Will Baker In Charles Finch's The Last Enchantments

Charles Finch’s The Last Enchantments focuses intensely on relationships formed by the main character, Will Baker. Through Will’s interactions with the other characters and his own thoughts and feelings we get to know him extremely well. Many of the interesting relationships Finch describes are between Will and the female characters in the story. The relationships that Will has, along with what he says about himself, characterize him as a very controlling person with females. One of the first relationships of Will’s that Finch describes, is his relationship with his long-term girlfriend Alison. After Will has been in Oxford for one day he cheats on Alison with a girl named Jess. At one point during the time he and Jess are kissing he says

When she asks if he’s slept with anyone he says, “Jesus! No, of course I didn’t..” (116). He outright lies to Alison, and though they’re no longer together, he makes sure he has control over her. Alison and Will continue to keep contact, and one night on the phone he says, “I miss you” (150). Alison reprimands him for messing with her emotions, and he half-heartedly apologizes. However, he still makes sure to tell Alison that he loves her at the end of the conversation (150). Will says loving things to Alison, partially because he feels them, but also because he wants to make sure that, even while across the ocean, he has dominance over her life. Later in the novel, Alison actually comes to Oxford, where she and Will rekindle their relationship. Will promises to go back to the states with her, but he ends up taking back what he said and leaving Alison once again. It’s only after this that Alison finally has enough. When Will tells her that he loves her, she only responds “Okay” (285). Will repeats it again, wanting Alison to say it back, but she never does. The fact that Will keeps saying that he loves her, even after she doesn’t reciprocate it, shows how much he needs her wanting him. Will does not want to be with Alison but

Will controls Sophie much less than he would like to, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. When Sophie tells Will she has a boyfriend, he tries to guilt her into breaking up with him. Will tells Sophie “You said you liked me” to which Sophie replies that she does. Will then adds, “Maybe you should break up with him” (98). Sophie refuses, and later, at Lula’s party, Will tries to get Sophie to meet with him and cheat on her boyfriend, she once again declines (128). Almost all the rest of Sophie and Will’s interactions involve him asking her to leave or cheat on Jack, to which Sophie almost always declines. There are a few instances where Will describes trying to talk to Sophie in a way that is almost stalking. He constantly asks about her (223). He tries to go to various places where she might be, just to see if she’s there (106). He even confronts her in a laundry room (149). All of this might make it seem like Will would think of Sophie differently than Alison or Jess, but on one occasion Sophie says she’ll attend a bop with him as friends and he thinks, “Part of me dared to wonder if the bop might be the night when she finally… what, became mine? Changed? Yielded?” (173). Will’s own thoughts show how he sees women as objects for his own pleasure and not as people with their own thoughts and