Monday, April 27, 2009

Eva

Did you have any anger toward Eva at any point, or were you able to easily accept that her actions were just the folly of youth?
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2 comments:

Erin said...

That's interesting, because I wasn't really angry with her. What she did was incredibly selfish and shitty, but it did seem like the folly of youth. And it didn't seem like she had vowed to remain true to Billy, she just sort of let him think she would be. Not that I excuse her or anything.

I think she, too, didn't anticipate what a big deal this would be to Billy. She probably thought that rather than breaking up with him and breaking his heart, she would simply go back to Ireland and eventually he would start to forget about her and they would both move on with their lives.

11:51 AM, April 28, 2009
kc said...

I felt sort of antagonistic toward her, and I couldn't figure out why, really. But then it occurred to me that she was more than ordinarily self-centered. She didn't just not return his feelings. That would have been understandable. But she took his hard-won money and basically gave it to another man to start the gas station and her married life. And she never found the decency to write Billy even a short note saying something like "I'm sorry, but I have a new life." He had been writing, and she must have known what she meant to him. It's almost like she enjoyed the notion that this guy thought she walked on water, and she didn't want to upset that part of her self-image. Or maybe she stupidly imagined that he was as callous as she was and would get on with his life regardless of her actions (relieving her of all responsibility).

And then there was the terrible moment of the meeting where he realized that she was not the person he thought she was, but it was too late to revise all the past misapprehension. But I think there was a moment at least when he realized that HE had been terribly foolish and idealistic, even if there was no other way for him to be.

12:18 PM, April 28, 2009

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