I have literally been thinking about this post for three years. In my “drafts” note area, I wrote: “That’s IT? She dumps him like THAT? Maybe two people were wrong that day.”
Three years later, I think how little we knew of Don then; his romance with Rachel was beautiful, and seemed real. It fooled me. For a while, it fooled her. We know Don better now. He loved Rachel and believed himself devoted to her, but what she saw in November of 1960 was what we’ve seen in the seasons since: Don runs from himself, indiscriminately, and women are the carnage left behind.
To phrase it that way is cruel; as cruel as Rachel was to kick him out. Don really did love her, and really believed he would be devoted to her. In his way, Don always tries to do right. I love Don Draper; you all know that.
It’s hard for me to imagine being in love with someone and then ending it the first time they do something really wrong. Essentially, that’s what happened: As far as we can tell, in their brief romance, Don was never anything but wonderful to Rachel until he comes to her in a panic and is totally inappropriate. Imagining myself the girlfriend, I think I’d say, “Go home, calm down, let’s talk about this later.” Or even, “You’re freaking me out, you’re behaving in a crazy way, I’m not playing along. Call me tomorrow.” But Rachel didn’t do that; she said, “This is wrong, I’m done.” And honestly, that blew my mind. I couldn’t believe she did that, and, with all the sympathy I had for Don, I condemned her, even knowing he was the one in the wrong.
But the thing is, Rachel was looking for a reason to get out. She had a clear moral trajectory; she was her own person, strong and independent, and also ethical and good. She wanted to do right. She wanted her own life, outside the bounds of traditional femininity, but she was also a dutiful daughter and a basically decent human being.
And yet, she was having an affair with a married man.
I think that Don woke her up to the core wrongness of their relationship. She could pretend to justify it to herself as long as she saw Don as good, and reasonable, and planning for the future just as she was. The minute he burst that bubble, the rest of it came apart. If Don wasn’t planning for a future with her, if he was just running, then there was no relationship and never had been.
It’s a radical decision. It must have been agonizing for her. I don’t know that I could do that. I’d talk it out, over and over, and have four more scenes like that one first. I have no gift for the clean kill. But it was the right thing to do.
I agree, an interesting topic, although by Season Five her choice surely does makes a whole lot more sense now that we’ve seen how irredeemable Don really is. Not intentionally (usually), but hopeless nonetheless. I always thought it was his wanting to abandon his children that turned her off so completely. She was fundamentally a nice (if sophisticated and complex) Jewish girl and that moment revealed to her (very abruptly) just how vast the gulf was between them and how wrong it was to be playing love games with a guy she could never really understand or respect (and whom her father would never understand or respect, either). They had their fling and she saw it for what it was, nothing more, and best to cut and run. I so admired her for that. He didn’t deserve her. One thing for Don though – he knows it, too. I just hope Mr Katz is hot in the bedroom!
I’ve always liked discussing the nature of these two together. I believe and understand your reaction, mostly.
But I’m interested in what made you believe Don “loved Rachel and believed himself devoted to her.”
I didn’t get that impression or feel quite that intensity, for lack of a better term at the moment, the first time around, and I’ve re-watched closely (though not recently) and I still don’t remember a scene or a line that tries to convey this connection.
Tell us how you got there.
Okay. Because he was honest with her. Because he told her he was married as soon as they kissed, and didn’t lead her on. Because he told her he wanted to marry her–somehow–and then he followed through on that–in his own dysfunctional way–the day he asked her to run away with him; he might easily have run away by himself but did not. Because he told her about his true parentage. Because when he was terrified he went to her, and trusted her enough to do that.
To me, those look mostly like indications Rachel might have that could lead her to believe Don’s in love and devoted to her.
But as the viewer we know better. We know not to trust him to hold to a traditional romantic concept of love, specifically, after the “sell stockings” dialogue (the cynicism isn’t entirely gender-posturing, it’s on-the-job training!) and then the revelation of Betty.
And anyway, I’d contend from the beginning of their relationship he’s not honest with Rachel.
He lets her flirt right to the roof top, let’s her open up about her childhood, tell the german shepherd story and then kisses her all without ever hinting he’s not exactly available for the traditional love relationship. He’s got a wife, kids and a girlfriend. That’s sure to spread the devotion thinly.
I think it’s more like Don really needed Rachel (after Roger’s “For Whom The Mirabelle Tolls” episode, and if Midge were still an option I’m pretty sure he never even thinks of going to Rachel’s apartment) and believed he would come to love and be devoted to her. He needs all the women we subsequently see him with, no doubt. It’s that fear of death thing. It’s medication. I truly suspect Don’s idea of romantic love is different from the accepted norm.
I think I have to go with Deborah on this one. I always thought Rachel was different from his other women — or at least, the way Don behaved with her was slightly different. Just certain incidental things he did with her, that he didn’t do with his other women. Looking back, it may not have been love, but she certainly had an effect on him that the other women in his life didn’t have.
For one, he literally fell apart nearly every time he was close to her or she was on his mind: the cufflinks, the disappearance from Sally’s party, the spilled drink on his tie, the car crash, etc. Yes, he had break-downs with other women, but usually it was because he got caught, not because he felt they “could see right through” him, as he even confessed to her — that is, she precipitated his breakdowns, whereas the other women seemed to catch him after the fact. There was one instance where he even admitted that he didn’t know what he was doing when talking to her. When has Don ever been unsure about his actions? Or, rather, when has he ever copped to it?
Then there’s his punctuality. Have you all noticed that Don is always the last one to enter a meeting? He thinks nothing about keeping people waiting — he’s never where he’s supposed to be. Everyone’s always sitting around the table, looking for him. Seriously. You could create a drinking game using the phrase “Where’s Don?” or “Has anyone seen Draper?” When he had meetings with Rachel, on the other hand, not only was he on time, he was usually early. After that first disastrous meeting, he seemed to have made a conscientious effort to be there waiting for her.
And then there’s the smoking. We haven’t seen every sexual encounter he’s had with every one of his women, but we’ve seen enough to get an idea of his…proclivities. Usually, the sex is followed by a cigarette or him just rolling over and falling asleep. Not so with Rachel — at least, not that we saw. I think there were even some non-sexual occasions where he declined a smoke in front of her.
It’s also interesting that Rachel has been the only woman other than Betty to kick him out of her life. With the others, he kind of left on his own accord. She was the first person to really question Don, and had no bones about calling him on his $#!+, or making him re-think some of his nonsense.
Surely all that’s supposed to have meant something?
Agree, agree, agree, hulla.
Something else: Don plays a kind of mental three-card-monty with almost everyone he meets, women and men. Yet he responded to each of his first two physical encounters with Rachel (first kiss, and first … well) by blurting out a critical piece of personal information.
The first: “I’m married.” The second was (for crying out loud) his origin story: the first part of the story that he would do anything to keep hidden from the world and everyone in it.
This is not how a person behaves when he’s in his everyday suit of con-man-out-to-keep-the-story-running. This is how that man behaves when he is in love.
I liked seeing that. i really did. And I miss Rachel to this day.
Well, respectfully hullaballoo, I think that may be over-reading the circumstances in a certain way to fit a certain narrative. Though, coincidently, to an extent, I think this is Rachel and Don’s tendency also.
To expound:
Of course it all means something. She’s different, a bit exotic. She rattles his self-image cage a bit. I just don’t think it necessarily means that Don “loved” Rachel. Or that she “loved” him.
(I break out the scare quotes to emphasize that the word is crammed full of centuries’ worth of mostly sincere but often ambiguous and conflicting definitional baggage.)
rl1856 downthread alludes to dreams. I think that’s the right track. But to me it’s more similiar to self-deceptions.
Rachel and Don are both deluding themselves with a belief that there’s some magical enduring feeling of “love” out there that they need to possess.
Rachel is acting out a traditional cultural narrative along the lines of the fairytale princess. She has power and privilege within her father’s, the king’s, palace, but she feels she should want something more; something more true, something eternal, something more than material comfort. It’s hinted to her that this thing she should want must be “love”. Sages and prophets across space and time have told her this is what she’s missing. And “love” will be personified in the form of the handsome, capable, tragic White Knight (with matching cufflinks!) who will rescue her from this feeling of want. So along comes Donald, she casts him in the lead role and off to Romance they ride, for a few months.
Intellectually she knows this is ridiculous. She knows a practical part of the knight’s tragic nature is that he’s married. She knows this relationship probably ends badly, for someone, eventually. (She just isn’t the one to say it.) Yet she has this “feeling” when he’s near or on her mind, and she’s encouraged to indulge the belief that this feeling is different from all others and that it is what she is missing.
Concurrently Don, neglected and orphaned, exists in an environment that suggests to him that he can be the handsome, capable, tragic, White Knight. (If he has the right name, degree of melanin, and upbringing.) He attains the privelege of power and the possession of many, many material things. Yet perversely, he is also encouraged to hold the belief that something is missing, something non-material, something more, something eternal. Physical pleasures are nice but grossly insufficient, Donald (How can you not be happy with all this?) – you must want “love” – you must find “love”. Thus Don is confined to a dispiriting cycle of wanting new things, getting them, and then desiring what he once (thought he) had.
Thus, Rachel projects the shining armor onto Don until he distressingly displays he’s just a flawed human being. She understandably freaks. And Don wants Rachel, sees her as different and new, this year’s model, and at a very desperate moment he needs to hot-wire and drive her to California.
My apologies for winging my way through this at lunch, time was short. But I don’t want my attempted glibness to detract from what was I wanted my main point to be –
Don and Rachel have varying, confusing definitions of “love”. Rachel’s probably appears more “normal”. Don’s appears more sociopathic. Both are cobbled together and enculturated by the patriarchal structure of society. Neither of them by any of their definitions was in “love” with the other.
Oops! Left out a footnote (of sorts) above –
And who exactly creates the want?
Don wanting what he can’t have, what he doesn’t yet have, what he lost, what he thinks he might lose…but being bored to death with what’s securely in his pocket…yep, that makes way too much sense. Would he ever have considered leaving Betty for Rachel if he hadn’t freaked out about Pete intercepting the box? Probably not, and in that moment, Rachel realizes that. Not about the box, which she doesn’t know about, but that this is the only way he’ll ever leave his marriage: in abject terror, running away from life.
“Then there’s his punctuality. Have you all noticed that Don is always the last one to enter a meeting? He thinks nothing about keeping people waiting — he’s never where he’s supposed to be. Everyone’s always sitting around the table, looking for him. Seriously. You could create a drinking game using the phrase “Where’s Don?” or “Has anyone seen Draper?” When he had meetings with Rachel, on the other hand, not only was he on time, he was usually early.”
This is a fantastic observation.
Really, that’s some kind of chutzpa discussing my eldest daughter like that. Only her sister, Barbara, me and her beloved husband, Tilden are entitled to make such comments. And, by the way, I haven’t seen any comments from Tilden on this subject. Perhaps his cruise ship lacks wifi.
And you can tell Don that I’ve given all of Menken’s ad budget to Ted’s agency.
Abe ( not to be confused with Peggy’s beau ).
Uh, Abe? Isn’t she your *youngest* daughter? I mean, her mom/your wife died while giving birth to her, right? I mean, that’s one of the things that sealed Don’s attraction to her, no?
When she angrily denounces him, doesn’t she make a reference to his walking away from family? (It’s been years since I’ve seen this episode.) It may well be that her own sense of family is so strong, she is horrified by his readiness just to walk away quickly from his own.
When I was a young romantic, I didn’t understand the importance of this. After a few life experiences I realized it was a critical barometer of someone’s heart: How did they treat their family?
For all that, I miss Maggie Siff and always hoped she’d be brought back to the show. Seeing her as a biker babe in “Sons of Anarchy” was just too much to take.
Yes, she asks about his children immediately.
sometimes on this blog, i swear, the love people have for don blinds them to the fact that he’s a massive knob!
Faye really had him pegged with her bitter last lines.
Would you still feel that love for Don if he looked like James Gandolfini?
Sure, I loved Tony Soprano, too. Bald, fat, I didn’t care. Great actors make you love them, no matter how flawed their characters.
You mean, “He only likes the beginnings of things.”? That’s a hell of a line, that one.
Don – boy does he hold up a mirror to the human condition.
His weaknesses, his strengths, his cover up, his boyhood, etc…we envy his life, yet we also see the tragedy in it – thats why he is a ‘massive knob’ and curiously one we care about!
Interesting take on Rachel.
The first time I saw Rachel M (from S1 was when I started watching), I couldn’t sympathise with her – I saw her as a ‘home wrecker’. She knows this guy is married with kids (after he tells her and she keeps going), and she probably evens knows that she deserves to be with a man who will be there for her and no one else (ex. not married. in relationship). And Rachel did deserve someone to love her – she shouldn’t have tried to settle for sharing Don, even if she thought she could steal him away from his family.
Not to say that Rachel is the only one at fault….there’s plenty for Don (Mr. Married in Ossining).
“I saw her as a ‘home wrecker’. ”
I see the opposite.
I just watched The Long Weekend, where Don runs to Rachel after Roger’s heart attack. He pressed her and pressed her. She was reluctant, until her sympathies and maternal instinct to comfort him made her give in.
At the end of S4 when Don says to Betty “I won’t let you break up this family,” Betty truthfully replies
“_I_ didn’t break up this family.”
Don’s #1 fan here. Less of me (your name is so perfect), I’m with you on the halfway thing. DD has (had) with Betty the ultra-stifling, with a dull partner conventional marriage. With Rachel he would have not just a wife, but a formidable consort.
He was ready to go with her, and had he not presented it in such a weenie, offensive way it definitely would’ve happened. Rachel comes from money, is educated, poised like Betts. Unlike Betts, she is ultra confident, independent, and possessor of a sense of humor. Even if she’s the ‘wrong’ religion in Don’s world, he couldn’t have cared less. Wonder why this wasn’t contemplated more by Don. She did, in those conversations with her sister. (Rebecca Creskoff, oh my Gawd, yum.) Funny how DD is forward thinking in terms of race, but not gender (his numerous eviscerations of Beloved Pegs), or youth (Namath, Ali, etc.).
Betty forces him to be the square-jawed husband to the little woman. In social situations she blinds with that gorgeous mug, coy smile of hello on cue, and ‘they’ are dazzled. Her duty done, she will stay quiet and be seen, as children are. While the adults ( read: men) engage in conversation. Ms. Menken would delight Dick Whitman, by letting him feel ‘like I always wanted to feel’, Don said that to the wrong girl. She would easily navigate through the self-important business parlance of the men with aplomb, and elegant wit.
DW would be beaming with pride. A woman who sees through his bullshit, but is still smitten.
If Rachel were not an only child, and had an older brother who would be seen as the inevitable caretaker of the family biz, you know she’d be cajoling, pleading, INSISTING, that she have her place at the table.
I’d like to think that that is how Don saw it, and that he genuinely fell in love. Makes it that much sadder. Rachel quick killed (Deb, you’re the best) The One, and moved on to marry a well-meaning schlub, who is the correct choice for a spouse, but not the one that makes you shake in your sleep. Victor Laszlo over Richard Blaine.
Obtw; no way Dr. Tilden Katz can hold a candle to my boy-o in bed. Puh-lease. This is Don Draper we talkin bout here.
Pretty boys aren’t necessarily much in the sack, actually, Tilden. Don’t sell yourself short.
You know I really don’t believe that Don is probably that good in bed. You know he’s the type that comes first and rolls off to sleep, and rarely thinks about his partner – unless he’s giving her money. ugh
You’re not paying attention! Don’s magic dick has Betty admitting to him in season one that it’s all she thinks about, and after they’ve long split up she’s still freshening up her makeup in Tomorrowland, it has Bobbie Barrett wanting to try him out, and then blurting out to him that he has a well-deserved reputation (big mistake, Don is secretive), it has Faye forgetting about her Chinese Wall and giving him a lead on the Heinz account. Rachel melted and said, “Yes, please.” Midge could take it or leave it, though.
Betty had all the qualities you mention (smart, self-possesed, interesting, sense of humor) when Don married her. She was ground down after 10 years of being manipulated and screwed around on and lied to, with the cherry on top being the identity theft.
However, I don’t think Rachel would have put up with anywhere near the amount of crap that Don gave Betty. Rachel, from what we see, was not psychologically abused as a child the way Betty was, and wasn’t trained to believe that her looks (and what men thought of them) were the most important thing about her. I think Rachel would have smelled Midge on him in two seconds and called him on it, and she’d have walked out of Dr. Wayne’s office after the first ten minutes of him not saying a word to her.
Not to mention that Rachel would never have married Don in the first place without asking very specific questions about his background. It took Betty a decade to recognize what a “very, very gifted storyteller” Don was; Rachel’s bullshit detector went off in about one-twentieth of that time. And instead of using “my wife is a boring suburban gossip-mommy and she doesn’t understand me” excuse when bedding mistresses, he’d have gone the opposite way, into, “My wife is an emasculating battleaxe and she doesn’t understand me.”
I see Rachael’s ending of the relationship as her suddenly waking up from a dream. She understood that there was surreality about their affair and that was part of the appeal. He was “wrong” for her in as many ways as she was for him. Their courting and eventual falling into each other’s arms was an emotional dreamlike event for both of them. His arriving at her office, unannounced, acting like he had been touched by death and ready to walk away from his family, shocked Rachael back to reality. Family is very important and in the context of her character was essentially a make or break issue for her. At that time and in that place, Jewish people- however well educated and successful- were still a tribal people and viewed life through the prism of the tribal family.**** DD’s willingness to dump his family at the first sign of trouble was so alien to her way of thinking. She knew then and there that she never would have a real future with DD and this sudden realization is what caused her to throw him out.
****not a slight, just an insight gained from growing up in this world.
Betty did break up the family. Don was perfectly willing to stay in a loveless, soul-crushing, bitter, joke of a marriage for the sake of keeping up the square jaw image of the dutiful provider. The sake of the children as well, of course. What a guy! Betty chose her own happiness over stiff upper lip duty.
Selfish bee-otch.
You are being sarcastic, aren’t you?
Don made the marriage a loveless, soul-crushing, bitter joke.
Our hero, Don, came home after the kids were in bed, slept around, stayed over in the city nights, didn’t bother to call to say he wasn’t coming home, told her he was with Conrad Hilton when he was shtupping the teacher a few blocks away, lied, lied, lied…gaslighted Betty until her hands went numb,.. while she tried to hold it together alone.
What a dad!
I don’t see either Don or Betty as either blameless or deserving of all the blame in the end of that marriage. I think in every relationship (intimate ones most of all), we tend to see what we want to see, and find what we’re looking for.
If Don had wanted a relationship of equals, based on mutual honesty and respect, he would have had that with Betty. If Betty had wanted to grow up, to become someone that not just strangers but her loved ones would admire, she would have done that with Don.
It’s not as though either of these people hasn’t had plenty of other choices.
Wow, I love Don but come on! He’s a hero because he was “willing to stay in a loveless, soul-crushing, bitter, joke of a marriage”? Please, that marriage was toxic for both of them as well as the kids and she had the balls to do what needed to be done. She’s no saint, and I think she went ahead with the divorce for the wrong reason but it was still the right thing to do.
Don wanted a mannequin family that he can pull out whenever he needs to, without the pressure of dealing with them as people and you just cannot treat people in that way and expect them to stick around. Betty just plain cannot be happy with everyone because she is broken inside.
Could the Season 5 Official poster of Don seeing his reflection in the store window with the faceless mannequins possibly take place in front of Menken’s Department Store as he ruminates on losing Rachel, the woman he fell in love with so long ago?
Maybe, but I doubt it. Posters/promotional photos often are not from the show itself. Although I would love to see a scene of Megan and Sally in Menken’s Department Store.
jzzy55 unfortunately I’m kind of decent looking, (he says, while breaking his arm patting himself on the back), so I hope its never assumed that I’m a dud. Wink. Don, as Bobbie Barrett said, has a rep. Nuff said.
Dr. Faye’s line was the 2nd best. line of S4 after Yodabert’s “She was born in a barn, and died in a skyscraper. She’s an astronaut”. Perfection.
Hmmm. I might revise my comment after rewatching NvK, but doesn’t Rachel say, at first, “Okay, let’s go away this weekend, then?” or something like that? And then, doesn’t Don come back with something like, “No, we have to leave right now and move to Los Angeles,” and then won’t tell her why? And then, when she asks about his children, he mumbles something about sending them checks? Yeah, that would scare the living pants off me, if a guy I was involved with did that. At least he has to frigging tell me what the hell the emergency is, that we have to blow town right now and never come back. That’s what freaked Rachel out. He wouldn’t tell her, and he was never going to.
Back after a long time away and Deborah is posting about one of my favorite subjects (and rather appropriately for Leap Year, considering that Rachel is no shrinking violet!) It’s been quite a while since I watched any of the relevant episodes, so I may be talking through my hat, but as a Jewish woman with a long-time hankering for various shkotzim, it seems to me Don and Rachel are basically the classic story of people longing for a dream (I very much agree with rl1856 here.) She wanted the handsome seemingly unassailable symbol of assimilation into the mainstream and he wanted the ancient wisdom of an exotic forbidden culture and…if you ask me, he saw Rachel also as very much a mother figure.
I do believe they cared for each other, but I think there was so much yearning on both their parts for something unattainable that they weren’t really seeing each other clearly. How I wish they could have been happy together, but I don’t believe they could. Hm, I think rl1856 has already said everything I’m trying to say and much more succinctly! I agree with Deborah that as painful as it was for her, Rachel did the right thing for both of them.
I’m so excited that season 5 is almost here and I can read all your wonderful posts again!
Rachel was way more infatuated, than in love. It was too soon. Don wasn’t HER man, so cutting the chord was easy. If I may go out on some rather thin limbs, I say Don would’ve revealed the secret to Rachel soone, rather than later, consequences be damned. She is an adult and his feeling for her was substantial enough that she could be trusted to absorb, analyze, digest that sordid mess. She could dump him flat on his ass, or be amazed that someone is in love enough with her to be open about something so repellant. Or most likely something in the grey area.
For those who Think Young is ammunition for the DD bashers, regarding his lack of whoomph, or selfishness in bed. Dying that ugly death in the Savoy, while Jackie O (Jackie K) showed off her rent free house. Anyone care to name a deeply important reason to marry Betty Hofstadt? Besides the obvious? Or is mama Francis correct in her declaration? Does not mean I condone what Don did, or that Betts or anyone else could possibly be deserving of it.
I await the DD detractors impatiently.
I suspect that Don is actually good in bed. Betty told her evil psychiatrist that Don sometimes does things that please her, but sometimes she realizes he does things that please someone else. That’s a terrible feeling for a woman to have. OTOH, he’s focusing on the woman’s pleasure, in a day and age when that wasn’t usual; pre Hite Report, pre Masters & Johnson. He’s interested in trying different things, and his basic curiosity and excitement about exploring probably come into play. Betty certainly relished their sex life even when everything else was terrible. (Lack of performance when you first start on phenobarbital is not unusual.)
But that doesn’t make him a good husband. There’s no question that he was a terrible husband. Terrible. Dishonest, manipulative, dismissive, withholding, a gaslighter, prone to unexplained disappearances, unreliable: All of this is, to my mind, WORSE than the constant adultery.
In Betty, he married someone who would tolerate it. Betty’s fragility and neediness made him feel heroic, sure, but she also never demanded good treatment. They were both satisfied to build a marriage based on appearances. Eventually, Betty ends up with numb hands, a growing anger, and a drinking problem. Good thing she kicked him out when she did.
Loved the gaslighting article:
“It’s a whole lot easier to emotionally manipulate someone who has been conditioned by our society to accept it. ”
“In Betty, he married someone who would tolerate it. Betty’s fragility and neediness made him feel heroic, sure, but she also never demanded good treatment. ”
We are looking at Betty through 2012 eyes. Remember, this story is about the 1960s. 50 YEARS AGO.
Those of us who were there, know how few options women had at that time. Peggy was an anomaly in her day. Even if your family had money– or especially if your family had money– you were expected to marry, have children, and make your husband happy. A college education wasn’t so much career preparation as a sort of “finishing school” and an opportunity to meet eligible men.
Remember what the divorce lawyer told her– in New York State in the 60s she had no rights. If she ‘demanded good treatment’ she could be out on her ear with no money, no home, no kids.
What was Betty supposed to do? pack up the kids and move back in with Dad? The neighbor ladies’ reaction to the scandalous divorcee Helen Bishop was quite typical. The only way Betty could respectably extricate herself was to find another, very presentable, man.
P.S. Even Mona, who was a pretty strong woman, had to hold Roger’s adulterous feet to the fire to get a good settlement when he decided to divorce her after 25 years of putting up with his rotten behavior.
Ruthie, I specifically mean she didn’t demand good treatment while they were courting. This is a thread about Rachel, remember. Roberta said years ago, Rachel wouldn’t have stood for Don’s evasiveness; had they both been single, the relationship wouldn’t have lasted much longer than it did.
Yeah, as much of a nightmare as Betty has turned into, imagine how much worse she would be without Henry. It’s one of those warped things that she was (mostly) a good wife for a bad husband, and (mostly) a bad wife for a good husband, but I have to wonder what would have happened if she’d met Henry first and had kids with him instead of Don. Her rage seems to come mostly from the fact that she can’t tell a soul why her marriage broke up, not without wreaking even more havoc than she already has; if she really wanted to mess things up for Don and the kids, she certainly could. And I think she’s every bit as pissed at herself for being fooled as she is at Don.
I think that analysis is interesting, as far as it goes, but her rage is deep, and comes from parents who treated her much as she treats her own children. Betty was insulted and dismissed at worst, petted and indulged at best, but never regarded. How else could she be so damaged as to marry someone who was already lying to her and withholding basic information from her?
Her mom might have been harsh, and her dad doting, but Betty might have fallen for Don, even having had a wonderful childhood. He’s charming, handsome, ambitious, witty and a really good liar.
To be fair, I don’t think we can blame Betty (or her upbringing) for her “falling for Don” when we’ve seen so many other women do it–again and again and again. Even Rachel. Even Midge (she only fell for Roy after Don got mad at her for calling him at work, and I think that hurt her feelings.) Even Faye. Even Suzanne. Especially Megan. It is possible even Anna and Peggy–though not sexually. Anna and Peggy never had Don want to make love to them, but they certainly did Don massive favors. Joan made a comment–wondering why Don had never seemed interested in her. And tons of the audience have “fallen” for Don over and over.
All these women have different backgrounds, different parenting, and different back stories. Megan seems to have a very different relationship with her mother than Betty had with hers, and that did not stop Megan from accepting Don’s proposal. Arguably there are even more red flags for Megan to see than Betty.
Rachel was lucky enough to be older than Betty was at the time Don proposed, to have a family that hasn’t pressured her to leap at marriage, to have a career she really seems to enjoy, and to have the opportunity to see Don’s dark side before it’s too late. She was trained into a business. She did not grow up with a silver spoon in her mouth, she knew her father had worked hard and smart and he raised her to work hard and smart. She had lots of practice with negotiating, and trying to determine what was a smart deal and what wasn’t.
Betty was not aware of Don abandoning any children, ditching a wife, living a lie and leaving his past behind when he proposed. Rachel was. And she’s old enough and wise enough and was raised with enough values to know “that is a huge red flag.”
Also–if Rachel had left, what would have happened in her relationship with her father? Her father was not like Don’s (even if her mother died like Don’s) and she had feelings of attachment for him. What would have happened to her job? What would she have done? She likes New York. She could have lost her independence and if her father had FREAKED about her running away with a married man with kids who wasn’t Jewish, she could have found herself disowned, without a job, without access to the family money, and possibly losing her friends, culture, and way of life.
Was Don even thinking about how Rachel’s life could change if she ran away with him? Was he thinking of her at all? Not in the slightest.
She was also aware that–on some level–Don’s sudden desire to run away from his life wasn’t really about his love for Rachel. How could she tell it wasn’t about her? Because he “had to leave now” and wouldn’t tell her why. He turned down her suggestion for a weekend away. There was something ELSE going on that he was panicing about, and he was not opening up about it to Rachel. We the audience know that Pete is trying to blackmail Don about his lies, but Rachel does NOT know that. But she’s smart enough to see he’s freaked out about something.
I have always thought that Rachel was good for Don and really got to Don, but Don would have been horrible for Rachel as a long-term partner and it would not have lasted.
Twice I have been dating people who were smart, fun, witty, engaging, and I really fell for them. In each of those situations, eventually the guy did something that was “not good” (be a total jerk in a dealbreaker sort of way). In both situations, I broke up the the guy. But in each situation it took TIME to actually be able to see it. Time to see past the charming act. Time to to observe their ACTIONS instead of just listening to words. And it was hard to accept they were being jerks when I so badly wanted them to stay perfect they way I thought they wre. And the fact that my HEAD knew the guy had just crossed a line did not mean that I suddenly stopped caring for or missing the fun guy I had spend most of my time with. It was horrible, because I couldn’t just turn all my feelings off.
I think people who are jerks all the time to everybody are easy to spot, and as a result, they are not so dangerous. Don is the most dangerous kind–the kind that does have really fascinating things going on, who can be interesting or kind in moments, who does have a soul that can be very intriguing. He does share tiny bits of himself, and those tiny bits are special, flattering, and fascinating to the people he shares them with. But he never shares enough of his whole self, and that makes him dangerous because he has fairly terrible demons.
When you marry someone (or run off with someone) you have to deal with the whole package, including all the demons they do their best to hide from you early in a relationship.
Rachel dodged a bullet.
Now, Betty may have messed up in staying with Don as long as she did–after she started to see all the “not perfect” things. But it is easier to leave when you have maintained your independence and do not share children, and it is hard to leave after you have given up indepenence and you do share children. And she did finally leave.
Excellent analysis, Lady K.
Don is a hero, for the simple fact that he came up from the lowest depths of poverty to become a wealthy man. From my twisted perspective this makes him better than anyone who is to the manor born, and just coasts. Like Connie Hilton said; “You understand” (Don). He has suffered big time, and it helps him identify with the underdog, like Beloved Pegs. DD is not beyond redemption.
That’s part of the storyline — is he a hero, or a cad, because every time he pulled himself up another rung, he did it by telling a VERY big lie. Killing off DIck Whitman. Big Lie #1. Becoming Don Draper. Big Lie #2. Telling Roger that he’d promised Don a job (PUI?). Big Lie #3. His Horatio Alger stunts are on the backs of huge lies. That’s not heroic. Or is it….what weird twists on the American Dream. Why MM is a great show.
Of course Don’s heroic. The American Dream is a big lie, so you have to lie to achieve it. That’s Mad Men.
Rachel’s complete dismissal made perfect sense to me, even if it was so complete and sudden! I think that was the first moment she saw Don for what he truly was, as opposed to what she imagined him to be. Remember “What kind of man are you?”, at least I think that was how she phrased it. time to run a marathon before the premiere
Of course I’m being sarcastic. I said Don is a hero because against steep odds he made the American Dream come true. That he lied to get there– I am unconcerned. That makes him the same as what 70-80% of the top 1%?. Remember Balzac and great fortunes. I file it under Don doing what he had to do to make it happen. This is America, you condemn a man and you have to prove it in court. No one who actually can has not been willing to prove it, therefore DD is innocent—-or rather, not guilty.
Gaslighting is a term full of mendacity. Don was not out to destroy his child bride, he only wanted her to not catch him another woman. Simple as that. That he had to create ruses that ran the gamut from crude to elaborate was meant for only that purpose. Really, Don was TRYING to make her nuts? Come on! That was the fallout of his actions. Doesn’t absolve him. Doesn’t make him a Machiavellian monster either.
I’m returning the applause tilden katz, in all sincerity. I’ve bristled about ‘gaslighting’ since the term was first invoked here but have declined until now to enter the fray.
This is a pragmatic, very reasonable explanation and defense. Bravo.
Devoted husband or Machiavellian monster? Decorated war hero or mutinous fraud? Jackie or Marilyn?Choose a side. The rigid dichotomy hurts everyone. . . (or hurts no one?)
From personal knowledge I don’t agree that behind every great fortune is a great crime. I actually had a rags to riches uncle who led a squeaky clean life. When the governor needed someone as a place marker until a state agency could be cleaned up, my uncle was the man he turned to. Was he tough? You bet. Corrupt and a criminal? No.
We’ll never know if Don could have become what he has if he hadn’t lied, repeatedly. Neither does he. And that torments him.
Don was trying to get Betty to think she was imagining things when he was sneaking around behind her back, or when Roger was coming on to her. That’s where “gaslighting” comes from. Different ulterior motivation from the movie — he’s not trying to steal from her — but the objective is the same: to get the other person to believe she can’t trust her own reality, that she’s not a reliable witness to her own experience. Maybe it wasn’t conscious intent, but that’s what he wanted the result to be.
less of me, this is you winging it? Holy crap! That was scary good. I sit back and applaud in awe.
less of me your analysis reached the level of prose, Big League stuff. I cannot keep pace, but Lord knows I’m trying. The urge to put things in neat little boxes is necessary when trying to make sense of the moral haze that we deal with in our lives, and by extension our favorite morality plays. Don leaves much to chew on. Its the grey area exploration which makes MM rise to heights. No pat expanations. Sometimes no explanation at all. Only Sith Lords deal in absolutes ( oh oh, Star Wars geek in me coming out. Must….pull it…….back…..IN……..).
Forgot to bring up how DD had Faye singing a song of mercy in Chinese Wall. She didn’t sound unsatisfied to me. My boy-o.
jzzy55 I commend your uncle on a seemingly life well lived. However, to my limited experience he stands as the exception to the ruling class. Robber barons are so-called for a reason. Even the fortunes of today have a narrative of the barons stepping over a few carcasses, with specious grabs, and contentious disputes along the road to riches (perdition). A certain social network comes to mind, for example.
At the end of the day, hardly anyone cares how the cow is slaughtered, just bring home the bacon. Um….I meant, whatever. Years of working on the stock exchange floor, growing up in the ultimate drug den of Washington Heights, and watching Godfather movies have colored my view of America. The land grab is ALWAYS on. It doesn’t matter how you get it, just make sure you ain’t standing when the music stops. Bleak? Cynical?
Tilden, you’re not the only one who thinks this way and I agree there’s a lot of truth to it. Robert Altman’s “McCabe and Mrs MIller” (1971) was a brilliant movie busting the mythology of the West wide open. Forget about the pioneers — it was the rapacious bastards who settled the West. Now of course we have Deadwood and the one about the railroads to make that point, but “McC and Mrs M” was ground breaking for its point of view at the time.
My uncle was unusual. He also was the driving force behind the founding of a community college because he believed there was a need for non-traditional students to have the chance to go to college (people like himself, I expect). He was a real visionary. Of course, some people were mad at him for finding a way to turn a golf course into a college park. I’m sure he twisted some arms to make that happen — but his goal was something worthwhile for all, not personal gain.
……….not to me. Reality.
This is about Rachel. As usual I’m going off course like a paper plane, on a tangent. The Rachel infatuation, is the only one that left you wistful amongst Don’qs paramours. The powerful scent, mist, of what might have been is stronger than the actual relationship.
Maybe, Don would’ve opened up. Maybe Rachel could’ve gotten over the guilt of being the other woman, even if she ultimately would’ ve become the wife. Maybe Dick Whitman could’ ve been happy, and free to be himself. Perhaps. A relationship that has us fans hearing Babs Streisand humming the first bars of a certain song. To quote the great Dandy Don Meredith: If, if and buts, were candy nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas.
Upon further reflection, maybe to DD, Rachael represents the one who got away. It was clear deep into the following season that he still cared for her. He subsequently has not given any other women he slept with a second thought. Yet on 3 distinct occasions during S2, he is visiblely moved by her memory. One wonders what would happen if a newly single Rachael were to come back into Don’s life.
Meowser, Don had not yet evolved into the guy that could tap into Dick Whitman, and say words like; ‘You make me feel like I always wanted to feel’. Oh, Don—- right line, wrong girl. Instead he presents himself to Rachel in that critical moment with a ‘please reject me’ stamp on his forehead. He was whiter than Casper, shaking, babbling incoherencies, a Loser. DW would have saved him. Rachel would’ve dug him. Rachel Menken: A Great Big Missed Opportunity. That’s the tableau.
There are times, when either thinking about the show, or reading these incredible analyzes of the work, that I have this jarring sensation of friction between my general analytical stance as an observer of fiction and the appreciation of the author, who is creating the fiction, and the sense that these characters are so well-written and acted that they truly feel like true-life stories being unearthed, either through listening to the old people in my life, or by looking through the personal effects of those people who have passed on. When I first started watching the show, I felt very much that I was getting a glimpse at my aunts and uncles and neighbors….catching little bits of the stories that are so close to them they don’t realize they’ve never told them. We, the next generation, have only heard whispers about Uncle Roger’s failed second marriage to a much younger woman, or matter of fact mentions that Aunt Betty knew for sure that her first marriage was over when he got involved with that Hollywood trash. When she tells the story it is Caught Him + Accused Him = Remarried…..This series, to me, fills in all those little pieces of stories that we may have heard over and over again, but only a couple of the tracks…this is the whole album. The Rachel story line is so fuzzy to me, because Uncle Don blew it, and fast, so it doesn’t come up much in his stories of conquests that he tells when he thinks just the boys are listening. Ms. Mencken does NOT share this at tea as one of her stories from the old days, because it still pains her to think she made such a TERRIBLE choice for something so very shallow.
For Don – it was exotic and mixed up. Knowing the man we have seen at the distance of a few years, and now, at a distance of decades, he was never going to marry a Jewish woman who gave as good as he got. As “evolved”, or at least “evolving” as we like to think Don is, we just cannot underestimate how very very long it took to imagine a WASP (even a pretend one) marrying a Jewish department store heiress, no matter how respected she was, without there being scandal, if not overt, at least in the back rooms of the business he was supposed to be leading edge – they make enough jokes about the “other” agencies and the 1 Jewish staff member at the meeting that he knew that it he could never integrate her into his world. He knew that to be with her he’d HAVE to run away and reinvent himself, which, although he’d done it before, he didn’t REALLY want to do again. He just didn’t see any other way to get out from behind the 8-ball, and he was grabbing at anything that he could take with him.
Rachel never wanted to be with a married man, but his charm and appeal must have offered her a fantasy of “other,” handsome, successful, blind to their cultural differences (or so it seemed) — she couldn’t just let go of that fantasy, but when he came to her with this ridiculous plan, it was like a brace of cold water in her face to wake her up and see how hollow it really all was.
I know these things, because Aunt Peggy kept a really good diary, and Mr. Campbell tells fantastic stories on his “good days” at the home.
Oddly enough, Roger Sterling, establishment WASP extraordinaire, seems to have marred a 22-year-old Jewish American princess-in-waiting (she wasn’t born with enough money to be the real thing) as his second, midlife-crisis, wife, without anyone ever mentioning her ethnicity.
I think Jane was 20 then, but it’s true that MW has said in interviews that Jane is Jewish. But Jane passes as WASP more readily than Rachel does, and as Jane was really not a common name at all for Jewish girls, it’s likely her family was so well-assimilated that Jane almost doesn’t give her ethnicity a second thought. (I doubt she ever goes to temple; in fact, she might never have gone.)
It was probably Rachel’s professional success that doomed any marriage they could have had. Don might be attracted to women like her, but he doesn’t marry them.
Roger’s not particularly antisemitic. He was the one who wanted the Mencken account.
Roger is absolutely antisemitic, just not hatefully so. He lives in a world of wealthy WASP privilege and is happy to protect “the way things are.” He made a significant remark to Joan about how Greg “used to be Jewish.” Maybe he insisted that Jane convert.
Roger was teasing his ex-lover about her new squeeze, there. Roger’s a joker, but he saves his animus for the Japanese.
…Judaism is not a fun subject of teasing unless you’re an anti-Semite.
Fair enough.
The difference between 1960 and 1963 is pretty significant in terms of assimilation in the workplace. I’d like to do more reading on the subject, but I think “no Jews in the office” in episode 101, going to Joan hiring someone named “Siegel” by episode 205 might very well be historically accurate.