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| "The Walk" (1918) by Marc Chagall |
What do you make of Nora’s comment that she needs to leave this life because she's taking someone else's place, the Nora who loved Dylan?
People sometimes justify ending their relationships by saying that their partner deserves more. In a way this is true, but this approach can also serve to shift from justifying deciding on internal grounds (for self) to justifying deciding on external ones (for others). This can reduce guilt, among other things, especially for someone like Nora who has already said she sometimes fashioned her life on other’s dreams.
Do you think Nora is trying to reduce her own feelings of guilt? Have you ever done this?
Under what circumstance should people feel guilty about ending a relationship?
You can't make decisions on what is best for other people. Nora wouldn't have been happy living a life in a relationship with someone she doesn't love. That doesn't mean she doesn't care about Dylan, she wants him to be happy, and she wants the other version of her to be happy too. If you don't love somebody who loves you, it isn't selfish to end the relationship. It may hurt them, but you can't be happy that way, and if they love you they should want you to be happy.
ReplyDelete-Byron
I agree Byron. I do not think that you can maintain a healthy relationship if your feelings about each other are not mutual. - Matt Pittman
DeleteI think Nora was using the idea that she was taking this life away from someone who truly loved Dylan to make herself feel better. She would not have been happy in a life where she is married to someone she's not in love with. At the same time, it is a complicated situation because she is lending the life back over to herself. I think Nora is trying to reduce her guilt for wanting to leave. People should only feel guilty in leaving a relationship if their actions have lead to a more negative relationship. Otherwise, it is perfectly fine to leave a relationship if you do not feel happy about it.
ReplyDelete-Denna Bussinger
I believe that Nora is right for making this comment. She realizes that she is only contempt with this life, and that she is robbing her other self of happiness. I do not think Nora is trying to reduce her feelings of guilt, since we know that she was sincere as proven by her disappearance. Context is important, but people should feel guilty for ending a relationship over selfish reasons, or if they have not left their partner better off than when they met each other. Selfish reasons to me are defined by something that will have more of a negative effect on your partner than it will have on you, like unfaithfulness.
ReplyDeleteI believe that we convince ourselves that we are the problem to escape undesirable situations. This is proven by our inability to say how we really feel when terminating a relationship, regardless of whether it is platonic or romantic. The truth is, if we constantly go about life on other people’s terms, we will never learn what we truly desire. Accommodating everyone around us but neglecting ourselves is a one-way ticket to more pain (both mentally and physically).
ReplyDeleteFor years, I was the type of person who always tiptoed around others and made sure that everyone was comfortable, even if that meant sacrificing my own happiness or comfort in the process. I now understand that I must always be my first priority, because if I am looking out for everyone else, who is there to look out for me? To reduce my own feelings of guilt from past mistakes, I tend to say yes to a lot more than I should because I fear the consequences of telling someone “no.” I have been in the position of being denied help, so I do not want someone to struggle because I refused to help them. However, saying yes to everyone is not an easy task, because there will always be a time when you have to choose whose issue demands more urgency. By doing something out of guilt, you just set yourself up for more failure and, therefore, even more guilt. In saying yes to everyone, I have failed to realize that I am only one person, and I cannot simply solve every problem on my own. Sometimes, it is best to pick and choose what you spend your energy doing because it depletes quickly when tackling more complex, high-action issues (especially on behalf of someone with a totally different mindset than yours).
Seed’s comment, in my opinion, was most certainly not a manifestation of guilt for not caring for Dylan. She simply realized, now and later on in the book, that although those lives are hers, Nora hasn’t lived that life for herself. She wouldn’t have been able to continue that cycle the way it had been going due to the fact that she hasn’t actually been in a relationship with him for years, she’d truly known him for less than a day. Under different circumstances, say Nora had stayed and grew to love him, yet said she couldn’t take the place of the Nora Seed who’d been there previously, it would be more difficult to figure, but she didn’t. She realized right away that this life wasn’t something she wanted, for whatever reason readers speculate it may be.
ReplyDeleteI feel like she's trying to reduce the guilt of leaving this life because of Dylan's interests through this external justification. That being said, she doesn't have to feel guilty — if it feels like the relationship won't work out, it probably won't work out. It's also a rare blip of self-awareness: she suddenly doesn't feel compelled to sweep this life from her other self. Evidently, she doesn't pity this world's Nora: she simply wishes her the best.
ReplyDeleteBy seeing the mutual miseries of her many multiversal maladies, it teaches Nora that the suffering she endures isn't inherent to her choices.