Boston University

Boston University appears as a biographical anchor for Barbara Rose: she is a student there when she meets Oliver Rose, and, during their honeymoon, she is still two years from a degree. The university is not depicted through a campus or classroom scene; its significance lies in the education and ambitions that the young couple’s marriage placed under pressure.

Barbara Rose as a Student

At their meeting, Barbara tells Oliver that she attends Boston University. She had hoped to spend the summer volunteering for Jack Kennedy’s campaign against Nixon, but could not afford to do so. Instead, she took a paid summer job as a baking assistant at the Chatham Arms. She says she likes baking and values the pay, connecting her student status to the practical choices through which she supports herself.

Education and Early Marriage

By the honeymoon at the Groton Inn, Barbara is two years from a degree at Boston University, while Oliver has two years remaining at Harvard Law School. Their parents opposed the marriage: Oliver’s family worried that marrying a poor nineteen-year-old would burden his career, while Barbara’s parents, both high-school teachers, were appalled by the prospect that she would give up her education. Barbara promised that the two of them could manage together, but the text establishes the risk to her studies, not that she actually left the university or failed to complete her degree.

Narrative Significance

Boston University gives concrete form to the future Barbara had been pursuing before marriage. Its brief mentions set her education beside Oliver’s professional training and expose an imbalance in what each stands to postpone: he continues toward a law degree, while her parents fear that marriage will interrupt hers. The novel supplies no further account of her studies or of the university as a physical place, so the institution’s role remains focused on this early choice and its unresolved educational stakes.