Spend too much time online and you'll find the misogynists with their pickup artist guides, their Andrew Tate worship, their red pills and their Gamergate nostalgia. They don't just hate women. They hate men who fail at toxic masculinity. If a man openly loves someone, he's a simp. If a man supports feminism, he's a cuck. Men who express emotions are weaklings.
This story's protagonist, Blake, could inspire these fools. Blake doesn't care about anything but his job and his image. He manipulates his wife. He drinks whiskey, works in an office and wears dark or gray clothing. He has no patience for men with long hair and corduroy jackets. When he seduces women, he finds the insecure ones that he can abandon easily. At the beginning of the story, Cheever encapsulates his entire personality when he stares into a shop window full of empty coffee cups and dead flowers and tables set for guests who will never arrive and sees his reflection.
Plot-wise, this story is a thriller. A crazy woman stalks a man that spurned her. Like “O Youth and Beauty”, it was adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. However, it doesn't read like a thriller. There's no rising tension. Blake doesn't feel fear or even stress. When Miss Dent threatens his life, he's checking out a rat in a paper bag. Miss Dent says that she has a gun, but she never shows it. The story ends with an anticlimax. Miss Dent orders him to put his face on the ground and rants about love and forgiveness. Once she's done, she walks away. He waits a few seconds and then he gets up, picks up his fallen hat and walks home.
To contrast Blake, Cheever presents Miss Dent as all passion and damage. Unfortunately, Cheever doesn't try to make Miss Dent into a believable character. Any temptation to read this story as a Mad Men style feminist critique vanishes with Miss Dent's crazy act. She's not a person. She's a plot device. She calls Blake her husband and repeats self-serving stories about the mental hospital. She's the crazy chick that can't be ignored. She rambles on about the mental hospital trying to take away her self-esteem. After three weeks as his secretary, she invites Blake to her apartment and sleeps with him. When he has HR fire her, she is completely unhinged. When she follows Blake to Shady Hill, she rants that Blake is evil, but she's going to forgive him. She has nothing important to say.
Despite the high stakes and Alfred Hitchcock Presents friendly plot, neither character learns a thing. Miss Dent tries to humiliate Blake but Blake won't be humbled. Blake is an unfeeling predator momentarily inconvenienced. Blake will go home and abuse his wife. Then he will go to work and seek out insecure women for sex. Miss Dent will continue to spiral, fall for crap men who will also use her and leave her.
Ultimately, this is a sad story about people incapable of love. Blake and Miss Dent are broken isolated individuals. Blake has no empathy. Miss Dent has so much empathy, she actively scares off potential lovers. They don't change. They are probably incapable of change. As they walk away from each other, we can be certain that they will spread more misery.
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For more stories about broken men, check out Michael Hemmingson’s This Other Eden.