Brett's Relationship with Jake
Today in class we talked about Brett's character. I expressed early on that I did not like her and even went as far as to say that she was manipulative and somewhat abusive. I would like to elaborate some more on my claim by further backing it up and also taking a closer look at her traits and actions showed to us as we read the book.
She reminds me very much of Peter from Mrs. Dalloway, except in this case a little more toxic. She likes to go from man to man believing that these affairs will make her happy. She has an emptiness inside of her that she seeks to fill with love from a man, but she is going about it in the wrong way. Peter liked to do the same sort of thing with women. Instead, Brett has Jake, someone she very much takes advantage of. She knows how infatuated Jake is with her, and uses that to her advantage whenever she wants something from him. There is a large part of her that would like to settle down with Jake and be very much in a healthy, mutual loving relationship. However, it is Jake's inability to have sex with her that makes her hesitant. She sees nearly everything she wants in Jake, aside from that aspect, and she refuses to give up that part of her life.
This isn't to say that she does all this for the sole purpose of hurting Jake. I do believe that she likes him very much and it is not her intention to hurt him like she does. However, the impulse to have these relations with other men win out over staying faithful to Jake, and she ends up doing them anyway. We learn early on in the book that her original "one true love" was killed in the war, and she is very much not processing that well. She is striving to find it again, and yet her trauma isn't allowing her to do things such as have secure committed relationships. I don't hate Brett for having psychological issues like these, but I feel as though she could work on improving how she conducts herself. For Jake's sake, she needs to make a decision on their relationship. If his disability is truly so detrimental to her view of him, then I think that she needs to give him space and slowly distance herself from his life. Jake needs time to heal and move on to someone else who will actually love him, and not force him to go through all this back and forth nonsense that she does. Brett has a lot of personal issues she needs to go through, but Jake shouldn't have to suffer because of it.
Yes the whole Brett situation is very complicated. It seems like she is toying with him and leading him on, and, like you said, being manipulative. However, I do see what others mean when they say that Jake just can't move on and Brett has been clear that they are not in a relationship. I think overall, their relationship is extremely difficult to figure out from an outside perspective and both of them have gone through difficult experiences during the war. I am thinking that Brett is toying with him but it is hard to fully tell with the limited information we have received.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that annoyed me about Brett though was that she's not allowing him to move on. Each time she has any kind of issue, she comes crawling back to him, not fully letting either of them move on. Additionally, I can't agree with you about Brett not toying with him; I totally think she is. She knows how he feels and she keeps using that to her advantage. I don't personally think that she ever intends to have a relationship with him; she just used him to get other guys and have some fun.
DeleteI really like your comparison of Brett and Peter, that had never crossed my mind. I agree that they both constantly seek relationships, but I feel like Peter's need for a relationship was more obsessive than Brett's is. Without a significant other, Peter became depressed and saw no purpose in life, but Brett comes off as if she doesn't care as much.
ReplyDeleteI feel like Peter is maybe more like Jake- the whole sad simp air about him, finding entertainment in other places to forget his one lost love. Brett doesn't seem to view Jake as the one that got away as much as vice versa, though she does love him. I don't think she's deliberately manipulative, just extremely damaged.
ReplyDeleteI hate all of the characters in this book. The thing is, it's clear that they are all unhappy and yet they refuse to do anything about that. Those types of characters really annoy me because they just go around being like "Poor, poor me". I realize that it's difficult to turn your life around, but if Jake or any of the characters don't do that, then frankly, I don't see any point to this book. There's no character development. I realize that this is meant to show the atmosphere of Paris after a war and that's bound to change the atmosphere, but frankly I really doubt that the atmosphere is THAT bad. Like I realize that it was probably hard and there were probably many people who tried to drown out their sorrows with alcohol, but people in general have a habit of rebuilding and persevering, and I don't see that in this book.
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