"Three white feathers, three separate accusations of cowardice, were sent to Feversham by three separate men.”
On an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Rob Petrie comes home with a white feather given him at the office. The night before, he had failed miserably in his attempt to stand up to a man hitting on his wife. First, he tried to get out of fighting by pretending to know karate only to get socked in the nose and then watch his wife Laura get rid of the guy with a perfectly calculated judo flip. To modern viewers, the symbolism of the white feather might be a bit confusing and unclear, but in fact it is something that stretches far back in history. Similarly, the four feathers of the title are white and intended as a symbol of cowardice.
Feversham heard something whirr and rattle upon the table. He looked and saw that she had slipped her engagement ring off her finger. It lay upon the table, the stones winking at him.
The consequences of Feversham’s decision to resign his commission are injurious. It is this resignation—or, more to the point, the timing of it—which stimulates the symbolic accusations of cowardice. The resignation comes on the eve of a military engagement to Egypt for the purpose of suppressing an uprising against the colonial authority. This is interpreted as the act of a coward. Feversham is consequently treated as one and sent three white feathers from his fellow officers in addition to a fourth one offered by his fiancé who breaks off their engagement.
"Indeed, I treasure them. That seems strange to you. To you they are the symbols of my disgrace. To me they are much more. They are my opportunities of retrieving it."
The fourth white feather is given to Harry by his former fiancé. It is this last feather that makes him treasure “them”meaning all the four feathers together. In a way, Ethne's Feather had changed the emblem of cowardice into a fever and determination in Harry's heart. In such a way, the claims made upon his honor were transformed into a quest to redeem his value and reputation. Thus, what started as an emblem of cowardice became at last a trophy of glory.
“Then one evening, when my father had his old friends about him on one of his Crimean nights, two dreadful stories were told – one of an officer, the other of a surgeon, who had both shirked. I was now confronted with the fact of cowardice. I took those stories up to bed with me. They never left my memory. They became a part of me”
This quote illustrates the psychological impairment of Harry Feversham which was caused by his society’s rigid notions. Although Harry was only a child at the time, his father made him attend many of his Crimean nights and listen to stories that were inadequate with his age. The fear of death is a natural aspect of human psychology, but the stiff ideals of masculinity in late 19th century Britain made the officers, present in such occasions, talk scornfully of men who wavered in battlefields when met by such a dreadful fear. Harry who was only a boy then, and whose limited stock of knowledge made such anxiety about death unavoidable, flinched under the effect of such appalling tales, not only because they scared him but also because they made him ashamed of being scared in the first place. Growing up thus, Harry’s repressed fears of being a coward reshaped his psychology and haunted him for years.
“He hadn’t the pluck to face the bullets when his name was at stake, yet he would blow his own brains out afterwards”
Speaking of lord Wilmington, General Feversham relates the story of this man and how he was driven by fear into disgrace only to commit suicide later. This quote demonstrates the dreadful amount of pressure applied by the late Victorian society on individuals who did not conform or meet its ideals. Utterly rejected and spurned by his friends, Wilmington chose to kill himself then go on living, for he deemed death more merciful than a life amidst a prejudiced community.
“I could never pity a man who died on active service; I would very much like to come by that end myself.”
This quote indicates the ideals of masculinity in late 19th century Britain. Durrance who is a military man by excellence explains to his friend Harry that he would prefer a short life cut by a glorious death than a long and dull one because to die decently was worth a good many years of life.
