Mothers and Fathers alike

In class, we’ve discussed how the way Brett chooses to interact with Jake can almost be seen as motherly love rather than sexual love. She strokes his head while asking if he’s okay, seemingly trying to be nurturing rather than intimate. Assumably she feels bad that she and Jake can’t be in an intimate relationship, so she tries to make up for it by being a loving motherly figure in his life, rather than loving partner. But this doesn’t really help Jake’s emotions, in fact, it just stresses him out more. (I go deeper into this in my previous blog post).

But another observation we have made in class is how Jake feels the need to being the judge of all of Brett’s “suitors”. He expresses his likes and dislikes with everyone he meets in life, especially the ones connected to Brett (which seems to be almost everyone in his life), and makes it very clear if Brett should be hanging around them. (Well, he makes it clear to us. Jake isn’t one to voice his opinions much, he just sits back and watches, like a constant third wheeler.) This is apparent when Jake is talking to Robert Cohn, describing the gay men who enter the bar with Brett, and the drummer at the bar, who is one of Brett’s good friends. With all of these people connected to Brett, Jake has made it clear that he does not approve of their involvement with Brett, almost like an overprotective father. It can be inferred that Jake feels the need to father Brett, since he can’t be her love interest, he has to have some say in who can.

I’ve just found it very interesting how both Brett and Jake know that there is some loving connection between them. But, they also know (Brett is sure of it) that they can’t be intimate together, so they feel the need to fill this void with a different kind of love; a parental love. Brett “mothers” Jake because she feels that she is the reason for all the stress in his life (which is partly true), and Jake “fathers” Brett because, since he knows that it is not his time to be with her (maybe some time in the future it will all work out for him); he believes he should have a say in who does have the pleasure to be with the Lady Ashley Brett.