Marriage Issues from Sandra Brown’s Book, “Envy”

The state of marriage of two of the novel’s main characters is one of the important issues touched upon by Sandra Brown in the book, “Envy”. Noah and Maris’s relationship, as will as the breakdown of this relationship, is central to the development of the characters.

Maris is a book editor/publisher who has a penchant for falling in love with her clients. She fell in love with Noah due in a great part to him writing one of the greatest novels she’s ever read. Maris, however, doesn’t know much about his past. It was later revealed that Noah wasn’t the real author of his book; here we can see that the very foundation of Maris’s love for Noah was all a big farce.

Their marriage started out like a fairy-tale story but as time went by, Noah’s true colors began to show. Their marriage became more like a working relationship rather than anything else. However, Maris stays optimistic and tries to look at their marriage through rose-colored glasses. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that Noah only used Maris as a pawn towards his selfish goals. Apparently, he had other designs in mind when he married Maris.

Noah’s selfishness and utter disregard for Maris is evident in their anniversary, where his “present” to her was getting himself an apartment so that he would have a place to write. Noah was also known to have womanizing tendencies before marriage and it seems that his predisposition to have affairs with other women never really disappeared. While married to Maris, he was also having liaisons with another woman.

The trip down to St. Anne’s Island serves as a means for Maris to re-evaluate her marriage. When in the past, she seems to keep her head buried in the sand and fails to see Noah’s intentions, she now realizes that she made a huge mistake marrying him.

The novel shows how a marriage based on lies, deceit, and bad intentions is bound to have disastrous outcomes.