As I read The Price of Salt, I find myself unsure of what characters I’m supposed to sympathize with and of the main characters, I don’t really sympathize with or relate to any of them. I find Therese to be annoyingly submissive to almost every other person in her life. She isn’t straightforward with either Richard (to a certain point) or Carol about what she wants or doesn’t want from them. I also find very little to relate to in her love-at-first-sight type obsession with Carol. In general, I find such powerful immediate attractions hard to believe, and Therese’s exaggerated infatuation with Carol just makes it even more difficult.
As for Carol, her character frustrates me because I don’t understand her intentions regarding Therese. Unless she experienced a similar sort of instantaneous connection when she first saw Therese, the fact that she even pursued the friendship in the first place seems unusual to me. I have a nagging feeling that Carol has some hidden emotions or intentions driving her relationship with Therese. She simply doesn’t seem to be quite as fond of Therese as Therese is of her, and the fact that she seems to be aware of Therese’s strong affections and continues to encourage them without reciprocating them makes me suspicious of her.
Richard bothers me because he clings to Therese so relentlessly. Now that I’m writing this, I suppose I can sympathize with him a bit more than I originally thought: if he is truly in love with her, I can’t blame him for having a hard time letting go. The fact remains, however, that she has made it perfectly clear time after time that she doesn’t love him and will never love him, and the way he ignores this makes him seem a bit weak. She basically lead him on for their entire relationship and he just allowed it to happen.
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