Was Louise alive at the end of the novel or was she dead? I believe that this is a matter of opinion and could be interpreted in several ways depending how the reader interpreted what the narrator was saying and the text that was written. In my opinion, I think that Louise was neither dead nor alive as far a the narrator knew. I believe that this was the narrator’s way of coping with the unbearable loss of Louise. In seeing the apparition, he was finally letting Louise go and telling her goodbye. He was coming to terms with what his life was going to be like without Louise possibly with Gail as a part of that life. Gail was slowly moving in on him whether he rally liked it or not. He acknowledges this when he says:”…there were fresh flowers on the table. Fresh flowers and a table cloth. New curtains in the ragged windows. My heart sank. Gail must be moving in (118).” He seemed to resign himself to the fact that Gail had gotten him, whether he wanted her to or not. He seemed numb, with no fight left in him.
When Gail saw him, he was soaked through after a 3 mile hike from the train station. He had gone to look for Louise. He proceeds to tell Gail that he had looked everywhere for Louise but could not find her anywhere. To me this does not indicate that Louise is dead. She could have just gone back to maybe Australia or any place else for that matter to heal her own broken heart. Although the narrator said it was as if she never existed.
To me there is nothing in the book to indicate that Louise had died. She wasn’t as sick as Elgin had told the narrator she was. The narrator found this information when he had found letter in his flat from the hospital that Louise had gone to for a second opinion. The letters said that she was asymptomatic. If she was asymptomatic, then she was without symptoms. That doesn’t necessarily mean that she didn’t have cancer. It just leads the reader to believe that Elgin had lied to the narrator in order to get the narrator to leave Louise.
The narrator questioned himself as to whether his relationship with Louise was perhaps a making of his own mind. Deep down he did not believe this, yet at his darkest hour he asked such a question. Again, this does not indicate that Louise has died. He does discover that she is divorced. Again, this confuses him because he thinks that if she’s divorced that why didn’t she come to him. He really made the consequential mistake of leaving Louise when Elgin convinced him that she was sick. It was a mistake that was really unforgivable, and that is the route that Louise chose to take.
There is no evidence that Louise died. She did disappear, but that doesn’t give evidence that she was actually dead. She indefinitely disappeared. It may have been better if she had died or had lived and told the narrator she never wanted to see him again. Either way the narrator would have had closure.
“…I think that Louise was neither dead nor alive as far a the narrator knew. I believe that this was the narrator’s way of coping with the unbearable loss of Louise. In seeing the apparition, he was finally letting Louise go and telling her goodbye. He was coming to terms with what his life was going to be like with out Louise ...”
ReplyDeleteI’m really fascinated by your stance throughout your entire blog because it’s one that was never argued for during the class discussion. During many discussion we got “it’s obviously a ghost,” as most leaned on the idea that she was dead. I myself gave a different stance but not in the way you did and I like yours a lot for that very reason.
You support yourself that there’s no foundation in which one can possibly just assume she’s dead, despite her disappearance, which is what I’d like to expand on.
Re-assigning one’s self anonymity once more in a foreign country is relatively simple, even with our current world of vast social networking. As you said she could have every well gone back to Australia. Her own feelings are never expanded on unless it’s through her dialog, so we cannot know for sure but perhaps she missed her home land. She could have very easily disappeared without telling her very own mother for a number of reasons, including going to America for treatment.
The world may never know.
“You are absolutely right when you said, “this is a matter of opinion and could be interpreted in several ways…” because the at the end of the novel the narrator seems like he/he wants the readers to get the impression that Louise is alive; I never gave it much thought whether or not she could have been just an apparition, and now you just put a new spin on Louise; I like that, and you just have another point. If I look at it from your point of view, maybe the narrator is ready to go on with his/her life, and finally has accepted his/her loss. In the novel, Gail definitely did let her intentions be known that she was interested in the narrator as more than being just platonic, but due to the narrator still having Louise strongly on his/her mind, Gail would have to settle for being just a confidante. I think she knew she would not have a chance to go beyond just being friends as long as Louise stayed on the narrator’s mind; consequently, that is why she told the narrator to go back and make thing right. Because the narrator has been in and out of so many relationships, it is a very strong possibility that Gail was going to be the beginning of the next chapter in the narrator’s life. Hence, what the narrator saw from the kitchen door was his/her way of accepting closure on the brief life that was shared with Louise and the beginning of something new with Gail, so Louise I believe that she is dead, and her apparition came the narrator to tell him to let go, and move on.
ReplyDelete