Hannah Coulter and the human condition: loss and community

Hannah Coulter

What is love according to the novel Hannah Coulter and what does it mean to the larger sense of the human condition?

In the novel, the female protagonist of the title, Hannah Coulter, explains that she loves her husband and that the love she felt for him was expansive. Rather than merely being in love with her husband and he with her, loving one another extended their emotions beyond just the two of them. She explains, "The love he bore to me was his own, but also it was a love that had been borne to him, by people he knew, people I now knew, people he loved…He must have wondered if I would love those people too" (Berry 33). When the couple first gets together, Hannah's beloved worries that she will not get along with the other people he loves, such as families and friends. This would be a potential deal-breaker in their relationship. If the person you love is unable or unwilling to accept the other people you love, then it can be difficult to maintain that relationship. This is true for many romantic relationships. Friction between a significant other and friends or family members, particularly if the spouse does not get along with a parent, then it can make the relationship turn sour. In Hannah's case, she did come to love the people her husband cared about, going so far as to continue a relationship with them even after her husband passed away.

2. What does it mean for a man to be an individual in the novel Hannah Coulter and what does it say about the human condition?

The need for individuality is presented in the novel through Hannah's relationship with her son. In the Coulter family, income was earned through farming and it is expected that subsequent generations follow in the footsteps of their predecessors by working the land. Hannah's son does not feel that this is right for him, not because he has a particular passion for any other line of work but because he does not want to live the life that has been prescribed for him. Of her son, Hannah says, "He didn't love farming enough to be a farmer, much as he loved it, but he loved it too much to be entirely happy doing anything else…He is trying to make up the difference between the life he has and the life he imagines he might have had" (Berry 131). Every man may feel the same way that Hannah's son feels, that what is given to them in life is not enough because of the fact that it has been given. Even if the assumed life is the best fit for you and you would not be happier in any other occupation, farming or whatever issue it might be, is not enough simply because it did not have to be earned. Instead, Hannah's son wants to find his own way, even if it makes him less satisfied in the long run because then he would know what he as an individual was capable of.

3. How is loss and grief discussed in Hannah Coulter and what does this say about the general emotion of loss and grieving?