Ford Madox Ford's narrative of The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion engages you as a silent but active listener and reveals details about people acting as themselves. The Good Soldier, unlike what the title suggests, is not a novel about war or "an allegory about the defects of society traced back to the defects of human nature." Rather, it is a novel that depicts the defects of the human character and questions the worth of civilization through the first person narration of Ford's main character, John Dowell. In short, The Good Soldier questions, "how men can find a workable relationship between their instincts and civilized life." Ford's writing is personable, which makes him a storyteller rather than a character of the book. He gives details one at a time and jumps in many directions, much like a story told to you. By using this form of narration, Ford leaves a lasting impression or series of impressions were traditional linear line narration fall short. Through the mind of Dowell, Ford Madox Ford's creates a narrative with an impressionist structure that enables him to construct queer and shifty notions of human relationships, an illusion of reality that grants

John Dowell, struggles with his presumptions of what he sees. His struggles with his friends, his wife and own complicated mentality, show him searching for inner truth of what it means to be human. "It is impossible to read The Good Soldier without being moved, indeed almost rocked, by the emotional force Dowell's plea for idealism and self-sacrifice on the one hand and for the legitimacy of intense physical passion on the other." Dowell claims that his thoughts crowd upon him and cause him trouble. He wants to understand why other characters (Florence and Edward in particular) act in the manner that they do. He produces and lingers over his story much like an old man in a cabin because he is trying to derive a solution. It is Dowell, who dubs what he sees as the "saddest story." For seven years he has sacrificed himself to Florence, his wife, whom he believes has a weak heart. For seven years, Dowell has been her patient and slave while she and Edward, who he though was his friend, deceives him. Off this subject it is easy to see how this is a sad story. He says, "I call this the Saddest Story, rather then "The Ashburnham Tragedy", just because it is so sad, just because there was no current to draw things along to a swift and inevitable end. There is about it nothing of the elevation that accompanies tragedy; there is about it not nemesis, no destiny."

By creating a narrative that presents the inner mind of one man, Ford Madox Ford is able to intermix many different themes and ideas about the different ways people interact with each other. Ford creates Dowell as a simple yet highly complicated individual who is able to show the many different workings of the human mind. By so doing, he is able to present a story that not only talks about the problem of human relationships, but also he is able to draw the listener-reader in, to construct their own understanding of Dowell's story narrative.

Ford considered The Good Soldier as one of his best novels and piece of writing because of its structure and narrative style. He felt that The Good Soldier was the best example of what he could do with writing and his sense of what a novel should contain. Sondra Stang tells us about Ford, "The good Soldier, as its readers know from Ford's dedicatory letter to Stella put everything he knew about the art of the novel into one book, it would be the book that would represent him more honorably and accurately than anything he had ever done." However, The Good Soldier has become the subject of controversy concerning the ambiguity of John Dowell. Often times, readers believe that the values of Ford are portrayed through Dowell's character. The problem becomes trying to discover if this notion is true. Ford does not directly tell us or leave any clues if he reflects his own self through Dowell. While, it has been argued that Dowell's lack of sex with Florence portrays a time when Ford was having relationship troubles, the argument by itself is simply too inconclusive.

As the story is revealed, the symbolic meaning of the human heart becomes a center of what is deceiving Dowell. Heart disease plays an important literary device that unpacks many character traits about Florence and Edward. It is revealed that Florence and Edward are both faking their sicknesses in order to service their affair with each other. Florence is fabricating her heart trouble to keep Dowell out of her bed, denying him of any form of passion. While in the beginning, Dowell believes her heart problems kill her; it is in fact her broken heart that leads to her downfall. Similarly, Edward fakes his illness to escape his military service to go to Germany. The false heart disease seen through these two characters is a metaphor to the downfall of other characters. For example, Little Maisil Maidan's heart simply stops when she learns that Edward falls in love with Florence. Maisil Maidan is the only true innocent character of the novel,

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Approximate Word count = 3976
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page double spaced)