The graduate door Charles Webb

Summary

The graduate is about a young man called Benjamin Braddock, who is 21 years of age. He has recently graduated and returns home where he finds himself in a depressed mood. He feels that all of his achievements at school don’t mean anything. Hoping to change his mood, he decides to travel; he wants to live with “the real people” instead of all the educated people he usually deals with. After three weeks he finds this lifestyle rather boring and returns home. In an attempt to relieve boredom he starts an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his fathers best friend. After some time he falls in love with Mrs. Robinson her daughter: Elaine. But of course Elaine eventually finds out about Benjamin’s affair with her mother and doesn’t want to see him again. This thoroughly depresses Benjamin and at the same time makes him fall in love with her even more. Benjamin wants to marry her. He moves to her neighbourhood and tries to figure out a way to propose to her. This takes him several weeks. He occasionally sees her but is to shy and confused to propose. As he sees her on the street, she tells him she wants to meet. That night she comes to his apartment and it becomes clear to Benjamin that she was told by her mother that Benjamin raped her. He tries to tell her that it was an ordinary affair but she won’t listen. She tells him that she wants him to leave in the morning, but she keeps on prying for his future plans and says he can’t leave without a decent plan. Ben decides to stick around until he has a plan. He calls her up and asks her to tell him where he stands with her. She tells him to leave and so he starts packing. As he is almost finished packing Elaine enters his room and kisses him. He asks her to marry him and she tells him she doesn’t know for sure what she wants. He tells her to think about it and she agrees to do that. Then her parents sort of kidnap her and force her to marry some guy she was seeing. During the ceremony Benjamin comes rushing in and flees together with Elaine.

Reading Report

I have chosen to read this novel because my nephew told me that it was a nice story.
I am not familiar with other works by Charles Webb.
I have read Catcher in the rye and the protagonists in both stories are trying to figure out what they want with their lives.
The context is the pre-hippie age, but in my view Benjamin belongs in the later sixties, where his kind of rebelliousness would probably be more common.
The main character is Benjamin Braddock. He is quite the academic genius as he won numerous prizes including a scholarship at Harvard and Yale. All these things seem irrelevant to him, he feels that 21 years of education have gotten him absolutely nothing. The entire story is about Benjamin trying to discover what he wants out of life. He hopelessly falls in love with Elaine and tries to get his life back on some sort of track together with her.
Another important character is Mrs. Robinson, with whom Benjamin has an affair. She is trying to relieve herself of boredom by sleeping with Ben just as he is by sleeping with her. As Ben starts taking an interest for Elaine Mrs. Robinson freaks out and tells him that he may never see Elaine again. She is trying to protect her daughter from Ben, who she sees as evil and devious which things she also is herself.
And then there is of course Elaine, Ben’s love interest. She is also mixed up by her feelings for him and doesn’t know whether she loves him or despises him. In the end she runs off with him and it all sort of works out fine for them.
The story is set at 1963, the year Charles Webb wrote this novel. The time in which the story is set isn’t that important to the story; I think there are a lot of young graduates in my own time who haven’t got the slightest clue as to what they want out of life. I think the subject of this story is of all times.
The story is set in Massachusetts, near San Francisco. The place where it is set also isn’t essential to the story, it could just as well be in the Netherlands.
As the reader you follow Benjamin as an observer. You don’t know what he’s thinking, just how he acts and what he says. This way you don’t really know why he does the things that he does, but as you read on you find out that he doesn’t have much of a clue himself either, so it didn’t really bother me.
I believe the main thing Charles Webb wanted to reach by writing this novel was to tell the world how confusing and uncertain life can be or seem. Especially when they’ve just spent their childhood and youth getting an education that seems completely worthless people can get stuck. I find this vision very honest and the ending of the story is quite encouraging. Life may seem pointless some times, but other moments/feelings/events make it worth living, would be the motto in one sentence, and I can only agree with it.
I would like to read another novel by Charles Webb because I enjoyed the way he writes very much, his sense of humour is very appealing and makes sure that the story never gets boring. I also liked the theme of this book a lot so I am positive about the author.
I also wouldn’t mind reading another story about this subject, I found it very recognisable and interesting.