Character Analysis
Dallas is Newland and May Archer's eldest son. May's pregnancy with Dallas ensures that Newland stays with her and sacrifices his love for Madame Olenska. But Newland doesn’t hold a grudge against his bouncing baby boy. Dallas takes after his father in many ways: they are both artistic, and both drawn to unconventional women.
Dallas represents what his father might have been in a different, more liberal time. Unlike Newland, who goes into the law and marries a socialite, Dallas fulfills his artistic ambitions by pursuing architecture and gets engaged to Fanny Beaufort— a woman he loves in the same passionate way that Newland loved Ellen Olenska.