Olympia's Look

Betrayed, hurt, and lonely; Suzanne Manet’s life with Édouard Manet was anything but a fairytale. To portray this, Olympia’s Look by Susan Vreeland is set shortly after Édouard’s excruciating and sickening death from syphilis. Suzanne and her nephew look over Édouard’s paintings, this experience in itself could not be too pleasant for her. She was surrounded by lovely paintings of “the other women”, ones that her husband allegedly had affairs with. She was constantly battling her lack of trust in her husband --catching a model with a flirtatious note from Édouard didn’t help. Her pain was reflected in her own titles for some of Édouard’s masterpieces, including “Betrayal” and “Courtesan to half of Paris.” Although she had a reason to not trust her husband, she also appears to have struggled with her self esteem, scrutinizing a painting of herself, and gazing upon the painting of Olympia and desiring that same look of power that Olympia possesses and she lacks.

However, Suzanne’s underlying feelings for her husband are revealed in passages in Vreeland’s story. Reliving her time with Édouard, Suzanne thinks, “Would it have been any different if she hadn’t been the placid, tolerant Dutch wife wanting peace at any cost, turning a blind eye every time he burst into the apartment flushed and elated, passing it off as the joy he took in painting?” Although this passage doesn’t reinforce her love for Édouard it does exhibit Suzanne’s desire for his happiness. By not confronting him, it shows she cared for him and wanted his happiness, even at the cost of her own contentment. However, to say she was never happy with Édouard would be a lie, at the end of the story Suzanne makes a fire, and sits down in her late-husband’s chair; she relives the days of her happiness, saying, “A fine fire it was, full of satisfying crackles, just like the ones they had in the happy times in Brabant. She chuckled softly, remembering the funny, surprised look of Édouard’s face when the wind racing over the flat land had whisked his top hat on their wedding day and he went running down the dike road after it.” This story paints a picture of a content and happy couple, full of love and fondness for one another. Her longing to return to days like these reveals that Suzanne will always have a place for Édouard in her heart, even in the midst of unpleasant later memories.

Vreeland is an exceptional author using realistic facts and paintings to create a woman-Édouard Manet’s wife. Her interpretation of Suzanne’s character leads the reader into both the life of the wife and the famous painter. All the events that Suzanne experienced made her a hardened woman; however, a light shines through when she refers to Isabelle Lemonneir as Édouard’s collaborator. Although events of a husband having multiple affairs could scar a woman leading her to a life of depression and shame, at the end of the story Vreeland leads us to believe Suzanne will live a fulfilling life, with love in her heart for Édouard.