Robert Kincaid wrangles photos from the world around him and gets them published in major magazines. Tall and wiry with a commanding, yet gentle, presence, Robert appears to Francesca as a distillation of desire, and she has a similar effect on him. Calling himself “one of the last cowboys” (105), Robert believes he doesn’t fit the modern world and is a type that will soon become extinct. The character presents a tension between time and eternity; he believes himself to embody an old-fashioned, fading spirit, and yet his encounter with Francesca recasts his imaginative sense of temporal life as part of a grand, eternal scheme of their meeting.

Looking for something that crystallizes the best of life, Richards ends his lifelong search with his discovery of Francesca. Unable to continue his ecstatic relationship with her, Robert finds that the rest of his life is a mere footnote. The Bridges of Madison County is, therefore, as much Robert’s story as it is Francesca’s. In most narratives, the hero is changed by the adventure, and both protagonists are utterly changed by their encounter with one another. Robert’s transformation takes place in his sense of cosmic orientation and purpose. He already knew that his life’s work was a search for transcendent spiritual beauty—but, when he finds these things in his relationship with Francesca, they take on new depth and meaning.