Patty and Walter

I find that I do better in these posts when I focus on a specific scene. In this case, after Patty and Walter argue and she finds herself a job, and then he gets mad at her. He encourages her to get a job to break her out of her depression, but when she comes back with a job as a greeter, Walter is critical: "'Any job is better than no job, or, but, no, sorry, wait, the job that you actually want and are well qualified for is not better than no job'" (351). He doesn't want her doing work that he thinks is beneath her but that's an elitist attitude and Walter doesn't want to be elitist. I wish I had more examples but Walter consistently feels like a hypocrite to me. In this central example, the text says "Becoming a front-desk greeter at Republic of Health did for Patty's spirits everything Walter had hoped a job would do. Everything and, alas, more" (352). I know Patty was the depressed one, but apparently Walter can never be happy too. He is upset that she's wearing jeans and enjoying herself at work, he thinks she's doing it to "spite him" (353), which is a really messed up way to think about another person's happiness.

Walter seems aware that he and Patty are messed up. "She was giving it to everybody now, giving it indiscriminately, meaninglessly, to every member who walked off Wisconsin Avenue" (353). While this in reference for to her laughter, there is a weird sexual connotation to it: she's "giving it." They have a bad relationship. "Walter was frightened by the long-term toxicity they were creating with their fights" (354). They both spend their time together attacking each other and it's terrible. Lalitha and Richard aren't even really the problem. Richard is happy when he's freed of the two of them. Lalitha is almost too bright-eyed to care. Patty and Walter constantly butt heads because they are each other's problem. I don't know if I could say what Franzen is trying to say with this. That it's better to be single and "free?" Maybe he's a real believer in polyamory and this toxic relationship is his ode to the horror of monogamy. Maybe it's just interesting for the plot.