Sunday, August 26, 2007

“Devotion”

At the end of this story, we find out that Hillary knew about the letters already. Did she also know about Owen and Ben? She thinks that he has “led such a cramped life, losing his friends, scared of what people might know,” but what exactly does she know?

And with how much she cared about Ben, why was she so devoted to Owen? Why had she “held her tongue, remembering the chances Owen had to leave her and how he never had?” I know that quote attempts to answer my question, but I don’t think it is sufficient -- why did it matter to her that Owen stayed with her when she could have had Ben if it weren’t for Owen’s interference?
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4 comments:

kc said...

My short response to all this: The brother is a self-centered, controlling prick, who's a blackhole of neediness, and the sister is an extra-large doormat with a martyr complex. I think all of this is supposed to be "understandable" because their deranged mother committed suicide and their witnessing it together created some sort of unbreakable bond, aka some sort of disturbing codependency.

9:22 PM, August 26, 2007
Ben said...

Very insightful. That really clears up the story for me. I think I understood all of that, but not clearly. Or at least I should have understood all of that -- it seems so obvious when you say it.

10:10 PM, August 26, 2007
kc said...

You find that insightful? Hehe. I thought maybe I was being over-the-top negative, but I just hated these two little Brits so much. I mean, I had a lot of sympathy (maybe just pity) for the brother, but then when I found out how he fucked his poor sister over ... Good grief ... And then I had a lot of sympathy for her until I found out she KNEW how he had fucked her over. If she had wrung the manipulative little bastard's neck for invading her privacy, for controlling her life, that would have been something, but to just quietly endure that bullshit ... it made my sympathy evaporate and made me conclude that she basically ended up with the life she deserved.

10:59 PM, August 26, 2007
Erin said...

I totally agree. At first I thought the story was really sad, and I pitied them both. But at the end it was clear their lives were probably the best they could have hoped for since they were both so fucked up and utterly codependent. They were both so desperate not to be alone that he was willing to ruin his sister's life and she was willing to overlook it.

8:53 AM, August 27, 2007

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