54 pages • 1 hour read
Terry McMillanWaiting to Exhale
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Waiting to Exhale, or Holding One’s Breath Until Life Begins
A major theme of Waiting to Exhale is the notion of holding one’s breath as one waits for the life they desire to begin. Each of the four protagonists is a middle-aged woman with unmet aspirations, many of which center on love—or at least they think so. The novel revolves around their attempts to fulfill their unmet needs while juggling the demands of their professions, families, and money. In the end, each woman finds clarity regarding her true needs and desires, as well as the realization that life is already happening, regardless of the roadblocks they perceive.
Savannah is an ambitious professional who is tired of spending weekends and holidays alone and who feels pressure from her family, particularly her mother and sister, to marry and have children. Savannah isn’t sure she wants to have children, but she would like to have a companion who cares for her and shares in her passions. Robin is also a professional woman, but her dream is to quit her job and have a family. While Robin is good at her job, she does not have the same professional ambition Savannah has. By the end of the novel, both Savannah’s and Robin’s character arcs bend toward both self-reliance and motherhood: Savannah realizes she doesn’t need a man to have companionship and decides to speak to an adoption agent, and Robin realizes that her dreams of motherhood aren’t predicated on a man or giving up her job.
While Gloria has a child, she’s never had a relationship. Gloria dreams of falling in love and experiencing the romance she’s read about or seen on television but has resigned to the fact that it likely will never happen. Bernadine had the courtship and the marriage and the illusion of shared dreams and partnership, but it was all a lie. Bernadine did everything her husband, John, asked of her, giving him children and giving up her career to care for them, becoming the ideal housewife and companion, but she lost herself in the process. Gloria’s realization regarding love comes not from a dramatic romance like those on TV, but in the form of budding relationship with a kind neighbor who gives his time freely and later saves her life. Bernadine, on the other hand, is empowered by the financial ability to help others—such as Phillip—and the freedom to focus on her own dreams. She is open to a relationship with James who, while married when they meet, is honest about his wife’s terminal cancer diagnosis, contrasting with John’s dishonesty.
Each woman begins the novel believing that her life is passing by before it has even started. Each holds her breath, waiting for the moment when she can relax and be comfortable in who she is. As the novel progresses, each woman experiences heartbreak and disappointment, but they also navigate their way into either discovering they are stronger on their own or finally finding love that doesn’t feel like settling. All four women end the novel in a place where they feel they can finally breathe and that they no longer need to wait for something in order to accept the lives and identities they currently have.
The Long-Term Damage of Betrayal
Each woman in the novel has been hurt in love, the novel explores the ways these betrayals impact their future relationships. Bernadine feels betrayed when, after 11 years of putting her own dreams to the side to support her husband’s dreams, she learns that he is leaving her for another woman. Gloria is betrayed when a trusted classmate—her son’s father—takes advantage of her when she got drunk at a party one night in college and feels betrayed again when he discloses his sexual orientation, thus confirming that he isn’t attracted to her. These betrayals alter the way these women look at love and leave them struggling to understand who they are within and outside of these relationships.
Robin has certain expectations when it comes to a relationship, but the men in her life constantly let her down. Robin wants a good-looking man who has impressive skills in the bedroom, but the one man who treats her well and could make a good partner is overweight and unimpressive in bed, despite Robin’s efforts to “teach” him. Savannah isn’t as choosy about the men she dates, but even her easier expectations are rarely met in the men she knows. Lionel, for instance, only goes to Phoenix with her to sponge off of her, and Kenneth is a married man looking for a little excitement on the side. Savannah meets one man she feels is perfect, but he ghosts her the second their time in Las Vegas is over.
Throughout the novel, these women search for a good man who can be an equal partner to them but are disappointed, if not betrayed, over and over again. They discuss on several occasions what might be the reason why they have so much trouble meeting a good man who has integrity, but they never seem to find a consistent reason. In the end, both Gloria and Bernadine find a man they believe to be good. Bernadine meets a civil rights lawyer from Virginia who just buried his wife, and Gloria meets a widowed neighbor who just moved in across the street. This gives some credence to the idea that there are still good men out there, but Savannah and Robin both settle for independence. In the end, they all find a relationship they feel comfortable with, whether it be with a man or themselves, using what they’ve learned from their difficult relationships to improve their relationships with themselves, each other, and their lovers.
How Culture and Race Impact Relationship Expectations
The novel revolves around four professional, middle-class Black women. These women are strong and independent, self-sufficient and intelligent, so their desire for a relationship is based on the idea of romance and companionship rather than financial support. Throughout the novel, these women find themselves either the target of men who want to be taken care of, or struggling to find a successful man who is not threatened by a successful, professional woman.
The women meet several men who treat them badly for one reason or another. Bernadine is divorced by her highly successful husband, who leaves her for a younger white woman. Savannah is used by a married man and another man looking to have a good time at a business conference. Robin is used by several men who want to take advantage of her generous spirit and steady income. Gloria has simply stopped looking for love, frustrated by the lack of men who live up to the romance in books and on television. These mismatched expectations leave each of the women struggling to understand why it is so hard to find a good man who wants the simple things they want: companionship, security, and love.
Several times in the novel, the ladies discuss their bad luck in love and consider several reasons why they are having such a hard time. On several occasions, they express the feeling that Black men have grown tired of the difficulties that come with romancing a Black woman, such as the time a man tells Robin, “First you complain that don’t nobody want your asses or know how to treat you, and then when a man shows a genuine interest in you, you act simple. And y’all wanna know why we go out with white women” (222). This highlights his frustration with changing gender norms surrounding romantic relationships, particularly that while women like Robin still want to be pursued or courted, they also have more social power and higher expectations. Furthermore, Robin expresses the opinion that Black men “think white girls epitomize beauty and femininity” (160), highlighting her frustration with cultural stereotypes that depict Black women as being less feminine than white women. At one point, Robin throws out the idea that she might start dating white men because “white men know how to treat you” (183), but Savannah points out that “a lot of the white chicks in my office are having just as hard a time finding Mr. Right as we are” (183).
While the ladies never come up with a definitive reason as to why they have such a hard time finding love, it does seem clear that these women’s experiences in life and dating as well as cultural and racial expectations have some impact on the decisions they make. In the end, the women—Savannah in particular—conclude that sometimes wanting something too much and having too many expectations can make it difficult to find what one believes they want.
