Lipton’s Journal/December 29, 1954/83
[Charles] Eitel and Elena [Esposito]—last chapter.[1] What comes out is that in the fight with the analyst what she was worried about was that Eitel was not going anywhere, and Eitel senses with the self-honesty which was the last virtue left him, that now there was nothing for him but to hold her back, that in her inarticulate way she was a radical, she went to the root of things—which was why he first had been drawn to her, why he needed her now (for without Elena he would lose his honesty) and it was also why he could never truly permit her to grow, for if she grew she could only grow away from him.
Note
- ↑ Charles Francis Eitel (I-tell is the pronunciation), the protagonist of The Deer Park, is a blacklisted film director, who names former communists to a congressional committee. Elena Esposito is his lover and later his wife. Their love affair is one of Mailer’s finest fictional creations. NM based her character on his wife Adele.
