The storyline of Jack and Anne runs almost directly parallel to the Cass and Annabelle storyline, with some ironic differences. Both couples knew each other for many years, and after a period of intense passion eventually drifted apart, as if they just ran out of steam. Or maybe the passion was just built upon something that was not true love, and more like need. One of the main ironies that I found was how in fact they drifted apart. Anne found that in Jack, that she just couldn't marry a man who had so little ambition, so willing to let the world go on around him without doing anything. For this exact reason, she goes to Willie, deeply committed in ways she never was to Jack. When Jack asks her about Willie she tells him she wants to marry him, but doesn't want to do anything to hurt his chances in his political ambitions. "Perhaps. Later. After he goes to the Senate. Next year." (p 453) She tells Jack. Just as she wont marry Jack for his ambition, she flocks to Willie for his.
Cass leaves Annabelle for the exact opposite reasons. He sees far too much ambition in her in the ways that she makes sure that she covers her tracks by selling the sole slave that bore witness to her affair with Cass. After this, Cass leaves to find the sold slave and free her, fails to do so, and never returns to Annabelle. "'I thought you were fond of her,' Cass said. 'I was,' she said, 'until - until she looked at me like that.'" (p 250) Cass is shocked by the lengths Annabelle would go to keep her reputation, her ambition, and so leaves her, just as Anne was shocked by Jack's lack of ambition, and so leaves him.
I think you did a really good job with your analysis of Jack and Ann's relationship, but I actually had a slightly different interpretation of Cass and Annabelle's relationship. You claimed that Cass left Annabelle because Annabelle had too much ambition. I feel that Cass left Annabelle because he felt responsible for the fate of the slave. Had Cass and Annabelle never had an affair, Annabelle would of never had to free the slave. Leaving Annabelle was more of an attempt to right his wrongs rather than leaving solely because of Annabelle's personality. Of course Cass, was offended and appalled by Annabelle's general heartlessness and desire to maintain her image, but I think that the major reason why Cass left was because he held himself responsible; something that Jack struggled to do at the time of his relationship with Ann.
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