The Last Flight

Content Warning: This section of the guide references domestic abuse and drug addiction.

Early on, the character of Claire Cook is defined by a single word: desperate. As a case study in The Effect of Domestic Abuse, Claire is driven to seek her freedom because the alternative—continuing to pretend to be happy—has become unbearable. On the surface, Claire has everything: a rich and influential husband, a posh home, the respect of the community. However, to her husband she is simply another possession, designed to look right and act right to support his career. Privately, she lives in a state of constant anxiety.

Claire initially tries to flee her marriage but eventually comes to understand that a woman cannot challenge the authority, the reputation, and the power of a man without accepting dire consequences. As the CNN anchor tells Claire as she is about to go public with what she knows about her powerful husband, “People are going to […] [s]ay hateful things about you and to you, in a very public way” (252). That Claire accepts this reality marks her evolution as a character. Her overly elaborate strategy of evasion and escape does not work: Her husband proves too controlling, too omnipresent.