Although The Late George Apley includes letters from other characters for comment and counterpoint, Apley himself is the dominant character in the novel. The letters that narrate his life from childhood through maturity and old age record his devotion to the ultimately impossible task of opposing all change whatsoever. After one futile attempt at rebellion (a romance with a beautiful Irish girl named Mary Monahan), Apley conforms rigidly. His occasional excursions to New York bewilder and unnerve him. His marriage to Catharine Bosworth, a childhood friend who collects butter knives, manifests, as his father suggests, an admirable conviction that "beauty is only skin deep and there are more important elements in the holy bond of matrimony." Apley's one joy is bird watching with another childhood friend, Clara Goodrich. His inevitable defeat typifies the fate of Marquand's protagonists as they struggle against monumental environmental influences.