Do you think Elizabeth ever truly loved Arthur? Is she simply in love with the lifestyle he represents?
Created: 05/07/15
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No, I don't think she did given his deceitful behavior which resulted in Russell's expulsion. Their marriage might have evolved into mutual respect but it seemed more one of convenience with the near certain knowledge Arthur would become Headmaster and their life one of relative ease.
Join Date: 02/18/15
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I do think Elizabeth loved Arthur in the only way she knew. She also loved all the things he stood for.
She knew he was going to follow in his father's footsteps and that would take her to the place she wanted to be. She loved the title, the house, the school, her position and I think she loved Arthur for giving her those things. However, life changed, so did Arthur and so did she.
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I do think Elizabeth came to love Arthur. Just the experience of having a child together would create loving intimacy. I was dismayed she didn't try and "right the wrong" against Russell. I think she looked at the big picture and decided to love Arthur for the lifestyle he could give her. Neither Arthur nor Elizabeth was psychologically healthy - which is why I think they ended up together....and why their marriage would ultimately fail.
Join Date: 04/15/11
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I think there had been a time when Ethan was a young boy, that Elizabeth had loved Arthur. The day in park, that Arthur recalls in the very beginning of the book, she leaned into him & smiled. We saw her truly happy.
She married him for the wrong reasons & came to a full understanding of that looking into her closet.
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I feel that in certain respects she grew to love him and the life she envisioned they would build together, but that illusion did not take long to crumble. It would ultimately be difficult to have true love that is tied to deceitful behavior such as Arthur's.
Join Date: 08/29/11
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I think Elizabeth loved Arthur in her own way. She was secure in her emotions and her life as long as events were going well. She goes through phases of "changing her skin" according to the changes in her life. She, like Arthur, becomes a broken person unable to cope with grief and unrealized expectations. I think she goes through love in degrees.
Join Date: 08/23/11
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I think Elizabeth loved Arthur in a way that she thought was love. She felt that the life as part of Lancaster with Arthur as headmaster and she as the first lady was what she loved. She felt fulfilled once she had Ethan. She was confused about what would truly make her happy. To me she did not know what true love was. Would she have truly loved Russell if that affair had continued? She is still a very typical woman in her views of what love is.
Join Date: 05/13/15
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I agree with those who feel she loved the status that came with being Arthur's wife. She did love Ethan, but when he died the lack of mutual feeling that was the foundation of their marriage could not sustain either of them.
Jan-Philipp Sendkov wrote in Whispering Shadows that there are two kinds of couples: their child's death either welds them together or they are afraid to look into their spouse's eyes because they would see in them that which they did not want to see: a reflection of their own fears, their rage, and their unmeasurable grief. I feel that could also describe Elizabeth and Arthur.
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It's funny, I didn't think about this til reading the question, but...I guess I don't. She liked what he represented, but never truly him. She seemed to have loved Russell, but he faded away, so she stuck with Arthur. Was he her escape from what she knew, an escape to something safer? Security vs. hippies? She never seemed to love him, especially as he became more and more the man she knew he'd become.
Join Date: 04/20/11
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Interesting question and how does one answer it for another person. She certainly made others and even herself believe at least at the beginning of the marriage that she loved Arthur. However, as other readers have mentioned, she yearned for the position of "The Headmaster's Wife," and enjoyed that role to which she had aspired for a long time. When Arthur became what we now recognize as mentally ill, and their son died, she did little to support and to comfort him. They each grieved in their own private ways rather than coming together as a couple to lessen the grief of each. She liked "playing the game," but expected it to always be as she had dreamed of it being and Arthur was the means of finding that dream.
Join Date: 10/10/11
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I had the same question, alissac! I wondered why being the Headmaster's wife was so important to Elizabeth. Was she rebelling against her hippie parents? She didn't seem particularly unhappy in her childhood. Her pursuit of the Lancaster life affected her future so profoundly. Why was she chasing that dream?
Join Date: 04/14/11
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I would doubt it very much. She saw Arthur as a way to bring her dreams of being "The Headmaster's Wife" to fruition. She had her life, and Arthur's, all planned out and was successful in creating that life. Howver, she left out what I would consider the most important part; that part in the marriage vows about loving and supporting one another ----- for better or for worse. I don't believe she worked at that early in the marriage and certainly not after Ethan's death. The book was a blueprint, if you will, for tragedy with two young people marrying for the wrong reasons and compounding that mistake in the years of marriage to come.
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