Summary
Chapter Seventeen opens with Muriel telling Macon about her previous significant other, who ended up eloping with another woman, disappointing both her and Alexander. She asks Macon if he would do the same to her, and he denies it. Later, the couple goes on a thrift-shopping trip. Muriel asks if she can accompany Macon on his next business trip to France. He says he can’t afford to bring her, and Muriel is disappointed. She also reveals that she has quit her job at the animal hospital, which upsets Macon. Over the next few days, she continues to bring up France, but Macon doesn’t change his mind. Finally, Muriel confronts Macon about their relationship, saying that it is wrong for him to hang around and not marry her, drifting along without any intention to commit to her.
One day, Macon receives a package in the mail that is from Muriel. She watches as he unboxes it. It is a calendar marked with a date in June that says “wedding.” Muriel asks if they can get married. Macon protests that he is not ready for it. Muriel becomes angry and calls Macon self-centered. Later, Muriel’s sister Claire shows up after being “grounded for life” by their mother and complains to Macon and Muriel. Macon can’t help but think of Sarah; he wishes that she were there to see how “rich and full” his life is now.
Macon buys a very expensive bottle of wine as a gift to Rose and Julian, who have just returned from their honeymoon. Macon plans to bring it to them at a family supper they are hosting. But Muriel spots the bottle before he can gift it and is astonished at its price, complaining that Macon never buys her fancy wine. Later, Macon finds that Muriel has opened and consumed half the bottle. She admits to it, but Macon says nothing and instead just buys another bottle. Later, at the supper, Macon feels increasingly estranged from Muriel. That night in bed, while he is half asleep, she asks him over and over again if he would ever leave her.
At his hotel in Winnipeg, Canada, Macon receives an unexpected phone call from Sarah. She is calling to ask if she can stay in their former house, as her lease is up and she can’t find a new home yet. She also informs Macon that Rose is staying back at the family house with Charles and Porter. Rose is helping Porter take care of his kids, who have been sent to live with him after their mother, Porter’s ex-wife, has had a new baby. Sarah mentions that she has received the final divorce papers but hasn’t signed them yet; Macon feels that she is “leading up to something,” so he hangs up on her before she can elaborate.
While Macon is flying to Edmonton, he sits next to an old woman named Mrs. Bunn, who is afraid of flying. He tries to comfort her by offering her some sherry he has long stored in a travel flask for an emergency sleepless night that has never come. In the moment, Macon feels as if his comforting of Mrs. Bunn makes him seem like the “merry, tolerant person” that he is not, but later, he considers that maybe he is this sort of person, newly happy after hearing from Sarah. He continues to have phone calls with Sarah in each Canadian city he visits. In one conversation, Sarah asks Macon if he plans on staying with Muriel, and he says he is not sure. When Macon returns home from Canada, he doesn’t drive to Muriel’s house but rather to his former home, where Sarah is now living.
In the next chapter, Macon is fully living again with Sarah. They have resumed their familiar life together, doing mundane things like going shopping for a new couch and dining at their favorite restaurant. Still, they can both sense that things are not exactly the same as they were before. At dinner, Sarah tells Macon about a man she briefly dated during their separation who never felt just right to her. The story also flashes back to the scene when Macon packed his bags to move out of Muriel’s house, with her watching in disbelief. Rose has remained living at their grandparents’ house with Porter and Charles, leaving Julian alone in their new apartment.
Macon tries to work on his Canada guidebook, which he is behind on, but is too distracted by the blooming spring weather. He sees a bee and is reminded of Alexander and his allergy to them. He decides to call Muriel to remind her to get shots for Alexander and she responds angrily, saying that of course she knows to get the shots. She also informs him that one of her neighbors, a boy named Dominick Saddler, crashed her car and died. Macon thinks back to after Ethan died and how he had to be the one to go in and identify the body, which seemed like a lifeless shell compared to their animated child.
Julian visits Macon—allegedly to check up on his work, but actually to ask him about Rose. Macon tells him that he is not sure whether Rose intends to return and that she is most concerned with taking care of their brothers. Julian contests that their brothers are men in their 40s. Julian doesn’t understand why she has left him; he believes that she had simply been used to her routine in her family’s house and wanted to “swerve back into it.” Macon suggests that Julian should hire Rose to get things under control in his office, and Julian agrees. That night, after Sarah returns home, she and Macon have sex for the first time since they separated. Later, Sarah tells Macon that she didn’t sleep with anyone else during their whole separation; Macon pretends not to hear her.
Macon takes off on his trip to Paris. In the airplane, he is shocked to encounter Muriel, who insists that she is coming with him. She explains that she has borrowed money to be able to come and that she believes Macon needs her as company. Macon tries to ignore her, but it turns out she also has booked the same hotel as him, getting the information from Macon’s own travel agent. For the whole trip, Muriel follows Macon around and edges her way into his plans more and more, which he permits to some degree. The morning Macon is supposed to go on a day trip out of Paris, he pulls a muscle in his back badly and is forced to stay in bed instead, calling Julian to rearrange his plans. Soon after, Sarah shows up to take care of Macon and help him with his work assignments. Macon instantly worries that Muriel will try to appear in his room again.
Sarah gives Macon pain medication that makes him drift in and out of sleep for the next few days. In one half-conscious moment, Sarah tells him that she has seen Muriel in the hotel. Macon explains that she has followed him, and Sarah says that she believes him. In his medicated stupor, Macon reflects on how, in life, he never made deliberate choices; he questions if it is now too late to begin. The next morning, Macon wakes up and tells Sarah that he has decided to be with Muriel instead of her, and he says goodbye. He feels that even though they are now parting ways, this is just another stage in their marriage. Macon leaves the hotel and goes to Muriel.
Analysis
The final chapters of The Accidental Tourist see Macon reach some sort of resolution in how he truly wishes to live his life. Slowly, we see distance emerge between him and Muriel, which causes Muriel to become even pushier and more forward about defining their relationship. When she quits her job at the animal hospital and demands to be taken to France, it is as if Macon suddenly realizes that he is now in yet another situation that feels out of his control, being cornered into a committed relationship with a woman towards whom he harbors mixed sentiments. We see more and more that Macon begins to open to the idea of reuniting with Sarah, starting with regular phone conversations and leading to moving back in with her.
The author has a way of depicting tension between her characters that shows emotional terrain rather than merely telling the reader about it. This is clear in the scene in Chapter 17 when Muriel and Macon, after a dramatic confrontation, can barely manage to dress themselves that their heightened emotions are making them fumble physically. This is also apparent when Muriel’s voice is described in the same chapter as “just a shade thicker” while talking to her mother after an argument with Macon.
These pages illustrate yet another facet of Muriel Pritchett’s character, showing us that, despite her frequent superficiality, she has a deep understanding of human emotions. This is made obvious when she accuses Macon, quite accurately, of his coldness and lack of commitment towards her. We see that Macon has underestimated the woman, thinking he could coexist with her at a comfortable distance without her catching on to his ambivalent feelings. This illusion shatters for Muriel when Macon declines to take her to France and seems reluctant to support her financially. To her credit, Muriel no longer wishes to waste her time with someone like this, and this pushes Macon to leave her for Sarah.
By the end of the novel, Macon is made to seem largely like a man who is not all that sure what he wants from life. He is torn between two women: his wife of 20 years, with whom he shares familiar habits, mentalities, and life experiences, and the much younger Muriel, who represents the stark opposite of Macon’s previous existence. For Macon, it is not a choice between which woman he loves more; both have qualities that attract him. Ultimately, for the man who has always lived his life in extreme patterns of regimentation, the decision comes down to which relationship will allow him to feel most in control of his life again.
This theme of control is reiterated through many of the subplots of the novel, such as the way Macon’s sister Rose also temporarily leaves Julian after feeling like she has nothing to do, no way to be useful and in charge of matters: she doesn’t simply want to just be a wife. It is not until, at Macon’s suggestion, Julian lets Rose help out in his office as a secretary that she returns to him, finally having some sense of purpose in her life again. Similarly, Macon seems to have some primal need to feel that he is autonomous and making his own decisions in life rather than being swayed away by larger-than-life events, such as the unspeakable chaos and tragedy of losing a son.
This is why, in the end, Macon chooses to be with Muriel. It is because Sarah, clearly the more comfortable choice, is associated with Ethan and the time in Macon’s life when he lost all control. Thus, he feels that Muriel is finally a chance for him to exercise his own willpower, as summed up when he thinks to himself that “all seemed to have simply befallen him” and that there has been no “single major act he had managed of his own accord.” Yet how real that willpower is in the grand scheme of life, which is unpredictable, is up for the reader to evaluate. Whether or not Macon is making the right choice or merely escaping into some fantasy world is something that the story leaves ambiguous.
