Relationships In Richard Ford's 'Sweethearts'

Relationships are unique and special. The characters in the Richard Ford story “SweetHearts” have many different and unique relationships that come with mistakes and consequences along the way. With love comes responsibility and with responsibility comes hardship and loss. Richard Ford describes this as “The then-and-now story” (262) between the characters of Bobby, Arlene and Russell who all have a different path of adulthood. They all want the promise of an American future and to live there lives freely, with no consequences for one’s actions. Ford shows the different futures with the characters Cherry and Bobby as Cherry goes to school to advance her future and Bobby goes to prison which takes away his future and adulthood. Ford points out that love is shown in different ways throughout the different characters and their actions that they portray. All the characters make their own destiny and have to live with the end result. Russel and Arlene are the “Now” of the story as they have only “been together for almost a year” (258) and have gone through the same process of a love/loss marriage which has left them with greater responsibilities. Russel has a daughter Cherry who he loves more then anything and wants her to

Bobby’s past and poor decisions have led to him losing everything including the love of his life Arlene and the promise of an American future. All relationships have a past that foreshadows the future and some cant handle what happens to disrupt that future. Ford shows this within Bobby who can’t hold himself accountable and has to blame everything but himself including where he lives “the west is fucked up I don’t know why we came out here”