Ralph Truitt

Middle-aged businessman Ralph Truitt is one of the novel's two central characters or protagonists. In the novel's early stages, Truitt is portrayed as a man who has struggled to lock the pain and suffering of his past, as well as what he sees as his depraved sexual drives, deep inside himself, disconnecting himself from feelings, dreams, and hope. Over the course of the narrative, as the result of the various positive and negative influences Catherine has on him, a complicated mix of remorse, sensuality, hope and relief is released, leaving him open to the possibility and eventual development, of love for the wife he found by advertising in a newspaper. That love survives what many would call extremely challenging circumstances. The first is the awareness that the woman he loves is trying to kill him, but in that case his acceptance is shaped as much by his...