MALE-DEPENDENCY

Through Eva’s letters to Franklin, Shriver includes a female dependency on males in her novel. Eva’s male-dependency is mostly on her husband since her father died

before she was born and she hardly sees her brother (Kevin 23, 48, 109). Shriver

maintains this conventional gender role when Eva writes to Franklin that “I couldn’t live without you” (347). To support this strong statement, Eva admits to having many

conventional female weaknesses involving her inferiority to men. Eva reminisced about the days it was just her and Franklin: “this was a life I loved, and one into which children didn’t really fit. The single thing I loved more [than my traveling career] was Franklin

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Plaskett…there was only one big-ticket item you wanted that was in my power to provide. How could I have denied you…You wanted to have a child. On balance, I did

not” (Kevin 55). Eva is blunt in her recollection of not wanting to have children, but due to her love for Franklin, she agreed to bear one, which is what he truly wanted. Shriver could have had Eva stand strong and actually deny Franklin this one desire of his (although the novel would be quite altered). This one “gift” to her husband not only

changed her life, but ended his. Shriver makes a poignant argument that disgraces women who have children to make their husbands happy: giving a husband such a “gift” could make the unwilling mother rather unhappy. But, since Shriver makes Eva and Franklin’s

outcome so severe, readers may not heed caution, thinking the plot is too morose to actually happen in the real world. Unfortunately, readers tend to overlook Shriver’s message that Kevin is the problem not Eva; readers miss the fact that Celia is also Eva’s

child and is nothing like her older sibling, Kevin, and so it is the difference among the children that causes unhappiness, not how the female raises them as society indicates.

Once Eva became a mother, her attachment to Franklin was more mental and emotional than physical and reciprocal like it was before having children. Eva longed for alone time with her husband: “you and I never went out just the two of us anymore…I was mostly disappointed that you didn’t ever covet the same quality time with your wife…I was jealous. And I was lonely” (Kevin 204). With Eva’s self-pity, Shriver depicts

the low self-esteem that is common with traditional females who view their husbands as superior. Eva grows to be so jealous of Franklin’s exclusive time with Kevin that she equates this to his cheating on her: “I had created my own Other Woman who happened to be a boy” (347). Shriver scoffs at the mental deterioration that conventional women

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experience when they conjure stories up in their heads to find an explanation for what is going on in their lives, which is obviously fabricated. But, this fabrication is not entirely created through Eva’s mind, but it is her culture’s views of female convention that haunt

her mind.

Along with concocting stories, Shriver shows us a weak female (at least one who transiently falls into convention expectation) who changes who she is in order to please her husband, especially during the days following the husband’s decision of getting a divorce: “I remember being on my best behavior, never raising my voice, never objecting

when [Franklin] barely touched a meal that I’d have gone to great trouble to fix…I tried not to make too much noise” and Franklin made Eva feel “like a kid…forced…to formally apologize” to her own son (Kevin 203), and she followed through his

preferences and his commands, albeit coerced. Eva even noted that she had a “tattling allowance” (297) with Franklin, and knew when she could/could not tell on Kevin. While Eva seemed to obediently mind Franklin’s needs and demands, she claimed to be easily “sated” (256). Eva reflects back while writing to Franklin: “I could have left you with your son… but it never occurred to me to leave” (Kevin 299), but even if Eva did think of

this, she most likely would never leave Franklin because she loved him too much. Shriver makes this impression apparent when Eva makes another realization regarding Thursday: “The truth is, if I decided I was innocent, or I decided I was guilty, what difference would it make? If I arrived at the right answer, would you come home?” (400). This thought of Eva’s discounts all of the affliction she suffered because of Kevin; whether others blame

Thursday on her or not, and whether or not she blames herself, it does not matter to her

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own culture’s fault, not the mother’s, for a child to be so unruly. Eva knows she is not to

blame, but her statement of her needing Franklin back depicts the traditional female adoration of her husband; it is evident that Eva puts Franklin before herself and has temporary falls into the pits of societal expectation. Shriver makes it quite clear that a weak woman who needs a man is not exactly appealing to her contemporary audience since her life goes downhill from being so submissive. Once Franklin is out of the picture, there is no doubt that Eva is then dependent upon Kevin, even though Kevin is certainly more dependent on Eva, as they are only left with each other.