Every Time I Read the Book and Watch the Movie...
I loathe Newland more and more and love May more and more.
shareI don't loathe Newland overall, though he does have a solid handful of loathsome moments. Mostly I pity and respect him. But May? May is my homegirl. The older I get, and possibly this has something to do with being married and having children, the more I appreciate May and the particular kind of strength she exhibited.
*Formerly Nothin_but_the_Rain*
Sometimes I think that perhaps it is simply a case of the wrong people marrying each other.
Possibly if May had become betrothed to a man who was more similar to her, she would have been happier, feeling that she was better understood by her partner. She desperately tries to harness Newland to her belief system, when perhaps with a different man, who upheld similar values as herself, she would have been more appreciated.
May doesn't mind being restricted by her social conventions, and that is fortunate for her. Her great misfortune was becoming involved with a man who secretly rebels against social mores. That cannot be her fault, and shouldn't be considered to be so. She made a bad match, with the wrong man who would always find fault and lay blame with her, even if he keeps it a very poor secret. It must have been very painful for her.
Newland didn't "secretly rebel" against social mores, his personal tragedy is that although he found the social standards of his time frustrating and inconvenient...he did not have the nerve to rebel against them.
share