Character Analysis
A Complicated Woman
Bow chicka wow wow.
Ahem.
Mrs. Robinson is a friend of Ben's parents, which means she's known Benjamin his entire life. She's smart, direct, sexy, cynical, very attracted to Benjamin, and—we later find out—very bitter about her life. On the one hand, she seems formidable; on the other, highly vulnerable. She pursues Benjamin relentlessly until he agrees to meet her, and she manages to keep him interested. But, at the same time, her need to do this indicates that something's seriously missing in her life.
Call us old-fashioned, but happily married and content people don't typically start seducing the grown-up children of their friends and colleagues.
(Quick trivia note: Director, Mike Nichols, and production designer, Richard Sylbert, wanted to use some sort of visual cue to playfully suggest that Mrs. Robinson was like a predator stalking her prey. They did this by giving Bancroft leopard-skin and tiger-stripe clothing and décor and fur-coats. Nichols credited his reading of Henry James' "The Beast in the Jungle" for this inspiration. (Source)
As we watch the seduction progress—and actually work—we get a better sense of what Mrs. Robinson wants out of it. She doesn't seem to be looking for an emotional relationship with Benjamin. This isn't a torrid, infatuated affair. She wants sex, and the comfort and release that it brings. She's looking for oblivion, a way to forget her own unhappy life—at least, that's apparently what she wants. Like Benjamin, she seems lost and adrift herself. During much of the sex, the shots of her face show us she's checked out. (Source) Benjamin has to beg her to say a few words instead of just jumping into bed.
Nichols uses his camera to show us both sides of Mrs. R. In the beginning, she's beautifully dressed and made-up; there are plenty of shots of her gorgeous gams and seductive smiles. But after Ben confesses his affair to Elaine, there's Mrs. Robinson in the background of the shot, rain-soaked and makeup running, looking defeated and…old. As Katharine Ross, the actress who plays Elaine, put it: "It's one of those very subtle moments that only a great actress can pull off. In that moment you see the story of her life." (Source)
Unfulfilled
Mrs. Robinson tells Ben right away that she's an alcoholic. She says she doesn't love or hate her husband—she's just satisfying sexual desires that he doesn't meet. She and Benjamin have this exchange:
BENJAMIN: Wait a minute. So you wouldn't say you loved him.
MRS. ROBINSON: Not exactly.
BENJAMIN: But you don't hate him.
MRS. ROBINSON: No, Benjamin. I don't hate him. Unhook my blouse.
Later in their affair, after Ben pushes her to talk, we learn that Mrs. Robinson (we find it hilarious that Benjamin keeps calling her that throughout their affair) had to give up her aspirations as an art major in college after she got pregnant and had to marry Mr. Robinson. Clearly, something has gone terribly wrong in Mrs. Robinson's life that she's willing to take such a huge risk.
When Benjamin tries to make conversation with Mrs. Robinson, she resists and only volunteers information reluctantly (like about being an art major and rarely having sex with her husband). One reason is probably that, although she can have a sexual interest in a younger man, she realizes they have nothing in common and couldn't possibly have a meaningful conversation.
Here's an example of an exchange that shows the emotional gulf between them:
BENJAMIN: You loved him once, I assume. When you first knew him.
MRS. ROBINSON: No.
BENJAMIN: What?
MRS. ROBINSON: I never did, Benjamin. Now let's –
BENJAMIN: Well, wait a minute. You married him. [She nods.] Why did you do that?
MRS. ROBINSON: [taking off her stockings] See if you can guess.
BENJAMIN: Well I can't.
MRS. ROBINSON: Think real hard, Benjamin.
BENJAMIN: I can't see why you did, unless ...you didn't have to marry him or anything, did you?
Ms. Robinson and Benjamin are clearly not on the same page. She sounds almost weary having to explain the ways of the world to him. Ben's more interested in how they "did it." She finds the discussion unbearable:
BENJAMIN: Well how did it happen?
MRS. ROBINSON: How do you think?
BENJAMIN: I mean did he take you up to his room with him? Did you go to a hotel?
MRS. ROBINSON: Benjamin, what does it possibly matter?
BENJAMIN: I'm curious.
MRS. ROBINSON: We'd go to his car.
BENJAMIN: Oh no. In the car you did it?
MRS. ROBINSON: I don't think we were the first.
BENJAMIN: What kind of car was it?
MRS. ROBINSON: What?
BENJAMIN: Do you remember the make of the car?
MRS. ROBINSON: Oh my God.
You can see why she'd probably skip the talk and just get down to business.
Here's what the screenwriter, Buck Henry, said about the moment where Mrs. Robinson reveals that she's an art major, despite having said earlier that she doesn't like art and doesn't want to talk about it: "That's when I realized that I knew Mrs. Robinson. That she had been Benjamin. She is a very intelligent and cynical woman. She knows what's happening to her." (Source)
It's Too Late
After Ben falls in love with her daughter, Elaine, Mrs. Robinson tries to keep them apart. This might be because she wants to keep Benjamin for herself, but it might also be because she thinks Benjamin isn't good enough for her daughter (that's what she tells him) or that it would be just too weird. Whatever the case, she tells Elaine that Benjamin raped her after taking her back from the party—which is a pretty terrible claim, obviously. But Ben convinces Elaine otherwise.
When Ben interrupts the wedding at the end of the film, Mrs. Robinson at first thinks she's succeeded in frustrating Ben's hopes, and she has a gloating smile as she sees him banging on the glass. But when Elaine decides to run away with him, Mrs. Robinson yells at her: "It's too late!" Elaine replies, "Not for me!" It's a sad summing-up of Mrs. Robinson's own life—she never really had the chance to pursue life and love like Ben and Elaine have. That moment is unbearable to her. When Elaine shouts back at her, she slaps her.
We think Buck Henry nailed it—she was a lot like Benjamin; a smart and accomplished young woman whose life took a different turn and trapped her in a situation that robbed her of the future she imagined. But in 1967, Benjamin has options, even if he doesn't yet see them. 20 years earlier, a pregnant young woman would have been rushed into marriage and life as a homemaker. It was a very different world back then. So here's Mrs. Robinson now, stalking hot young men and anesthetizing herself with alcohol. Sad, sad, sad. If the lyrics to her theme song are any indication, she ends up in rehab.
Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.
Mrs. Robinson Timeline