The Last Letter From Your Lover

Ellie, as she tells herself on her 32nd birthday “is living the dream” (317). “Successful, single, selfish,” she has her own place, friends, a high-status job, and “a small car she can manage without male help” (317-18). Ellie is the ideal of female independence, especially in comparison with women from the 1960s. She seems powerful and free to pursue her own happiness. Yet she is beset by doubts. As she says, she sometimes “wakes up trying to remember whose dream she’s meant to be living” (318). The ideal and image of female freedom she has bought into since childhood, an ideal sold in glossy magazines, leaves her somehow unfulfilled.

What is the cause of this? On one level the problem is that the ideal is socially manufactured. It is not something she has truly chosen or created for herself but a path followed because she was told it would make her happy. She has not deeply questioned whether this generic dream or fantasy is her dream. Moreover, the superficial accruements of “independence” have not guaranteed her success in love. Indeed, it is Ellie’s inability to be truly independent in relation to John that is a key reason for the failure of their affair.

This can be seen on several occasions. In Chapter 16, John shows up late for a drink with Ellie and tells her that he is going on holiday with his wife for two weeks. She instantly forgives his lateness, after a compliment. Instead of using the holiday news as a chance to challenge John about his commitment to her, she admits to being jealous and then obsesses about John’s wife having sex with him. As she says, “this is where any self-respecting person pulls together the remnants of their self-respect […] and walks off” (308). Instead, Ellie decides to offer sex. Similarly, Ellie is treated badly on her birthday. John sends her a short and non-committal text message, which does not even make clear whether he can see her that evening. Then when she messages back to clarify, he responds by saying he “will call later if I think I can make it” (331). Once more, she happily and instantly sleeps with him when he finally shows up with champagne and flowers.

The basic problem is that she is scared to leave John. As Jennifer admits, “she’s afraid that if she asks for more, he’ll feel backed into a corner and the whole thing will crash down around them” (323). She does not have the strength, as Anthony did in one of his letters, to force him to choose. Furthermore, he knows this. All her behavior reinforces her emotional dependence on him. This is particularly true regarding the way she approaches sex. Ellie offers it John regardless of how he treats her, as a way, she hopes, of binding him closer to her and making the most of their limited time. For John, this behavior merely destroys any erotic mystery or aura she might possess and renders her as weak.

In contrast, another model of female independence is represented in the character of Jennifer. This is symbolized by her dangerous and solitary attempt to get to the Congo to find Anthony, a metaphor for her ability and willingness to make bold decisions and to risk being alone. She flies decisively away from one life with Laurence without any guarantee about the life on the other side. This is the kind of risk Ellie, at least at this stage, is prepared to take. Yet it shows that real independence does not rest on ownership of a car, a flat, or a well-paying job. Rather, it depends on the willingness to make a sacrifice, to reject social convention, reputation, and even friends, in pursuit of one’s individual path. Such sacrifice and risk is a pre-condition for genuine love.