Maybe it’s just me, but when I happen to come across a male who looks at his wife as if she’s “personal property that has suffered some damage,” I can’t help but question the guy’s existence and its obvious pummel on humanity’s perfect reputation.
Ha. Humanity. Perfect.
Well. That was funny.
Yes, he does happen to see her as valuable property so I guess that redeems his otherwise sexist thought.
Not.
I am on page 15 and I already dislike Pontellier.
I am on page 15 and I can already tell that this novel will deal with the feminist issue of women’s role and how they are regarded by men and society, if acknowledged at all.
And the other men aren’t all too lovable either. Maybe Robert has an endearing sort of essence to him, but for some reason, when it is said that he “talked a good deal about himself” when having a conversation with Ms. Pontellier, I got the annoying vision of those self-absorbed and laughable men who share diatribes of their pointless lives without caring for anyone else’s thoughts.
In other words, I was fairly put down.
But this act is justified by him being “young” and “not knowing any better.” So I wonder just who exactly this guy is and why he is always hanging around with Ms. Pontellier, and just what is going on with that little friendship.
But that is for another day.
Hopefully.
What truly stood out to me was Mr. Pontellier’s audacity when he saw his kid had a fever and so decided that the thing to do was to waltz back into his room, pick a cigar, and inhale those putrid fumes while announcing to his wife said fact.
At her lack of response—or her cavalier one—he gets considerably ruffled and reproaches her inattention and her knack for “neglecting her children.”
Yes. Because it is perfectly attentive of him to smoke back a cigar while his kid is supposedly burning a fever. If he cares as much as he leads us to believe, then one would expect him to take action himself.
But he just complains of his wife’s faults and carelessness while proceeding to act like an arrogant prick.
I can feel the love.
And so does she when she resorts to crying her heart out surrounded by the “everlasting voice of the sea.”
I’ve never heard anyone describe the sea like that. I’ve heard of ‘the rustle of the sea.’ Maybe even the ‘serenade of the waves crashing onto the shore.’ But never have I heard anyone give the sea such an importance, and such a presence as to have its own voice.
Almost as if the sea is a being and actually has a way to passage its power and glory by having it possess a way to express itself.
It’s as if she can relate to the tinted blue and almost melancholy feel of the sea.
It’s as she’s crying that she wonders why it is she is producing tears for such a trite manner as said uncommon experiences in her married life, “seemed never before to have weighted much against the abundance of her husband’s kindness and a uniform devotion which had come to be tacit and self-understood.”
So therein lies the fact that these tirades of complete ass-ness are reoccurring in her married life. But in her society, the good actions and declarations of love and proof of trust are enough to compensate for a man’s wrongdoings. And maybe this is an open perspective when looking at forgiveness. Maybe one very huge and disparaging mistake can be accounted for by a whole day of good deeds.
Maybe being a supercilious and antagonizing teenager every once in a while can be excused by the usual days of being relatively mild-mannered when interacting with one’s parents.
But for some reason, that mindset seems a little twisted in the current situation. Everyone has their bad days and their good days. But when the bad days are more frequent and tainted by harsh remarks of sailing hits to one’s heart, how can the mere thought of the person’s heartfelt acts two years ago excuse that?
It seems as if Mrs. Pontellier makes a point of justifying her husband’s actions and lessening their ability to hurt by comparing it to his overall kindness.
And here we see that Mr. Pontellier makes it a habit to make his wife feel this way, but given the general sense of love he directs her way, she lessens the potency of it all.
She rationalizes it all to be due to certain outside forces because her dear husband is a good guy deep inside.
Because maybe sometimes its just better to be optimistic.
No comments:
Post a Comment