Throughout the novel, we begin to know more and more about Marie and Frank’s relationship. We know that Frank acts stubbornly and makes it hard for Marie to be happy, but does Marie blame herself for this sour relationship? On page 77, Marie talks about how Frank should be with a different type of wife, someone who can constantly be there to serve him. She then goes on to say “It seems as if I always make him just as bad as he can be,” (Cather 78). Does she think that because of the person she is, Frank has no other choice but to act out? Does this type of society and time period foster the idea that women are the ones to blame?
2 thoughts on “Marie and Frank”
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I think nobody blamed her but herself, Marie. She felt wrong because she seemed to be the one who initiated the runaway and proposed the marriage (91). I am still keep questioning why she was so in love with Frank in the very beginning. When Emil asked her why did she run away with Frank, she just answered “because she was very much in love with him.(91)” It is hard for us to imagine a better way for Marie to live happily rather than bear with those hardship.
There are societal pressures, at an early age, for woman to know how to be good wives. Her response is conditioned to those pressures. As for Frank, who is clearly at times… a bad husband, does not question how he is towards his wife. Society is to blame.