s problems and exert good influence but cannot endure sacrifice or corruption to achieve it. He realizes that his ability alone cannot change anything, remaining ultimately powerless and failing. David Master is wise enough to understand the world’s problems and evils but at the same time deeply aware of emptiness and helplessness. Thus, he cannot act and his words remain as nothing but complaints and grievances. These people, living as if forgetting death, must, as Master quotes, disguise themselves like Edgar in Shakespeare’s King Lear, pretending to be Mad Tom to survive in the world. Compromises and resignation to imitate ordinary people might be inevitable. Despite countless failures and defeats, and the fate of ultimately losing everything in life, we cannot dare label Stoner’s life a failure. Rather, from his quiet and diligent life, he emerges as a hero. What was that faint spark he preserved and never lost until his final moment?

Toward Our Own Wrong Answers

Stoner’s first love was literature. It can be said that his self was truly born the moment he encountered Shakespeare’s sonnets. He came to love Katherine — the great love of his life — also because of her passion for literature and remarkable insight. His love for literature expanded into his love for Katherine. This love resembled comradeship between those who walk similar paths together. In his relationship with his daughter, he discovered a passion for teaching. His life began and ended with literature and the university. While in his personal life he constantly evaded, in his work he did not compromise and constantly stood firm. To uphold his belief that unqualified people should not stand at the podium, he resisted a student named Walker, who did not meet doctorate requirements, from teaching. Because of this he endured relentless harassment from Romax, a colleague supporting Walker, for the next 20 years, bearing it all quietly.

Having devoted his life to scholarship and teaching with passion, he left no remarkable achievements at life’s end. Perhaps he wished to find his true self through literature or sought meaning in life. However, the books he published all his life were useless, and what he tried to teach vanished in the vast gap between word and reality. His goals ultimately failed. Yet at life’s end, when asked “What did you expect?” his answer was his book. Its content and value mattered little. That book was evidence that throughout his life, he have striven to reach the ideal he sought. That attempt made him who he was, and it was his whole being. From his countless setbacks and emptiness, his persistent, earnest, and stubborn carrying on moves us deeply. Perhaps we all, too, are doomed to lose what we hold dear in life. Even if all that remains before death is ashes, how we have lived, reaching toward what we dreamed, ultimately defines our identity. We might each be beings endlessly reaching toward our own wrong answers in our unique ways.

This book has no great achievements or dramatic twists. Rather, readers follow Stoner’s quiet journey page by page, reflecting on what makes his life moving and beautiful. Following his life, readers come to realize that beyond society’s measures of success and failure lies the true greatness found in the stubborn dedication of one person guarding their own small flame. Even the spark barely preserved until life’s end is eventually extinguished by death. Though every effort and attempt ultimately turn to ash, we find life’s value in the many attempts and their processes as each pursues their own love and beliefs. Not a perfect answer, but each person’s unique wrong answer along with those earnest moments are what make us truly human. After closing the book, every reader will ask themselves: What is your flame that you want to protect until the very end?