Written by John Williams,Stoner takes us through the life of the protagonist of the novel, named William Stoner. Born on a small farm in Missouri,he was laden with responsibilities towards the farm from a young age. He enrolls at the University of Missouri as a freshman in the agriculture department, as suggested by his father, but later, during a lecture on English literature, he is asked a question by the instructor, which completely bamboozles him. He later falls in love with the subject and changes his department to literature. He is uncertain about his future during his studies, but his professor points out to him that he is in love with literature and will become a teacher in the future. He,in fact,becomes an instructor at the same university and strikes up a friendship with two other fellow instructors, namely Dave Masters and Gordon Finch. Later in the novel, Gordon Finch tries to persuade Stoner to join the war, which he declines. Dave dies during the war, and the news shocks Stoner. It was the death of a dear friend of his, whom he remembered on a number of occasions throughout the book. He meets Edith,his future wife, at a party and falls in love with her. After meeting her a few times, he proposes to her, and they get married. As the book says, within a month he knew his marriage was a failure; within a year he stopped hoping it would improve, and indeed it was true. They later have a child, and they name her Grace. Stoner instantly falls in love with her daughter, and the father-daughter relationship takes central importance in the novel apart from the university life of Stoner. He takes care of her daughter as her wife remains partly bedridden
“And so for the first year of her life, Grace only knew her father’s touch, his voice,and his love.” P 89
Later in the novel, the rather quiet life of Stoner takes a turn as he comes into conflict with a graduate student named Walker and a member of the department named Lomax. Lomax,the chairman of the department, gave Stoner a hectic schedule and dropped his graduate seminar from the program so that he only had to teach freshman. During this time, he has a love affair with a young instructor in the department named Katherine Driscoll. To Stoner’s surprise, Edith doesn’t care much about the matter. Their liaison ends as Lomax threatens, in the words of Gordon Finch, to “crucify the girl.” He gets sick as the book approaches its end and dies while reading his own book.
by Sush1nt