56 pages • 1 hour read
Jane HamiltonThe Book of Ruth
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1988A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 19-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary
Everyone celebrates the arrival of April’s comparatively warmer weather by going to Daisy’s house for a barbeque. Ruth drinks too much, which leaves her vomiting later in the night. Ruth overhears a disconcerting conversation between May and Dee Dee in which May claims to hate her life, even revealing that she has contemplated death by suicide on occasion. She admits her feeling that Justy is her last chance at raising a decent child—a comment which infuriates Ruth.
In July, Ruth and Ruby go to the beach in Stillwater, where they enjoy a week-long vacation. Though they enjoy the idleness, Ruth notes how different she and Ruby have become from one another since their first encounter. When they return, May chides them for allowing Justy to get a sunburn. Ruth helps May shelling and canning pees by way of atonement.
After winter passes and the following spring returns, Ruth, Ruby, and May resume more consistent attendance at church, at May’s insistence. Ruth suspects that May’s increasing interest in church has to do with her advancing age. Ruth herself admits that the church allows her to feel as though she is a member of a community. May and Ruth sign up for the refreshments and Human Concerns committee, respectively. Ruth provides household goods for poor people. The Reverend delivers an especially poignant sermon before Good Friday in which he explicitly refers to Jesus’ crucifixion. Ruth’s dismal experience working at the Trim ‘N Tidy leads her to believe that his sermon actually means that each human is alone, but that they share the condition of solitude.
Ruth comments on the number of pills that May and Ruby take for ailments such as arthritis and leg pain, likening their house to a pharmacy and remarking that it would be enough to kill someone who took them all at once. She admits that, during certain nights, the thought crosses her mind.
Though Ruth hates how the weeds take over the garden in August, she laments the onset of the cold still more. Ruth regrets the advent of wintertime because she knows it will mean another season of storms that require Ruby and May to stay together at home all day.
Chapter 20 Summary
Though a year has passed since Ruby’s leg injury, his pain prevents him and Ruth from celebrating their fourth anniversary. Ruth suspects that Ruby feigns the resurgence of his pain as a means of getting attention and avoiding manual labor. May, Ruth, and Ruby continue the habit of churchgoing, in part because of the formal duties they have undertaken as part of the congregation, and in part because Ruth thinks it allows their spirit to feel cleansed.
Ruby’s social worker Sherry suggests that Sherry and Ruth get their own apartment with their new baby. To encourage this, she calls one day to alert Ruby to a first-floor apartment available in the nearby suburb of Stillwater for only $75 per month, whose residents would be required to mow the lawn and perform other basic household tasks for the older couple who live upstairs. Ruth and Ruby decide that they will accept this offer. They agree to stay with May through the holiday season, primarily because Ruth pities the thought of May decorating for Christmas alone. May resents them for moving out, hoping that they will never return except to allow her to see Justy. Meanwhile, Ruth discovers that she is expecting another baby, news which delights Ruby, but which they decide to wait to tell May.
One pleasant evening after a church service, Justy asks for a cookie from the basement, where May keeps large amounts of sweets to donate to the church. May tells Justy that he cannot have sweets, or else his teeth will rot out like his father’s. May deliberately insults Ruby still further, reminding him of the time that she paid for his medical bills when he jumped into a frozen river. Obviously irate, and in deliberate defiance of May, Ruby orders Justy to go down to the basement and retrieve as many sweets as he can. Justy emerges with cookies and begins to eat one in the corner.
May grabs Ruth, tearing a dress that Daisy loaned her, and lunges at Ruby. Ruby takes a poker from the fireplace and begins wielding it mercilessly at Ruth, cutting in her face and ear severely. May throws dishware at Ruby, which eventually distracts him from Ruth, who escapes outside to the porch and repeats to herself words from the Reverend, “you shall not die but live. The dung heap shall smile” (308). Out of concern for Justy, Ruth re-enters the house and sees her son sitting on the stairs while Ruby beats May to a bloody pulp, insulting her with each blow until he kills her.
Ruth orders Justy to go upstairs, but the child cannot avert his eyes from the carnage. Ruth begs Ruby to leave her mother alone, claiming that they will move to Florida with Justy. He then turns his attention back to her, following her up the stairs and out the chicken shed, where he pins her to the fence. He is about to stab her fatally when Justy yells “Daddy,” which seems to remind Ruby that she is carrying his child. He drops the poker and walks inside.
Chapter 21 Summary
Ruby goes to her neighbor’s home, which formerly belonged to Miss Finch, but is now occupied by a couple named Peterson. Though she is hysterical and badly wounded, she manages to convey what happened and request that they call Daisy and Aunt Sid. The police take Ruby away and put Ruth in a rescue car to escort her to a hospital in Humphrey. She drifts in and out of consciousness for the next several days.
Aunt Sid and the Reverend visit her at the hospital, though she tells the Reverend to “go to hell, you big old fart” (317). Ruth suffers traumatic flashbacks from the night of the accident, requiring her to be tranquilized. She is transferred to a hospital in Chicago at the behest of her Aunt Sid. Matt unexpectedly shows up in the hospital on Christmas, but Ruth brutally rebuffs him, accusing him of showing up only in the nick of time. She is proud of her power to scare him. He stays for several days reading to her, but Ruth dismisses his efforts to console her. Ruth is equally cold toward the nurses and doctors that attend her, insisting on her conviction to throw herself out of the 15th story of the hospital.
Ruth’s already bitter mood worsens further when she cannot see Justy on New Year’s Day, his birthday; he has been in the custody of the Peterson’s since the incident. When the Reverend visits Ruth later in January, he says to her, “our kingdom on earth is not complete” (322). Ruth retorts that the world is ideal, if not for the humans in it.
The doctor announces that Ruth’s baby will indeed survive, provided that she is careful. Ruth feels a tremendous sense of comfort, especially as she begins to feel the baby kick. Ruth calls to mind a line from the Old Testament, and observes a feeling akin to love, but not fully captured by the word.
Chapters 19-21 Analysis
These chapters closely observe the changing of the seasons and offer a more synoptic appraisal of the passage of time. The first days of April are celebrated by a barbeque at Daisy’s home, where everyone wears coats and mittens, but celebrates the opportunity to be outside. Ever attune to the passage of the seasons, Ruth claims to “hate the month of August [when] stars shoot through the sky down to the horizon, dead, and weeds demand every inch of the garden” (288). She notes, too, that the trees were reluctant to relinquish their leaves despite a cold October. The onset of winter reminds Ruth bitterly of the winter beforehand, specifically their encounter with the frozen dog. The change of seasons thus elicits powerful and vivid memories for Ruth, reminding her of the passage of time.
Ruth’s attitude toward religion also evolves. She imagines herself in the role of a Reverend delivering transparent and authentic sermons that include such lines as, “Here’s my theory: isn’t it nice even if I can’t always behave like I believe it?” (287). She also finally recognizes that compassion is the main idea of religion, despite the literal nature of the sermons and the wars fought in religion’s name. She comments that, “it must have been the church routines, the songs, the committees, the people smiling at us, that kept us rooted to the ground” (288).
Ruth responds to Sherry’s suggestion that he and Ruth get an apartment with equal amounts of excitement and trepidation. She is enthusiastic at the prospect of escaping May, but she also nervous that this new environment will make her play the role of her mother toward Ruby. The aftermath of Ruby’s domestic attack makes Ruth herself feel more like Jesus. Nevertheless, Ruth’s penchant for religious analogy is accompanied by a cynicism. When the Reverend visits her, she knows he is paid $1,000 to visit a circuit of people with injuries or disabilities. She calls the prayer circle “an excuse for gossip” (317). Despite her explicit rejection of religion to the extent that she insults the Reverend, when she discovers that unborn child has indeed survived inside of her battered body, Ruth calls to mind a verse from the Psalms: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God” (325).
Then Ruth devolves into a suspicion that perhaps she deserved the event as punishment for something she did. Though Ruth is decidedly more cynical and disillusioned with religion and the world in general, she has an enduring sense of humor and a newfound ability to advocate for herself and her needs.
Ruth emerges from the episode of domestic violence as a thoroughly transformed person. She tells off her brother in a way that she had been afraid to do before, saying to him, “I bet those daffodils cost you a bundle. Too bad you never sent us any money…you were probably too busy figuring out when meteors were going to wipe us out” (319). Ruth’s displays uninhibited cruelty to everyone in the hospital except Aunt Sid. She wonders “why it took [her] so long to learn that there isn’t such a thing as justice” (320). Finally voicing negative opinions about others signals a shift in Ruth’s coming of age. She points out her brother’s failure to provide for their family and exhibits a strength that, in the next chapter, will cause her to pursue her own ambitions for the first time.
