On belonging
Posted by robyngiannini on April 10th, 2007
This is actually a post in response to Dr. C’s comment on my previous post about belonging to someone and “intense, romantic love.” But that’s not really what I mean when I talk about belonging to someone, and I’m not sure if that’s what Robert Nathan means either. I think that intense, romantic love can sometimes go hand in hand with belonging to someone. You can maybe be romantically involved with a soul mate, but you don’t have to be. I think you can be soul mates without it being romantic at all. Actually, I think this is a real problem–because when you realize that someone is your soul mate, how do we know how to deal with that knowledge except to try and be with them romantically? If you know you belong with someone you want to completely belong to them. But that can’t always work. In Portrait of Jennie, Eben eventually is able to be romantically involved with Jennie, because she is moving at a different time as him, and is able to grow up quickly enough to find him and be with him (however shortly). But when she was a little girl, and Eben was an adult, they still knew that they belonged together. It was just that when they were with one another, they knew that that was where they were supposed to be. That’s why this is so troubling–it’s because it’s not the romantic love that is important, really. Hopefully that works out too, but the concept that I think this book shows so beautifully and hauntingly is that two souls can simply be a part of one another, with no other explanation except that they are, regardless of circumstance.
April 11th, 2007 at 7:28 am
If you believe that someone is your soulmate then you want to be with them in every way. You can’t separate out the romantic component of the relationship. In the law it would be called severing the contract. If you do then you don’t have a binding relationship. You have to be romantically involved with someone if they are truly your soulmate. Otherwise it’s just a booty call, a crush, an infatuation or a rebound situation. I know I thought that I had met my soulmate, but alas I was wrong. However, as jaded and cynical as I’ve become, I still believe that I will find my soulmate one day. If Eben and Jennie were soulmates, then why couldn’t they be together. That is what is haunting me.
April 11th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Robyn, I’m not sure we’re fundamentally disagreeing, except that I do believe the romantic part is essential for Nathan (as for his protagonists Eben and Jennie). They knew they belonged together from the start, yes, but that’s why Jennie’s cry for him to wait for her is so poignant. What’s there to wait for? Adult, romantic, sexual love. For Nathan, in my view, the romantic/sexual part (I don’t think he’d distinguish them so readily as we often do in 2007) is a vital consummation of the recognition that they are soulmates. I agree with Carmen along these lines. But I do agree with you that the depth of their recognition precedes their full romantic involvement, though that involvement is what their recognition drives them to, eventually.
April 12th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Ok but Dr. C., Nathan never comes out and says that Eben and Jennie consumate their relationship in an intimate way. Do they? I think he kisses her but that’s about it. Also, what is troubling for me is that he will be haunted by her memory and the loss of her forever. It is expected that he will never fall in love again. Will he ever be with another woman or get married? Human beings just weren’t made to live their lives alone. We are after all, social creatures. Nathan needed to make them both live or both die. As he left it, Eben must live out the remainder of his life in limbo. That is he must wait to die to be with Jennie again. What a terrible way to spend your life. I guess one could say that he died a spiritual death but that doesn’t make the resolution of the book any more palatable.
April 12th, 2007 at 9:10 am
I like the word palatable. And I don’t know guys…I think that when you meet someone who you feel is your soul mate, and you belong together, it’s a natural instinct to want to be together in every way possible. But that doesn’t make it possible. Maybe in the case of Eben and Jennie, they have the sort of connection that can be sexual (if she didn’t disapear too quickly, anyway). I don’t know…I have to think about it more. My thoughts are pending.
April 12th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
@Carmen: No, you’re right: Nathan never says they make love. Actually, they probably don’t consummate their relationship, although pp. 87-90 have a very intimate power as I read them. Still, reading them over again, I think there’s probably no deep sexual contact here, even though the landlady thinks there was.
That said, the soulmate question comes up with particular intensity on p. 77. What do you all think about that top paragraph?
April 12th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
I had the best response to Dr. C’s question and then my computer lost it. Don’t ask me how. So now I have to try to recapture my thoughts. You know thoughts are a one time flash of genius. Oh well, let me try anyway. After re-reading pp. 87-90, I can see no evidence of a sexual relationship. They do talk in an intimate way about going to Paris, the most romantic city in the world. Talk about juxtapositions! Here is a young couple talking about going to the most romantic city in the world and they will never know each other in that sense. I don’t know what Nathan intends with this kind of irony. He could be pointing to the injustice of loving someone you can never have.
I did re-read the top paragraph on p. 77 and felt like it grappled with the idea of soulmates because it throws the notion of soulmates not meeting because of time. That is, they are soulmates but they are living in the wrong time and so therefore can never be together. I hope Nathan was not suggesting that two people could be soulmates that were not moving through time at the same rate. This is impossible and utterly ridiculous. Whatever it is that makes a person believe in having a soulmate, dictates that they spend time together. This can’t be done when one person is able to transcend time and the other one is forced to move through it at a much slower pace. Seen in this light, Eben and Jennie are doomed. They are not soulmates. Now that is sad. If they’re not soulmates, then what are they? What was Nathan trying to say? Oh, how I would love to invite him for dinner to pick his brain.