MovieChat Forums > The Age of Innocence (1993) Discussion > Why did May stay with Newland? Also the...

Why did May stay with Newland? Also the final scene and what if?

posted 12 years ago by WFone
22 replies | jump to latest

1) Why did May stay with Newland, she knew their was someone else. Was it due to the fact that's just what women did back in that time period. Was it to late when she found out the full truth?

2) Do you feel in a way, that Newland wanted Ellen to look out the window for him? Was he 1st intentions to go up with his son until his son told him what May had said before her death? Did he fear that maybe Ellen hadn't aged so well and thus it would ruin his fantasy he had all these years of her? Really, if he did go up and lets just say Ellen aged beautifully, it's not like he can do much with his son their with him. They can't just leave the son in the living room while they romp in the bedroom for a bit. But they could have written to each other and seen where things went from their. It wasn't abnormal for widowers to remarry.

3) Of course their is the what if part of the entire movie. What if he broke off his engagement to May. He and Ellen hooked up and ran off together. Would they have tired of each other after a the sex went bad or would they have been so in love that they would have thought it worth both their families ousting them and cutting of their $. Do you think he thought back to the what if and at the he considered what he did the right thing? Most of us, I assume have a what if story to tell.

4) When Ellen was at the beach, do you think she wanted Newland to approach her? She knew he was at the house, also she had to leave the beach at some point, so how did she know when to turn back and head home?

[–] pnayballer10 12 years ago

1) Why did May stay with Newland, she knew their was someone else. Was it due to the fact that's just what women did back in that time period. Was it to late when she found out the full truth?

She stayed with Newland because she loved him.

I also think she became competitive. When she figured out Newland really loved Ellen. Notice how it was okay with her for him to postpone their wedding because she thought Newland love another woman that she knew(not Ellen). But then she changed her mind again and agreed to the earlier wedding right after.

My thinking is May didn't like the fact that her own cousin was stealing her man. A cousin who was obviously looked at more interesting than her, who is more favored especially by her grandmother, and someone who didn't have a good reputation socially while she had squeeky clean reputation. So when she found out that she was gonna lose her man to her. She drew a line in the sand. And decided that whether Newland loved her or not. She was not gonna lose him to Ellen of all people.

Also like to point out how her attitude changed about Ellen after she married Newland. She was gossiping about her and talking negatively about her.

[–] otter 11 years ago

It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but I seem to recall a scene where May tells Newland that she would let him out of the engagement, if there was ANY reason that he might not want to get married after all. This was really very generous of her, considering that she loved him, and that she was under massive pressure to find a husband.

It also argues against competition being her main motivation - if things were going to get sticky she was prepared to walk away. Well, she was prepared to walk away before the marriage, once they were married, she was damned well going to hold her husband to the promises he made! I can't blame her for that, her life would have been unbearable if he'd screwed around on her or abandoned her for another woman.

Now, as to the question of what would have happened if Newland and Ellen had just gotten married once her divorce came through... Certainly their social lives would have suffered, at least at first, they'd no longer be on society's list of people to invite. And his law practice probably would have suffered as well, some of his society clients would have gone to someone untouched by scandal. But if they'd stayed together, wouldn't their relatives have gradually forgiven them, and society got more forgiving of divorces as the 20th century kicked in. Wouldn't their lives have normalized over time?

" Jack, you have debauched my sloth! "

[–] reeldramaqueen 11 years ago

^^^I kind of doubt it. I'm pretty sure divorce didn't become acceptable until the late 1960s at the earliest. Of course, it became easier to obtain one long before that, but it was always seen as something of a scandal or a failure (mainly on part of the woman) for a very long time. It's only recently that divorce has been accepted so casually. And even if that was not the case, I don't think the family would have ever forgiven them. No one in the family apart from Granny, who was always on Ellen's side, forgave Ellen for getting a divorce. And I don't think they would've looked kindly on Newland leaving May for her cousin. They might be more forgiving if he left her for a complete stranger but not a family member. That smacks of a deeper kind of betrayal on both their parts, perhaps more so because Ellen was the black sheep of the family and May the pet. It's possible that their lives might have improved in society, but still not for a long time, and they would likely never regain the social standing they enjoyed before.

"A half-finished book is, after all, a half-finished love affair."

[–] otter 11 years ago

I think divorce had become more common and accepted by the "Roaring" 1920s, when all kind of societal walls come down, and certainly by the 1930s. In "The Women" characters are all society women, all get at least one divorce, and make jokes to the newlywed girl about her "first husband". That was in 1936 (movie version in 1939).

So divorce became much more acceptable during Newland and Ellen's lifetime, but pretty late in the day for them. Even by 1900, they would have been middle-aged.

" Jack, you have debauched my sloth! "

[–] reeldramaqueen 11 years ago

1) A little bit of both. I go back and forth over the issue of whether May purposely tried to get pregnant, knowing that would bind Archer to her, or if it was just a happy accident. I'm fairly sure, especially now that I'm 80 percent way through the book, that she knew about the affair between Ellen and Newland early on in their marriage, if not before. May might not have been as intelligent and contemplative as her husband, but it seems to me she was not as ditzy as he made her out to be, nor as ditzy as she probably tried to make herself seem. Back in those days, to be silly or empty-headed was considered more feminine. That said, I think she had a lot of common sense. But like the other poster said, she was in love with him and divorce was not an option. The book's prevailing theme is societal acceptance. Divorce was not an option.

2) I don't know. I think the ending encapsulates their whole affair: frustration. They never consummate their relationship, and each time the possibility of a pay off is presented to them, something always steps in the way. I think by the end Archer decided that he had lived his life, and was satisfied with that. It's also possible that he realized he wasn't as in love with Ellen as he thought. A lot of their affair was dictated by passion, and as you get older, passion takes a backseat. It's not as important. And likely, he considered himself a different person. Archer at 50-something was not the man Ellen fell in love with twenty-six years ago.

3) We'll never know. They certainly would've been shunned by society and cut off. So they'd be together, but they'd be living a life neither was used to. Archer mentions in the book that Ellen spends money like a person who is used to it and has no consciousness of it--something to that effect--and this is after she's been put on an allowance. So I do think if they had run off together, the end would be far more tragic than it is now.

4) I haven't watched this film in a while. I remember that scene vaguely, but didn't Ellen SAY that she wanted Newland to approach her? Regardless of whether she voiced it or not, yes she wanted him to approach her. She wanted him, but knew she couldn't have him. I assume she just left after standing out there for a while.

"A half-finished book is, after all, a half-finished love affair."

[–] CakesAndAle 11 years ago

I go back and forth over the issue of whether May purposely tried to get pregnant, knowing that would bind Archer to her, or if it was just a happy accident.

This isn't a proctor and gamble daytime soap.

IN that era, it was a woman's duty to bear children and beget heirs to carry on the family name and honor. That's what they were bred for. Plus there was no birth control. Married couples slept together all the time for the first few years of marriage. Many brides returned from their wedding tour already pregnant.

In the film, Grannie Mingott says something about children shortly after Newland and May return to NY from their wedding tour. Then she teases May for blushing.

[–] Tyger-Flynn 11 years ago

@ reeldramaqueen

I think by the end Archer decided that he had lived his life, and was satisfied with that. It's also possible that he realized he wasn't as in love with Ellen as he thought. A lot of their affair was dictated by passion, and as you get older, passion takes a backseat. It's not as important. And likely, he considered himself a different person. Archer at 50-something was not the man Ellen fell in love with twenty-six years ago.

The ending of the film is exquisite - likely far more true-to-life from the days when divorce was not acceptable in any sense. I agree about divorce being generally frowned upon into the 50's and 60's. Politicians could not be divorced, for example - consider FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt. There were even film stars who refrained from divorce because of the stigma and the impact divorce would have on their careers and fandom. Consider Ingrid Bergman. The stigma was unevenly applied, of course, but in general it was a social stigma from which the woman got the worst of it.

In the film, in the narration (so perfectly done by Joanne Woodward) we are told that he recalled her "abstractly, serenely", she was the idealized "image of all he had missed". Then he and his son talk about the Beauforts and finally the son tells Newland about what May said and the narration explains that Newland becomes aware that "someone had guessed and pitied him and that it should have been his wife moved him inexpressibly". I think in that moment and the moments that followed, he went through a metamorohoses of a kind, fell in love with May in a new kind of way, actually accepted his life as it had played out and in doing so stayed loyal to May by choice. He realized that Ellen was a dream in his past - and were he to walk up those stairs he would lose that shining image at the sea, the forever radiant and lovely Countess turning to him - and he chose the image rather than the 'maybe' at the top of those stairs. One can endlessly turn that ending in one's mind like a faceted gem - there are so many glints in it to explore and consider.

Beautifully done - the ending is worth the whole film.

"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.." :-)

[–] kaskait 11 years ago

No, he never loved May.

He was just surprised that the woman who closed the door on any kind of freedom he could have had, pitied him and understood what she had done to him. In turn, he realized what he did to her. He was dutiful but never loving. They were both equal heartbreakers.

[–] Tyger-Flynn 11 years ago

@kaskait

No, he never loved May.

He was just surprised that the woman who closed the door on any kind of freedom he could have had, pitied him and understood what she had done to him. In turn, he realized what he did to her. He was dutiful but never loving. They were both equal heartbreakers.

Beautifully said. I am persuaded. What you say makes sense.

"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.." :-)

[–] freakinfreak-120-276211 10 years ago

Then he and his son talk about the Beauforts and finally the son tells Newland about what May said and the narration explains that Newland becomes aware that "someone had guessed and pitied him and that it should have been his wife moved him inexpressibly". I think in that moment and the moments that followed, he went through a metamorohoses of a kind, fell in love with May in a new kind of way, actually accepted his life as it had played out and in doing so stayed loyal to May by choice.

I wanted to express my thoughts on this point. Do you think that before he was moved "inexpressibly", he might have been dismayed somewhat by how May was still attempting to manipulate him from beyond the grave? As one person said above, May wasn't as "ditzy" as she made out. Like her extended family and friends, she too was obviously playing the role of maneuvering the pieces in a way where she would manage to acquire what she wanted, albeit with all good intentions.

Could it have been that she might have anticipated the possibility of an opportunity presenting itself to Archer of seeing Ellen again after her demise and, thus, passed on a message via her son that would force Archer to remain faithful by making him believe May "had pitied him"?

After all, why pass on such a message to her son a day before her death (she must have known that the end was nigh for her given the nature of her disease) telling him that his father had voluntarily given up everything for her. Archer clearly looked annoyed by what May had told his son and corrected him by insisting that he hadn't been asked to make any choice, as if to say that he was compelled by the situation.

I think May was a master tactician when it came to playing the politico-familial game and played Archer just enough that one last time when it really mattered. That coupled with the fact that Archer wanted to remember Ellen from yesteryear forced him to turn away at the critical moment.

[–] kaskait 10 years ago

You got it!

And Archer knew it. But what touched him was that she understood how heartbroken he was, she knew how he had loved and lost. And even though she was closing the door again, at least he knew she understood. And understood that she played the happy wife all those years without love. That was an injustice too. The heartbreak was a two way street.

[–] murdoch1111 10 years ago

@ reeldramaqueen » Thu Mar 14 2013

Please read the book more carefully than you've done so far. There WAS no physical affair between Ellen and Newland. At one point in the novel, Ellen says, "Shall I come to you once?" Newland does not take her up on her offer.

[–] teaandoranges 11 years ago

This became clear at the dinner party given by May everyone had been conspiring to get Ellen out if New York! They were all rich snakes in the grass trying to keep their phony upright lives going. It's a shock for Newland when he realizes that even May was involved. Thrn she springs the pregnancy on him and he knows he totally trapped . It's a horrible moment in the film!

[–] Tyger-Flynn 11 years ago

@teaandoranges

Everyone knew about Ellen and Newland! This became clear at the dinner party given by May everyone had been conspiring to get Ellen out if New York! They were all rich snakes in the grass trying to keep their phony upright lives going. It's a shock for Newland when he realizes that even May was involved. Thrn she springs the pregnancy on him and he knows he totally trapped . It's a horrible moment in the film!

May have known the overt facts - but to have understood - and pitied him - and that such a one should have been his wife......another matter.

"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.." :-)

[–] kellydofc 10 years ago

1) There was no way May could get a divorce it would ruin not only her, Newland and Ellen but also May and Newland's child and by extension their respective families. Remember how terrified Lizzie Bennet is because Lydia eloped with Wickham in Pride and Prejudice. Lydia eloping could have meant that her sisters were unable to marry. The same would have been true of the Archer and Welland families.

2) I think he wanted to preserve the perfect image he had of Ellen.

3) If you really want to know what would have happened to Ellen and Newlan had they run away I would suggest reading Anna Karenina. Ellen and Newland could have carried on a discrete affair but it could have NEVER been made public and running off with one another would have been COMPLETE ruinous. Newland would have lost his position at his law firm, no one would have ever employed him again, leaving him destitute. Not only they but Newland's mother and sister would have been ostracized from all decent society, even in Europe. I can't begin to explain how horrible their lives would have been. Once Newland and May were married he was in that marriage until either he or May died.

I do want to add that marrying for love is a relatively new idea in the history of relationships. While it may have been promoted as an ideal for a long time the reality was far different. For example, being in love was all good and well as long as the person you fell in love with was of the correct social position and economic status. As romantic as it sounds and as wonderful reading as it makes the Prince was never going to marry the chambermaid.

I think we have to be very careful because most people are putting 21st century values on 19th century characters. The truth is Newland, May and Ellen would have all been looked on favorably at the time this novel is set because they all did their duty and put that above any personal whims or desires. We might not find that sort of life satisfying in our day and age but for them it would have been the epitome of living a good life.

"Freedom of religion means ALL religions not just your own."

[–] ethrush 9 years ago

This is one case where knowing something about the author's life helps in understanding the story. Wharton herself carried on a long term romance with a married man who either wouldn't or couldn't leave his wife, for the same reasons Newland can't leave May. Showing Newland as living a somewhat bleak, loveless life was Wharton's way of saying her lover was making a mistake by not being with her.
As for "The Women"- Boston society was always more conservative and traditional than New York Society. Remember that books were banned in Boston, not New York. Age of Innocence is about "old money"- the characters in The Women were "nouveau riche". And The Women was a satire on the newly popular sport of divorce. It was never meant to condone divorce. The only true love in that movie was the couple that reconciled at the end.

[–] LeofricsBeloved 8 years ago

Showing Newland as living a somewhat bleak, loveless life was Wharton's way of saying her lover was making a mistake by not being with her.

I'm no expert on Wharton, but the film's interpretation of TAOI is that the narrator had a great deal of compassion for Newland. The fact that Newland walked away from Ellen in Paris means that he understood it was a grand dream he was no longer interested in pursuing. Enticing as the dream was, it had no place in his conventional life and the society he was born into.

It's always tragic that a great love didn't get to play out.

I don't think Newland's life in his 50s was bad. He still had his job and good relationships with his children and others. He didn't seem sad, just accepting. He was the saddest when he had to give Ellen up, but after he let go, he found some contentment. By the time he was older, he didn't seem to be in as much pain anymore.

transcendcinema.blogspot.com

[–] sksolomonb 8 years ago

I too saw a lot of "Anna Karenina" in this film. However, the divorced woman Ellen is seen in a better light than Anna because Ellen does not run away with Newland.

I do not see May and Newland as terribly happy in their marriage. For the most part, it was a marriage of convenience with each having some sort of companionship and business deal that would bind them together. I believe Newland wanted to offer May an annulment so that May could be free to marry someone else -- and preferably someone close to her age. Then, the announcement of the pregnancy traps Newland in the marriage until May's comparatively early death. Since May's pregnancies cause the anemia that eventually takes her life, she herself is trapped in her own web. In the end, she pays the ultimate price for getting into and staying in the marriage and for denying Newland and Ellen their chance for love and happiness.

[–] LeofricsBeloved 8 years ago

I don't see many similarities between Anna and Ellen. The only common factor is that they were shunned. Their motivations and personalities are different.

Somebody had to make the sacrifice, and it was Ellen. Ellen accepted the situation as graciously as possible. While Tolstoy writes Anna Karenina in a positive light, Anna did destroy lives including her own. Ellen was portrayed as a self-sacrificing victim and tried to help others preserve the status quo. She had an emotional and mental affair with Newland, but it was never consummated.

Ellen was separated from her husband, not divorced, at least for a good part of the film. She wanted a divorce but everyone dissuaded her from it to the point of cutting her off financially. Then Granny relented and restored her allowance, but I forget whether she divorced the Count in the end. Ellen's husband, if I remember correctly, was gay, cruel, and squandered her dowry, and she was desperate to be free from him.

Anna Karenina's husband didn't mistreat her; his only "crime" was being boring and not being hot like Vronsky. Newland had far more to blame than Ellen and May combined. He was far too indecisive. He had several chances to get out, but he was too accustomed to his gilded cage and didn't stand up to the people who made him stay there. May even offered to break off the engagement but he didn't. Having not much of a lead from Newland, Ellen chose to do the "right thing" and left before his marriage to May.

Then Ellen and Newland wanted to consummate their affair, but May's pregnancy and her social circle sent Ellen back to Europe, who once again went away willingly. Both Ellen and Newland did the "right thing" and suffered. Anna and Vronsky wanted each other and knew it was going to be a mess and went for it anyway. They did the "wrong thing" and suffered.

Ellen's actions did not harm children; in fact her departure led to the birth of several lives. Anna had children and destroyed them by not being a present mother.

I can see why May has her detractors. She is considered unimaginative and pretentious. She kept Ellen and Newland apart. On the other hand, it is no crime to be a dull conformist and she became as such because of the society she grew up in. Her actions were understandable. After all, she did feel Newland's pain, though she didn't express it to him. She did offer him his freedom by canceling the engagement. But once they were married and she was pregnant, of course she understandably fought for her man and ousted her rival. When she was being "dull" and questioned Newland for wanting to hang out with a "common" writer, Newland didn't stand up to her. Newland was by far the character with the least backbone.

[–] LeofricsBeloved 8 years ago

Newland waited for Ellen to turn around towards him at least twice in the movie. Her ability to perform this action dictated whether he was going to visit her or not. Newland is a bit indecisive and passive. On the other hand, his desire for her sometimes makes him visit her out of the blue.

I also think he wanted to preserve Ellen's memory in the prime of her beauty and that's when he wanted her most.

May stayed with Newland because they were already married, she was pregnant, and she wasn't letting her bohemian cousin steal her man. A reason as old as the sky.

Newland eventually loved May the way you would come to care for a long-time companion. It wasn't the passionate, romantic attraction he felt towards Ellen. Most people speculate that Ellen and Newland would have romanced each other spectacularly, but it may have only lasted a few years. When that fire is gone, what else is left to bind the two together? Not much unless Ellen and Newland had children together. Even without passionate romance, May and Newland had something to build together - a family, a legacy, a shared interest in the well-being of their children, similar backgrounds, same social circles, etc.

I saw this movie when I was younger. I was always intrigued in why Newland didn't visit Ellen in Paris. Now that I'm older, I think it's because Newland has "grown up." He's been a family man for decades and has learned to curb his desires and dreams which he recognizes as fleeting. They may inspire great passion and urgency, but he is now an older, wiser man and knows they too will pass and change. And also, yeah, seeing an older Ellen might kill the joy. After all, attraction has a shelf life once the oxytoxins have worn off. The Ellen he loved has become an ideal in a dream.

transcendcinema.blogspot.com

[–] CakesAndAle 8 years ago

And they didn't have Viagra back then.

[–] LeofricsBeloved 8 years ago

They had a ton of herbal aphrodisiacs😋