The Many Relationships of Lady Brett

The general fascination with Lady Brett has dominated many of the blog posts for the class this week. However,  while I am also highly fascinated by Lady Brett, I am also very interested in the relationship she has with all of the men in the novel. For instance, her relationship with Jake is very fascinating because her affections towards him seem to be the most genuine ones she has. However, despite the obvious fact that Brett loves Jake she denies him and seems to refuse to be with him. Instead, Brett chooses to flirt, sleep around, and publicly display her affection towards Mike. While on the topic of Mike, his and Brett's is the second most fascinating relationship Lady Brett is involved in. It is continually brought up that Mike is her fiancé, as if everyone must be reminded, yet, Brett seems to be continually annoyed with him: "Shut up, Michael. Try and show a little breeding," or even "Come off it, Michael you're drunk" are heard regularly throughout the novel. Continually Brett seems embarrassed or annoyed by Mike;therefore, readers can wonder as to why, besides the money, she stays with him.
We briefly discussed in class that perhaps Jake is a masochist, because despite the pain seeing Brett but not being with Brett causes him he continues to keep in her company. However, I am beginning to think that perhaps Brett is the masochist. It has been agreed upon that Brett is quite the complex character, therefore, it is a possibility that she is the masochist either instead of or along with Jake. She is consistently drunk and seems to put herself into situations where she is with men she either loves or supposedly loves. We, as readers, get to know Jake's thoughts but we do not know Brett's, how then, can we say that she simply toying viciously with all the men instead of doing the same thing they are doing: attempting to find a sense of normalcy, love, and security after the war.