Analyzing Frank and Gerard from "So Long"

WARNING IF YOU HAVEN'T READ CHAPTER 50 OF SO LONG THEN YOU SHOULDN'T READ THIS, IT MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!

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So after posting Chapter 50 and reading the input of a lot of my readers and their analyzations of Gerard and Frank, first of all, I was fucking impressed at the thought behind a lot of the comments and how well my readers are able to really look into each character and their actions, and second of all, it made me start analyzing them even more than I already have (which is a lot). So instead of responding to each individual analyzation, I decided to do this blog post as ONE BIG RESPONSE and an analyzation of my own.

So here's how I see things in relation to Frank and Gerard and their argument:

When analyzing Gerard, let’s keep in mind that he has just gotten out of his long-term abusive relationship. He’s been used and pushed around for a lot of his life and it was Frank that helped him get out of that habit. There’s this inner part of Gerard that wants to justify everything Frank does, no matter what it is, because of the fact that he feels a sort of guilty “I owe him” towards Frank for everything he’s done. He’s trying not to fall back into that old habit and when you’re trying to kick an old habit, it’s not easy to just gradually move away from it, you find yourself jumping from one extreme to another. So Gerard is just going from being an entirely submissive person to this completely defensive person who rejects anything that doesn’t agree with him. And his comparison to Blake, though it was harsh and though he knew it would hurt Frank, was completely justifiable (in my eyes) because Gerard was not exaggerating when he said that Frank was acting exactly like Blake, and you have to keep in mind how terrifying that must have been for Gerard. Remember when Gerard was recalling things to Frank and he told him that all the negativity between himself and Blake started when Blake became possessive, so Gerard couldn’t help but tell Frank that that’s what was happening. Though Frank wouldn’t abuse Gerard like that, and Gerard knows it, he still can’t help but have that fear when everything is way too close of a déjà vu for comfort.

Now Frank. We all know Frank hasn’t had any sort of stable relationship outside of friends and family for about ten years, and when it comes to having a relationship like the one he has with Gerard, he hasn’t had one like that his entire twenty six years of life. Frank has many reasons to be jealous: the fact that he thinks Gerard could do better and move on, the fact that Frank doesn’t know how to share because he’s never owned anything of that much value, and then in this case specifically, the fact that Ray was the reason Frank felt that first pang of jealousy so unfortunately, it’s gonna kind of stick on Ray in Frank’s mind. So though it is not ok for Frank to be jealous, it’s understandable. His anger at Gerard for missing the appointment was definitely at maybe a level of 3/10 and then Gerard missing it because of Ray escalated it to about 239479237/10. Frank doesn’t know how to react to these emotions, he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do about them, and he doesn’t know how to react without anger because that’s what he’s been using for most of his life now.

The fact that they’re currently at a no-sexual-activities portion of their relationship couldn’t have been better timed. If Frank and Gerard had this argument before, let’s face it, they would have been way too distracted by that physical closeness that they know they could have. All the built up emotions would have been shrugged aside repeatedly until they piled up and ended up doing more harm to their relationship; not only that, but they wouldn’t have made any progress towards something more. They needed this argument to happen; they needed their emotions to come out to each other so that they can figure each other out.