Monday, March 2, 2015
CCQC 2-Izzy Snow-Jack's Relationship with Women
Jack's relationship with women have to do with his idealistic nature. He sees women as more figures than people. After his first relationship with Anne, he holds her as an innocent figure in the back of his brain. As a result of this, all other women are seen in a two-dimensional light. Even though he has watched Anne grow up his whole life, he still sees her as the young, naive seventeen year old that he loved that summer during college. When he describes her alone in her room, he even compares her to a younger child. "Maybe she went up there to be alone, absorbed in herself the way a child is absorbed in watching a cocoon gradually part in the dusk to divulge the beautiful moth..so maybe she was up in the room trying to discover what her new self was, for when you get in love you are made all over again." (393) He thinks Anne is so young, she does not know how to process her feelings. Jack describes Anne as an object of innocence. When he later details a car trip he had with her he says "It was remarkable...how a creature who could lie in your clutch as lissome as willow and soft as silk and cuddly as a kitten..." (395). This is why it is such a shock when he finds out Anne kissed another man. He refuses to accept that Anne is growing up and experiencing new things that he begs her to "be good..And kiss our way?" (419). Jack sees women other than Anne as sexual objects or people with two dimensional personalities. He describes Lois as a woman that was beautiful and only married him for the money. "Lois looked edible, and you knew it was tender all the way through, a kind of mystic combination of filet Mignon and a Georgia peach aching for the tongue and ready to bleed gold. Lois married me for reasons best known to herself. But one was, I am sure, that my name was Burden...I am quite sure that the only thing Lois knew about love was how to spell the word and how to make the physiological adjustments traditionally associated with the idea. She did not spell very well, but she made those adjustments with great skill and relish" (422-23). This is in complete contrast to the way he describes Anne. He sees Lois as a woman who used strategy to get a wealthy husband. This flat analysis of Lois points to Jack's idealistic sense. In the back of his mind, he is still in love with Anne. Anne has become this innocent figure in his brain that makes all other women appear as impure objects. He views Sadie as an attractive, yet angry woman. He is very amused when Sadie enters one morning, annoyed that Willie has begun to sleep with another woman. He completely ignores the fact at how upset she is when he comments that Sadie must secretly enjoy this because she loves drama. "So, with her fury and her God-Damns and her satire and her tongue-lashings-and she had a tongue like a cat-o'-nine-tails-and even with her rare bursts of dry-eyed grief, she seemed to take a kind of pleasure, wry and twisted enough God knows, in watching the development of the pattern in each new-old case..." (372). He condescendingly says "'we went into that arithmetic a long time back. He's not two-timing you. He's two-timing Lucy. He may be one-timing you, or four-timing you. But But it can't be two-timing'" (373). Jack sees Sadie as hot-tempered, another two-dimensional analysis. He has no idea that Willie's new "slut" is Anne because Anne is still on a pedestal of innocence in his mind. He recognizes that he does this when he sees Anne after he discovers the affair. When he looks into her face he says, "I knew that it was Anne Stanton, though I had not looked into her face. I had looked into the other faces-all the faces I had met-I had looked into them with the greatest frankness and curiosity. But now I did not look into hers." (375). In this moment, there is a reverse in his beliefs. This reveal makes Jack realize that Anne is a woman, not an innocent girl. He also realizes that the other women he has met in his life, he has labeled and ignored. He now looks at them with the "greatest frankness and curiosity". This reveal must also darken his already poor faith in mankind, as the most pure person he knew suddenly was involved in an affair.
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This labeling and putting-in-boxes of women can also be seen in Jacks relationship with his mother he describes her a sweet, soft, loving woman. But Jack eventually realized that she has many faults (and dislikes her many marriages) and he flees because he can`t handle that she is a multidimensional person. Jack convinced himself that he was, "just another man whom she wanted to have around because she was the kind of woman to have men around" (154). He did this in an attempt to put his mother in yet another box. Jack cant handle that women are complex people, however he does seem to accept this fact for men.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Izzy and Carmen's points that the way Jack objectifies women stems from both his idealistic nature and his early unhealthy relationship with his mother. I also think, however, that one of the factors contributing to the way Jack views women comes from his personal insecurities. Towards the beginning of the book Jack describes himself as furniture, someone that observes and rarely acts. In fact we see this indecisiveness in Jack throughout the book when he recalls jumping from school to school and job to job. This lack of commitment reveals an insecure quality. This explains why he is insecure within relationships and is overall bitter towards women. He was never able to get over his relationship with Anne Stanton because he is mad at himself but can’t acknowledge that or take credit for his wrongdoings. As he watched a girl play tennis he says, “She was a pretty thing to watch, so light and springy and serious-faced and flashy-legged. But not as pretty as Anne Stanton had been, I decided. I even meditated on the superior beauty of a white skirt which could flow and whip with the player’s motion as compared to shorts” (472). Subconsciously he knows that Anne was too good for him and I believe he conveys that through his sexually objectifying outlook on women.
ReplyDeleteJack also does say, almost blatantly, that after Anne starts her affair with Willie, he believes all women are all the same and easily manipulated by any attractive man. "And in the end you could not tell Anne Stanton from Louis Seager, for they are alike, [...] anybody can change Kate into Nan, or if indeed the Prince cannot change Kate into Nan it is only because Kate and Nan are exactly alike to begin with," (432).
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