The crux of the story has to do with Luke's decision to cover up his daughter's hit and run accident. One way to understand "intellectual integrity" is to ask if it was right for Luke defend his daughter in this way. Another way of thinking about "integrity" is to try to understand what that might mean in the context of Luke's inner emotional life, which has been permanently scarred by the loss of his wife...
The crux of the story has to do with Luke's decision to cover up his daughter's hit and run accident. One way to understand "intellectual integrity" is to ask if it was right for Luke defend his daughter in this way. Another way of thinking about "integrity" is to try to understand what that might mean in the context of Luke's inner emotional life, which has been permanently scarred by the loss of his wife and family, and what "fatherhood" might really mean. Another way to think about it is to try to understand what Dubus thinks is the difference between truth and falsehood.
It's clear from the story that Luke thinks his decision to cover up the hit and run is an act of integrity; the reason his life at the stable is a sham is because, after his family left, he was unable to act on the "truth" of his life, his role as a father. As Luke says in his dialog with God at the end of the story, "For when she knocked on my door, then called me, she woke what had flowed dormant in my blood since her birth, so that what rose from the bed was not a stable owner or a Catholic or any other Luke Ripley I had lived with for a long time, but the father of a girl." Or, as he later puts it, he "loves her more than truth." This suggests that the question of truth, of what it means to act with integrity, is based not on laws or religious doctrine but on a deeper emotional and biological reality.
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