Did Abby love the farmer?
Did she actually love him or was it always an act?
-LeLu
I think she genuinely cared for him. And maybe she loved him, in a different way she loved Bill. I want to believe she loved them both.
"A night of honesty ends at daybreak"
By the second half of the movie, she does love them both, but more the farmer than Bill. By the film's second half, she's pretty much settling in as a faithful wife. When Bill realizes this, he leaves with the barnstormers in a huff, but by the time he returns he appears reconciled to her new life without him. In a tearful reconciliation scene in the barn, he tells Abby he blames himself and pretty much blesses their union. Then, as they part, Abby gives Bill a brief kiss on the cheek, thanking him for understanding.
But the farmer happens to see this kiss, and with all the (grounded) suspicions already building up inside him, jumps to the wrong conclusion about what happened in the barn. Then the locusts come, and everything goes up in smoke. But the irony is by this time the farmer had all he wanted in the time he had left, only he didn't see it.
The barn scene starts with her saying "I'm sorry"-- so I think maybe Bill was trying to get her to leave with him, and she said no, she wanted to stay with the farmer. When Bill left, she had no idea that he would actually return, and the farmer was a decent guy, so I think she let herself fall for him. It was the first time she had really been taken care of, and Bill had pushed her into the marriage, which would make _me_ feel that money was more important than I was, so I can see how it happened.
shareGiven a choice of sleeping in barns or fields and sleeping in a comfortable manor, I know what I'd vote with my feet for each time and I think Abby eventually got around to feeling the same way.
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