In The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford makes it difficult to distinguish the differences between appearance and reality. Using Dowell's detached and imprecise narrative and characterizations throughout the book, Ford forces the reader to construct their own assumptions about the characters' true intentions that made this story so tragic. However, this proves to be a difficult task due to Dowell's seemingly innate inability to understand the reality of another's temperament, as well as how the actions of his acquaintances affect his life. This is demonstrated most clearly by Dowell's portrayal of his wife Florence. Despite the fact that Dowell's unconscious subjectivity presents a different portrait of his wife every time she is mentioned in the novel, the reader ultimately gets a clear impression of his cold arrogance. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay on Florence, superficial and simple. He says that: “he was brilliant; and she danced… and my function in life was to keep that bright thing alive” (8). Rather pathetically, Dowell admits that his sole purpose in life was to allay Florence's deceptive illusions by providing her with everything she desired to maintain their illustrious appearance. However, this superficiality also applies to the way Dowell handled his own life. Dowell's financial security has allowed him to live a quiet life where he is not forced to work. As a result, his life is repeatedly punctuated by a succession of teas, lunches and dinners, which only serve to give him the appearance of living a normal, modest upper-class lifestyle. For example, his marriage to Florence represents another fulfillment of social expectations for a man in Dowell's position. He describes their meeting as rather banal: “I simply arrived and wanted Florence. I had first stumbled upon Florence over a Browning tea, or something…. I don't know why I went to have tea” (8). The seemingly random and sporadic way in which Dowell met his wife proves that he is no more driven by purpose than a leaf in the wind. His reaction to her death was equally unremarkable. After the initial shock, “she disappeared completely, like yesterday's newspaper” (69) and any memory of her existence was “simply a matter of study, not of memory” (69). This revelation proves that his marriage to Florence was not based on love, but on utility, as a way to construct himself as a complete and conventional man. “She became for me, so to speak, the object of a bet, the trophy of an athlete's achievement… Of intrinsic value as a wife, I think she had none for me at all” (52). For Dowell, life is all about appearances, which makes him as naive and superficial as his wife. Although Dowell regards his wife as unsophisticated and uncultured, she demonstrates a much greater interest in intellectual matters than her husband. Dowell downplays Florence's desire "to leave the world a little higher than she found it" (8) as arrogance and a need to boost her image in the eyes of others. While this may be the case, it shows that Florence places value on being enlightened in culture and history – which can be seen while preparing for an excursion to M – by reading an assortment of history books. Although Dowell compares Florence and Leonora to "a retriever... chasing a greyhound" (23), implying that Florence will never be able to reach the level of sophisticationLeonora's cultural background, his sense of why he feels the need to flex his intellectuality eludes him. . Dowell may perceive Florence's pursuit of knowledge as purely a method of elevating herself in the eyes of others, as he naively perceives her long conversations with Edward as an attempt to educate him, when, in reality, her intentions are flirtatious in nature. His inability to interpret this slightly deeper side of Florence demonstrates his ignorance and lack of interest in anything outside his bubble of superficiality. Florence's relationship with Edward serves the singular purpose of granting her a higher status in society. Florence's desire to become "a county lady in the house of her ancestors," (51), currently owned by the Ashburnhams, is fueled by the rapacity of expansion. Although she would never have been able to fully own Bramshaw Manor, as Edward would never have divorced Leonora, Florence could have settled close enough to the manor so that she still felt as if she had achieved "county lady" status – a 'elevation of status he sought above all else. However, Florence's desire to realize even this compromised version of her dream is thwarted by her own brilliant manipulation of Dowell. Dowell was so deeply convinced of Florence's inability to travel that he forbade her to cross the canal to Fordingbridge. Although this is the only instance in which Dowell takes the initiative to thwart his wife's actions, he "arranged her beautifully" (51), as she was unable to challenge his commands without risking the revelation of the his deception. In his unawareness, Dowell acted with the best of intentions to maintain his duties as a conventional husband in what appeared to be a conventional marriage. As a result, albeit inadvertently, he managed to take away from her “the one main idea of ​​her heart” (51), which is that she every dreams of becoming Edward's mistress in Bramshaw manor. Florence's death acts as a catalyst that forces Dowell to perceive the past. the superficial appearance of his life and open his eyes to the reality of the deceptions and manipulations he had suffered at the hands of his wife and his closest friends. Dowell does not object to how Florence's infidelity affected their marriage, because their marriage was not united by love. However, he draws the line at how his actions disrupted Edward and Leonora's relationship, even though it was already in an unstable and fragile state. With Florence gone, Dowell is finally given the ability to reflect on his role within Ashburnham's relationship and how it has changed his perception of the two of them. He says: “the more I think about it, the more certain I become that Florence had a contaminating influence: she depressed and deteriorated poor Edward; deteriorated, irremediably, the miserable Leonora” (105). Before Florence's death, Dowell's life reflected the model of conventional leisure he dreamed of. However, this superficial perception of his life is shattered after Florence's death. He realizes that the Ashburnhams are no longer the “model couple” and that he can no longer reflect on “enthusiastic accounts of [Florence's] virtue and constancy” (52). While there are many instances where Dowell's ignorance regarding his wife's actions seems unimaginable, one must understand that he was living his ideal life and anything that could potentially take that away from him was treated as nonsense. As a method of controlling the damage that has already been done, he begins to see Florence as the singular cause of all of Ashburnham's problems and, therefore, the destroyer of his blissful ignorance. Following.