Quarter 3 Blog 2

While reading Life Class, a theme that has caught my attention was jealousy. For example, the character Paul is caught feeling jealous of his new friend Kit, who can paint in a way that Paul could only dream of. When invited to Kit’s house, where he lives with his parents, Paul’s own envy swells. At the sight of Kit’s lavish house, his luxurious lifestyle, Paul’s anger reaches its peak “So this maturity of vision in a man whom he found distinctly childish in many respects bewildered him. Living at home, spoiled, self-pitying, moaning on because his mother doesn’t pay him enough attention-for God’s sake! The work and the man seemed to bear no relation to each other” (Barker 53). Here Paul’s own incompetence is rubbed in his face by a rival he doesn’t consider worthy. The blow to his pride is great, and so to retaliate, he contents himself with shallow insults and wallows in self pity. Later, Paul gets tangled up in the jealousy of an ex-husband who still loves his wife. Teresa, whom Paul has been dating for some time now, has an ex-husband, Halliday, who stalks her every move, and now that she is with Paul, is wildly jealous. Instead of stalking Teresa, Halliday takes a day to follow Paul around and confront him about his affair with Teresa “For a moment Halliday’s grin disappeared in a blaze of misery. Almost immediately, he was smirking again. Paul could have understood anger, but despite Halliday’s words what he saw in his face was not anger but a kind of jeering complicity. He seemed more like a pimp than an outraged husband” (Barker 80). Halliday’s refusal to let go of his relationship with Teresa, combined with his stalking behavior, leads the reader to feel that Halliday is merely jealous of Teresa’s new life.