A short post today, because I’ve not got much time, nor many ideas.
At face value, august doesn’t seem to contain much guilt. Contextually, this seems odd: after all, if the narrator is “the other woman”, surely that carries a certain complexity of feeling, even if the guilt ultimately lies squarely with James? Betty is only present in the vaguest allusory sense, with a veiled implication that James “wasn’t mine to lose” because he was still Betty’s (even if not formally). The focus is on the narrator’s feelings; the song is almost wholly inward-looking.
In a sense, the most direct reference to any notion of guilt, or even awareness of other people, is something I’ve previously mentioned – the “meet me behind [the mall / them all]” hook in the outro. Even this is ambiguous, given that we don’t know if “them all” is an intended homophone or just a serendipity, but it seems plausible that this is a reference to the secrecy of the relationship.
It’s not only the narrator’s guilt which is absent though; it’s James’, too. As I’ve mentioned previously, cardigan contains a level of anger from Betty – “I knew I’d curse you for the longest time” – and references to the consequences of James’ wrongdoing – “Chase two girls, lose the one”. august has neither. In this sense, cardigan contains more emotional complexity; certainly, there’s a sense that Betty is more conflicted, and less sure of her own feelings. I think this has the added effect, though, of imbuing august with a sense of purity to match the purity of first love. august is situated within a dream world, a world which could never persist, but which was perfect in its way.
The magic is that august‘s ambiguity, and even the internal conflict between hope and melancholy, somehow don’t undermine this purity. It’s hard to describe, or perhaps this is just me reaching the limits of my writing ability, but I feel as though alluding to the moral dimensions of the situation would damage the impression of romance and drama created by a perfect-but-doomed love. Maybe this is because the morality creates a terrestrial reason for the love to fall apart, whereas if the love is viewed within the context of the dream world, where external factors are irrelevant, there’s a sense in which James and the narrator are star-crossed.