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Summary
Chapters One-Three
Chapter One
In May 1966, Frances “Frankie” Grace McGrath, a 20-year-old from a wealthy family, attends a lavish farewell party at her family’s estate on Coronado Beach, near San Diego. Her brother, Finley McGrath, is preparing to leave for Vietnam after graduating from the Naval Academy. Finley’s best friend, Joseph Ryerson “Rye” Walsh, joins in the celebration. The men in their family have a long history of military service, with both of Frankie’s grandfathers receiving medals for bravery. Frankie’s mother, Bette McGrath, comes from an old-money family. Her father Connor—who became employed by Bette’s father after being told he couldn’t serve in the army for medical reasons, to his lifelong shame—made a fortune through real estate. He has an entire wall of his office devoted to portraits of the family’s military men. Frankie is in his office looking at it and worrying about her brother’s upcoming deployment when his best friend Rye joins her. The two discuss the fact that all the figures on the wall are men, and Rye unexpectedly tells Frankie that he thinks women can be heroes too. When she later tells Finley she’s scared for him to go to war, he tells her not to worry.
Chapter Two
Frankie writes to Finley after church every week, and he responds with postcards scrawled with funny stories about life aboard his Navy ship and parties in Saigon. She decides she wants to help, and begins studying to become a field nurse at a hospital in San Diego. She sees her first truly severe wartime injury when she meets a patient sent back from Vietnam who has lost a leg to a “Bouncing Betty,” a type of landmine that sprays shrapnel. He tells Frankie that he has nightmares and that he’s actually in hospital for trying to commit suicide. He explains that a nurse in Vietnam helped him through the first part of his recovery. This is all the prompting Frankie needs. Inspired by Finley’s service, her family’s history, and the possibility of helping soldiers while being far from combat herself she decides to join the Navy medical corps. Two anti-war protestors try to stop her from going in but she brushes past them, only to be told that inform her that two years of experience are required to enlist by both the Navy and the Air Force. The Army, however, lets her enlist immediately.
Chapter Three
When Frankie informs her parents about her decision to enlist, they’re dumbfounded. Her father Connor is particularly opposed, arguing that military service is reserved for men in their family only. He also reminds Frankie that they are a “Navy family” and insists that joining the Army is a betrayal. Her mother Bette rebukes her for letting her father convince her that military service is heroic. Two naval officers in uniform arrive, as if on cue, and deliver the devastating news that Finley has been killed in action. He is dead and there are no remains to salvage, as he was shot down in a helicopter. Bette pleads with Frankie to stay, but hearing that Finley is dead makes her even more determined to honor his memory. Her mother reminds her that Finley promised he’d be careful before he left, and he died anyway.
Analysis
The first three chapters of The Women introduce the reader to Frankie’s world and set up the conflicts that drive her story. Her family dynamics and the effects they have on her choices start to rear their heads at this early stage, although we only get a hint of them at the beginning of the novel. It’s clear that Frankie’s family background is both a huge motivating factor for her actions and one of the main things keeping her locked in place.
To be a McGrath is to submit to authority; family members submit to Connor, and Connor submits to the McGrath legacy of military valor. The hero’s wall that Frankie’s father proudly maintains in his office is at the center of the McGrath family tradition of celebrating conformity and service. At first glance one might not realize that the wall sets up such a strong gendered binary, as women also appear. However, every generation of McGrath men who appear on the wall are there for their decorated military service, whereas all the women in the photos are there in wedding dresses. It reinforces the family’s admiration for military service while denying women an active place within that tradition. The only way that women can be heroes to the McGrath family is—as Connor later puts it— by “putting up with the men.”
Although Frankie doesn’t have a reason to feel excluded from the story the hero’s wall tells at the beginning of the novel, she already feels a sense of discomfort and isolation when she looks at it. That said, when Rye tells her that “women can be heroes” he isn’t stating something that is obvious to Frankie. She’s been raised to believe that it will be her duty to support the heroism of the man she marries. Finley’s departure for Vietnam and his unexpected death forces her to rethink her role. This conversation, and her natural aptitude for nursing shift her perspective and help her realize that there might be other paths she could follow. Even at this early stage, the hero’s wall becomes a symbol of the limitations Frankie feels driven to overcome.
Frankie is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve her goals, even if that means going substantially off-script. For example, even though her family’s background is in the Navy, when the Navy won’t allow Frankie to enlist as a nurse she keeps trying until she finds a division that will. To Connor and Bette, not all military service is created equal. Even though they don’t think women should join at all, it is somehow far worse for Frankie to join the Army than it would be for her to be a Naval nurse. Frankie doesn’t see it that way at all. While she had planned to join the Navy, getting the two years of experience they require before she could ship out is not something she’s willing to do. When faced with an obstacle she adapts to surmount it. By contrast, her father doubles down on his entrenched beliefs.
Connor McGrath places strict limits on what Frankie can do because he has been prevented from fulfilling his own dream of Naval glory. He doesn’t think people should be allowed to follow their dreams if they don’t align with the McGrath vision. Because he was medically discharged, Connor was never able to join the Navy, and he was ashamed of his inability to serve. While his real estate empire provides lavishly for his family, he dismisses it as a lesser contribution to a greater goal.
Further, because he was totally restricted from his plans to be a soldier by authority figures over whom he had no power, he tries to enforce the same structures in places where he holds power. He refuses to support Frankie’s aspirations, regardless of her wishes, because of facts about her body that she has no control over; he could not join the Navy, so she must not be allowed to. He insists that women do not belong in the military despite the Navy’s long history of women in medical roles. Connor’s strict adherence to tradition is, in this way, more a symptom of his own self-loathing and disappointment than a reflection of his views on Frankie’s profession.
Bette McGrath adds to these pressures through her concern that Frankie will ruin her chances at a life in wealthy Coronado society by joining up. When Finley dies, her grief intensifies her objections to Frankie’s plans. She sees her grief and her many unfulfilled dreams for Finley as a warning of the dangers of diverging from the status quo. Her plea for Frankie to abandon her decision to join the Army is not just about saving Frankie’s life, but about preserving a version of her daughter that she understands. Despite this opposition, Frankie resolves to move forward. Finley’s death, although sudden and tragic, is also the catalyst for Frankie’s life to change. By refusing to take up the role her family expects of her, Frankie starts down the path of redefining heroism for herself.
