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Chapter 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in American Pastoral, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Heroes, Legends, and Myth-Making
Family, Responsibility, and Duty
The Irrationality of Suffering
The Unknowability of Others
American Ideals
Summary
Analysis
It’s the summer of the Watergate hearings when the Swede reunites with Merry. The Levovs have been watching coverage of the proceedings on TV. The Swede’s parents have been up visiting from Florida the past week, but Dawn hasn’t had to worry about entertaining them—they’ve been glued to the TV screen. Lou Levov writes letters to committee members about how they should have known Nixon was crooked all along.
The Watergate hearings took place in 1973 and presented the findings of a U.S. special committee from their investigation into the Nixon administration’s wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee headquarters, located in the Watergate office building in Washington, D.C., and Nixon’s later efforts to hide his administration’s involvement. In American Pastoral and in broader social narratives, the Watergate scandal and hearings represent how disordered, corrupt, and morally degraded American mainstream society had become since the optimism that gripped the nation in the early postwar years.
Themes
The narration flashes back to years before, when during the Vietnam War, Lou started sending Merry copies of letters he wrote to President Johnson, wanting to curb her radical behavior and show her a better outlet to express her anger. Lou, all those years ago, can’t understand why Merry is so radically upset about the war, and he cautions the Swede against letting her express her radical views at school and in public. He worries it would affect her future prospects. Merry resists this passive form of resistance, though, and she argues to her grandfather that his letters to Johnson won’t stop the war. She also tells him that Johnson is doing to the Vietnamese what Hitler did to Jewish people.
Put simply, Lou Levov opposes the war but doesn’t become radically upset by it because it doesn’t meaningfully affect his life. He’s in good financial shape, and no one in his immediate family will be drafted, on account of their age or gender. And though news coverage of the conflict admittedly troubles Lou, with the war taking place halfway across the world, it’s easy enough to turn off the TV, forget the conflict exists, and continue on with his sheltered bubble of a life.
Themes
Lou tries to reason with Merry, arguing that the Levovs all feel the way she does. One need only read the newspaper to become deeply troubled by the state of things these days. But America is a democracy, and Merry can vote and write to her senators if she really wants to change things. When Merry resists this, Lou loses his temper momentarily. If Merry is so unhappy here, then she can go fight for the other side. People have done it, though the country doesn’t look too kindly on traitors.
Merry’s radical anger at the war and the U.S. administration that supports it confuses Lou because she refuses to be a complicit, passive bystander—to live the false life her ancestors are content to go on living. He suggests Merry join North Vietnam’s side as a mocking joke intended to call out the insincerity of her anti-war position, which he is incapable of seeing as anything other than political posturing.
Themes
Merry and Lou go back and forth arguing about which political figures are and aren’t fascists. When Merry calls Senator William Fulbright—one of Lou’s personal heroes—a racist, though, it’s a step too far for Lou. The Swede steps in to act as moderator. Merry thinks writing letters is futile, while Lou thinks writing letters is at least something. What matters most, the Swede concludes, is that they both think the war is wrong and want it to stop. This satisfies Lou, who proclaims his identity as a “lifetime Democrat.” After Merry’s act of violence, Lou tells the Swede he saw it coming. Lou, not wanting to lose his granddaughter, tried to warn the Swede to interfere with Merry’s growing radicalism, but the Swede would have none of it.
Lou’s offense at Merry’s suggestion that Senator William Fulbright of Arkansas is racist demonstrates his unwillingness to see beyond the idealized world he’s chosen to believe in. In fact, Fulbright, a Southern Democrat, did support segregation. He (along with the majority of Congresspeople from former Confederate states) signed the Southern Manifesto, a 1956 document written in opposition of racial integration. Fulbright’s defenders argue that he was not personally racist but merely opposed segregation because it was what was expected of a Southern delegate at the time—a position someone like Merry would find unconscionable and hypocritical.
Themes
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Back in 1973, the Swede returns home to Dawn and his parents. There are no messages for him from Mary Stoltz. When his mother asks him if he’s going to make a steak, the Swede says yes, with “Merry’s big beefsteak tomatoes.” He meant to say “Dawn’s,” but he doesn’t correct his error. When the Swede goes to embrace his mother (Sylvia), she breaks down. She saw some old photos of Merry and was remembering the phone calls Merry used to make to her when she was a little girl. The Swede urges his mother to stay strong—for Dawn. Lou urges his wife to “control [her]self” and stop asking about Merry, but he loses his temper when the Swede suggests that even if Merry were alive, maybe she wouldn’t want to see them again. “This I refuse to believe!” Lou cries out. If Merry could see them, he maintains, she would.
The Swede’s slip-up in referring to the tomatoes as Merry’s rather than Dawn’s shows that Merry is, understandably, at the forefront of his mind. If he’s really decided not to tell anyone about his recent discovery of her hiding place, he’s up for a real challenge. The Swede’s choice to keep Merry a secret from his parents seems cruel and unfeeling, given their obvious deep concern for her and their grief over her absence. His reasons for keeping Merry a secret remain unclear at this point, but one possible explanation is that he doesn’t want them to have to confront the reality of Merry’s guilt and of her present condition. With Merry still missing, they can continue to see themselves a grieving victims of a young girl who perhaps isn’t guilty of the crime she’s accused of. Seeing Merry in her present state and hearing her confess to multiple crimes would force them to face the ugly reality.
Themes
Sylvia reminds Lou that “even in ordinary families,” sometimes children go away and don’t want to see their families anymore. Lou angrily insists that the Levovs are an ordinary family. The Swede tells his parents that Merry is not a child anymore—she is 21, and neither of them should get their hopes up about ever seeing her again. Of course, what the Swede knows that his parents don’t is that not seeing Merry again is by far preferable to them seeing her in her present state. They couldn’t handle that. After some back and forth, Sylvia gently agrees to change the subject. She feels a bit better, at least, just talking about it.
The Swede’s inner thoughts here confirm that his reason for not telling his parents about Merry is to preserve their innocence, so to speak. With Merry’s fate and guilt unknown, they can continue to see her as the confused and naïve—but still innocent—girl she was as a teen. Seeing Merry as she is today—unwashed, downtrodden, and unabashedly open about her guilt in the crime she’s accused of (not to mention three additional murders)—would force them to abandon their idealized memories of Merry before her fall from grace.
Themes
The Swede notices how small, old, and frail Sylvia has become over the last five years. She used to be full of energy, and now the smallest thing can bring tears to her eyes. Currently, she’s troubled by a letter she has kept hidden in her purse, written from Lou to Jerry’s second wife, Susan, from whom Jerry has recently separated. Sylvia secretly took the letter before Lou could send it. She knows Jerry’s temper, and she knows he would fly off the handle if he found out about Lou’s having written the note, which contains a large sum of money and instructions for Susan to invest in the children’s future. Lou sent Susan money when she first called weeping about Jerry’s sudden decision to leave her. When Jerry found out, he called his father, enraged. After that, Lou suffered his first chest pains and had to be hospitalized.
Sylvia’s frail appearance is yet another detail that points to how Merry’s crime has shattered the Swede’s innocence and catapulted him into reality. His mother has been growing older and more fragile with each passing year, and yet her aged appearance almost seems to catch him by surprise in this scene. The detail of Jerry’s fraught relationship with Lou reinforces how different Jerry and the Swede are from each other. Whereas the Swede generally tries to keep the peace and go along with his father’s wishes—as his choice to take over the family business illustrates—Jerry is not so interested in pleasing his father or upholding any longstanding family traditions.
Themes
Alone, Sylvia confides in the Swede that she doesn’t know what to do. Lou resents Jerry’s creating a second broken home. She knows Lou and Jerry will get into another fight, and Jerry isn’t above becoming physical: he “doesn’t have your considerateness,” Sylvia tells the Swede. She recalls the horrible fight Jerry and Lou got into after the hamster-skin coat debacle. The girl Jerry gave it to had told her parents. The parents called Lou, who was in turn mortified. He tore Jerry apart over it, and his anger grew as Jerry responded angrily about his so-called “rights.” Jerry’s temper was bad enough then, but now Lou is an old man with a heart condition—a fight could kill him. The Swede tries to console his mother. He tells her to stay out of Jerry’s life. And if Lou has chest pains again, she can call a doctor.
Sylvia’s observation that Jerry “doesn’t have [the Swede’s] considerateness,” unbeknownst to Sylvia herself, has extra significance to the Swede in light of his reunion with Merry earlier that day. If he was on the fence about whether or not to inform his parents and Dawn about finding Merry before, now he likely has overwhelmingly decided against it out of a desire to preserve the “considerateness” that his mother so admires in him. Further, abandoning that “considerateness” potentially puts his father at risk of a cardiac event.
Themes
Later, Lou remarks on how great Dawn looks. He was against her face-lift at first, but he’s changed his mind. She looks like the person she was before “all that she went through.” The Swede agrees. “Erased all that suffering,” he observes of the surgeon’s work. Sylvia isn’t as convinced—it’s clear that Dawn is still waiting for Merry’s return. The Swede tries to get his parents away from the TV to help him prepare food outside, but they refuse. Lou wants to see Nixon brought into the courtroom. The Swede notes the similarity between his father’s energetic hatred of Nixon and Merry’s hatred for Johnson but doesn’t say anything.
Lou’s praise for Dawn’s new face functions less as commentary on Dawn’s physical appearance and more as admiration for her resilience and her capacity to move forward with life despite the immense grief that Merry’s absence surely has brought her. Of course, the face-life is only a superficial change: though it gives the impression that Dawn has improved after years of suffering, it’s literally only a skin-deep improvement and doesn’t say anything about her actual emotional state.
Themes
In addition to Sylvia and Lou, the Levovs are also having Bill and Jessie Orcutt—Dawn’s architect and his wife—over for dinner. The Orcutts have been neighbors of the Levovs for years, and Bill Orcutt’s family have been prominent lawyers in the area for generations. As president of the local landmarks society, Bill is presently working on keeping Lake Hopatcong free of pollutants. When he learned that his new neighbors the Levovs were originally from the city, he offered to take them on a county tour.
The Orcutts, with their high pedigree and Bill’s long-established roots in the area, are the epitome of “Wasps,” the ruling class that Jerry earlier accused the Swede of pretending to be a part of.
Themes
Dawn declines the invitation. She doesn’t like Bill Orcutt, finding “Ivy League guys” like him pretentious. She thinks he looks down on her, and she doesn’t like this. She insists that the only difference between “them and us” (Protestants and Catholics) is “a little more liquor.” And so, the Swede and Orcutt go on the tour alone. Orcutt shows the Swede the old iron mines and the site of the old mill. He points out the Morris Canal, which the Swede connects not with Morristown, but with Lou Levov’s oldest brother, Morris. At just 24, Morris had opened a shoe store with wife. He died in the influenza epidemic. Every time Orcutt mentions the Morris Canal on the tour, the Swede thinks of the uncle he never knew. It makes him feel so much like his father.
Dawn’s outlook on her and the Swede’s (or anyone’s) capacity to transcend their family background and gain acceptance among the upper classes is far more pragmatic than the Swede’s. She believes that a “them and us” mentality persists among “Wasp”-type Protestants and people from humbler backgrounds despite the mythologized vision of America as a melting pot where anyone can become anything, regardless of where they came from. The Swede’s instinctive association of the Morris Canal with his father’s oldest brother Morris (typically a Jewish name) indicates that perhaps the Swede is deluded about his capacity to forge a life that’s truly all his own and separate from his family’s.
Themes
Later, Orcutt leads the Swede into a Revolutionary War-era cemetery and points out the gravestone of the first Morris County Orcutt, who arrived in 1774 at the age of 20. “Interesting,” the Swede observes aloud. Inwardly, he observes that what’s actually interesting is “he’[s] never met anyone like this before.” Orcutt continues to lead the Swede through the cemetery, pointing out more gravestones of his deceased ancestors, more prominent members of Morristown. Later, though the Swede sings Orcutt’s praises to spite Dawn’s “Irish resentment,” he wonders if it’s true: did Orcutt emphasize all his prominent forebearers just so it’s extra clear to the Swede “just who he was and just who you weren’t?”
The tour with Orcutt impacts the Swede in ways that surprise him. He is disturbed to realize how out of his element he feels in Orcutt’s company, and he wonders whether their different positions on the social hierarchy are more pronounced—if unspoken—than he initially thought. It’s curious why the Swede intentionally hides his skepticism of Orcutt from Dawn, though it makes sense with the high value he places on outward appearance. To the Swede, admitting that he harbors his own version of Dawn’s “Irish resentment” would amount to admit defeat and inferiority, and he won’t do that.
Themes
The Swede tries to brush off his doubts about Bill Orcutt—“Jewish resentment could be just as bad as Irish resentment,” after all. All that matters is that Orcutt is fair and respectful to the Swede. He and Dawn have their hundred acres of America—they’ve “done it.” They can live how they like. And it took some doing to get there—a doubtful Lou Levov had tried to pressure them into moving into a suburban development in South Orange.
The unconvincing logic the Swede uses to convince himself that all is well between himself and Orcutt only serves to underscore how not okay things are. Rather, the Swede’s rationalizing only underscores the doubt and insecurity he feels around his hoity-toity neighbor. The Swede’s suggestion to himself that all that matters is that the Levovs and the Orcutts make a show of respecting each other, even they don’t mean it, follows the Swede’s pattern of giving undue importance to upholding norms and to outward displays of decorum.
Themes
When the Swede first mentions moving to the countryside to Lou, Lou warns the Swede it will cost a fortune to heat the hulking, antique mansion in Old Rimrock. And besides, what does the Swede need all that land for? “You’re dreaming,” Lou tells his son. He also reminds him that the Klan used to be active out here in the country. It’s not a place that will accept a Jewish family. The Swede insists that times have changed, but Lou remains unconvinced.
This scene deepens the symbolism of Old Rimrock, portraying it not just as the Swede’s paradise lost, but also as a symbol of the original “sin” the Swede committed to be expelled from that paradise. That “sin” is defying his father, who warned him of the underlying foolishness and superficiality of the Swede’s grand plan to move to the country and start a whole new life there.
Themes
The Swede refuses to back down and goes ahead with the move to Old Rimrock. He knows Lou is right—prejudice still exists. But Old Rimrock is a civilized place, and religion doesn’t need to come between the Levovs and any of their neighbors. “This is a new generation,” after all.
The Swede believes that Old Rimrock’s civilized atmosphere can undermine any ugly, human prejudices its residents might have. This scene reinforces for readers the Swede’s overconfidence in the permanence and reliability of decorum and norms to keep the ugliness and chaos of life at bay.
Themes
As it turns out, the Levovs don’t end up getting all that close to the Orcutts, though the Swede does attend Bill Orcutt’s weekly touch football games on Saturdays. Some of the attendees, like the Swede, are ex-GIs from Essex County. One of these men is an optician named Bucky Robinson. Bucky played quarterback for Hillside High, one of Weequahic High’s rivals. The first time the Swede attended one of Orcutt’s football games, he overheard Bucky bragging to Orcutt about the Swede’s athletic prowess in high school. Normally, the Swede would have felt uncomfortable with these outward display of awe, but he doesn’t mind Bucky’s support in front of Orcutt. Bucky calls the Swede “Big Swede,” a name only Jerry has called him since high school. All his other new neighbors call him Seymour.
The supposed civility of Old Rimrock ensures that the Levovs and Orcutts remain civil with each other in their outward interactions, but the fact that they don’t ever become close speaks to the underlying superficiality of this civility. In fact, there is a mutual understanding that they are from different walks of life and so carry different levels of respectability. Bucky Robinson’s presence adds a curve ball to the Swede’s play-acting the part of an Old Rimrock Wasp because he reminds the Swede of his roots.
Themes
Once, when the Swede gives Bucky a ride to a local garage to pick up his car, Bucky announces that he and his wife are Jewish and have recently joined the Morristown temple. He says it’s “very sustaining” when living in a Gentile town. Since that day, he makes a project out of getting the Swede to join the temple, or at least to join him to play basketball there.
Bucky Robinson’s selling the Morristown temple as “very sustaining” only serves to further alienate the Swede, who has no interest in “sustain[ing]” any link to his Jewish roots—he wants to live beyond his origins and be his own man.
Themes
The Swede thinks back to when Dawn was pregnant with Merry. Sylvia Levov had surprised the Swede by asking if Dawn was going to convert before Merry’s birth. The Swede harshly responded that “practicing Judaism means nothing” to him, which caused his mother to cry. So now, when Bucky Robinson tries to get the Swede involved at the temple, he complains to Dawn, “I didn’t come out here for that stuff.” Even when he was younger, when he would accompany Lou to temple on High Holidays, Judaism never registered with the Swede. He didn’t understand what it meant about “being a man.”
A lot of the Swede’s story has focused on the generational divide between himself and Merry (and the youth culture of the 1960s in general). But this flashback to Dawn’s pregnancy with Merry provides more insight into the generational divide that exists between the Swede and his parents, who clash over the Swede’s indifference to religion. The Swede feels detached from and stifled by the constructs of religious dogma and ritual, and he wants to live beyond their bounds—much like Merry will grow up to reject the stifling conventions of what she considers her parents’ bourgeois lifestyle.
Themes
In Old Rimrock (though it somewhat embarrasses the Swede to admit it) he feels like Johnny Appleseed, who was neither Jewish, nor Catholic, nor Protestant. “Johnny Appleseed was just a happy American.” The Swede recalls how Dawn once saw him approaching the house, a grocery bag in hand, as he pretended to toss seeds from it. She had laughed, asking him what he was “practicing.”
For the Swede, the myth of Johnny Appleseed represents the ideal American: bound by no religious, cultural, or familial roots or expectations, he sets out alone and stakes his own claim on the land. Although the Swede speaks of Johnny Appleseed figuratively, it does seem as though on some level he has explicitly modeled his life on the Johnny Appleseed myth with his move to the idyllic country setting of Old Rimrock.
Themes
Bill Orcutt, the narration notes, broke with family tradition and didn’t go to law school after graduating from Princeton. He tried to become an artist for a few years, working out of a Manhattan studio, before marrying Jessie and returning to Princeton to attend architecture school. Now, his work mostly involves restoration of 18th- and 19th-century houses in Morris County and the surrounding area. Every few years, a Morristown frame shop holds an exhibition of his abstract art. The Swede and Dawn attend, and the Swede feel awkward that he can’t make sense of any of Orcutt’s paintings, which are supposedly “influenced by Chinese calligraphy” but only look like grey smudges to the Swede.
This passage provides additional insight into Bill Orcutt’s wealthy upbringing, which affords him privileges the Swede lacks, namely in the form of cultural clout. Orcutt’s family’s wealth gives him the freedom to pursue hobbies and play-act a bohemian lifestyle with the knowledge that his privileged life will be there waiting for him when he decides it’s time to get serious. His social class also gives him a voice of authority on matters of taste and culture—it’s people in his position who decide (sometimes arbitrarily) which smudges on a canvas are artistic and which aren’t. The Swede’s struggle to make sense of Orcutt’s paintings doesn’t exactly devalue the artistic merit of the work. Rather, it points to the cultural gatekeeping that prevents people like the Swede, a “self-made man,” as the saying goes, from gaining full acceptance to a more elite social class.
Themes
Dawn insists Bill Orcutt’s paintings are thought provoking and buys one—for $5,000. In the house in Old Rimrock, Dawn hangs the new painting, Meditation #27, over the spot they used to have a portrait of Merry that the Swede quite liked. He recalls how the portrait artist they hired to paint it only charged $2,000 and threw in the gilt frame for free. When Lou sees Orcutt’s painting, he’s aghast it cost $5,000—and he assumes the painting is not even finished. Inwardly, the Swede thinks Dawn’s zeal for Orcutt’s art isn’t sincere, but rather her “Irish envy.”
The Swede interprets Dawn’s choice to replace the portrait of Merry with Orcutt’s abstract painting as purely performative. The Swede guesses that Dawn doesn’t like or understand the painting any better than he does, and so she hangs the painting on the wall not out of appreciation for the art but rather to signal the Levovs’ cultural clout. Put another way, he suspects she buys the painting to deny her repressed “Irish envy” at wealthy elites like Orcutt who believe they hold a monopoly on high-brow culture. The Swede prefers the portrait of Merry because it demonstrates obvious skill—something anyone from any background can learn—and because its price seems to align with the work put into it. Of course, the Swede’s disdain for Dawn’s repressed “Irish resentment” is a bit hypocritical. The move to Old Rimrock, after all, is ultimately a grand attempt on the Swede’s part to overcome his own “Jewish envy,” as it were.
Themes
Back in the present (1973), Bill Orcutt has brought a cardboard model of the new Levov house and presents it to the guests after dinner. Dawn gushes over all the natural light that will spill in through the new house’s many windows. The Swede recognizes it as a slight against the giant trees that shade their current house—trees he has always loved.
The Swede interprets Dawn’s enthusiasm for the new house and its modern design as yet another rejection of the Swede and everything he values. Where once (the Swede thought) he and Dawn shared a vision of what domestic, American bliss ought to look like, it’s clear she has revised her vision in the aftermath of Merry’s crime. The model house’s trendy modern features reinforce the superficiality of Dawn’s new vision, though, and this gestures to the distinct possibility that it won’t be able to actually make her happy going forward.
Themes
The Orcutts came to dinner early so that Bill and Dawn could go over some issues with the new garage’s design. The two discuss the issue together in the kitchen while Dawn chops and cleans vegetables for dinner. Dawn complains that Orcutt’s proposed solutions to a problem with the new house’s garage are not modern enough for the look she has in mind. Meanwhile, the Swede prepares the barbecue coals outside, looking out into the distance where Dawn’s herd used to graze. With him are Lou Levov and Jessie Orcutt.
Dawn’s sudden chumminess with Bill Orcutt seems a bit odd given her initial enthusiastic disdain for him. The narration subtly suggests there may be something more going on between them, though there’s no obvious indication that this is the case. Dawn’s insistence on a modern design for the new house symbolizes her desire to move forward with life, if only superficially, after her loss of Merry.
Themes
Jessie Orcutt rarely leaves the house these days—she took to drinking after the last of the couple’s grown children left home. Bill Orcutt apparently told Dawn that Jessie is on the verge of a “manic upswing.” Jessie today is a far cry from the energetic, clear-headed woman she was when the Swede first met her. She was a Philadelphia heiress, attended finishing schools, and always wore her hair up in neat braids—she was the last person the Swede would have expected to succumb to alcoholism and depression. Now her hair is unkempt, and she hides her bloated belly beneath oversized dresses.
By juxtaposing Jessie Orcutt’s privileged background with her alcoholism and general decline in recent years, the narration emphasizes the particular tragedy of Jessie’s life. Rather ungenerously, the narration pities Jessie for squandering all the opportunities her wealth and status have afforded her. On the other hand, her problems are genuine—no one wants to be in pain, after all—and from this perspective, Jessie’s present struggles reinforce the book’s broader argument about the irrational, arbitrary nature of suffering.
Themes
Now, the Swede looks on as Jessie rambles on about her history of horseback riding to Lou Levov. Lou interrupts her to clarify some of the terminology, reminding Jessie that she’s talking to a city guy. Jessie frowns when Lou refers to her as “Mrs. Orcutt,” a mocking gesture of deference and a subtle attack on Jessie’s heavy drinking. When she corrects him—“‘Jessie,’ please”—the Swede grimaces at the ugly, artificial smile on her face. Jessie continues on with a story about going away to boarding school and how fun it was, but how homesick she felt. She starts to weep. The Swede knows his father feels only disdain for the pathetic woman before him, but Lou tells her, “That’s all right, let it all out,” and removes the drink from her hand. Lou rocks Jessie as she starts to weep.
There’s something to be said for Lou’s unwavering commitment to duty—to doing right by people, even if one doesn’t like them. Even if, as the Swede guesses, Lou’s care for Jessie is feigned and in fact conceals his genuine disdain for her, it doesn’t change the fact that his care has comforted and mollified her in her moment of need. This simultaneously (darkly) humorous and touching scene adds to the book’s complicated examination of how we ought to engage with our fellow humans and what we owe one another.
Themes
As the scene outside continues, the Swede looks inside and sees Bill Orcutt, in his pink linen pants and gaudy Hawaiian shirt (a style of dress which Dawn earlier called “Wasp extremism”), grinding up against Dawn from behind as she shucks corn at the sink. The Swede can hear Dawn’s lips saying, “Not here, not here…” At once, all of Dawn’s insults about Orcutt make perfect sense: “The unfaithfulness to the house was never unfaithfulness to the house. It was unfaithfulness.”
This scene confirms what the reader may have already begun to suspect: Dawn and Orcutt are having an affair. Between Orcutt’s obvious, ugly outfit and Dawn’s attention to shucking corn, the scene is decidedly un-sexy, and this gestures toward the superficiality and meaninglessness of the affair. Dawn, this off-putting scene suggests, doesn’t love or feel attracted to Orcutt specifically—she just wants something new to help her to forget her present suffering.
Themes
