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A* revision notes "Enduring Love" A Level English Literature
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A* revision notes "Enduring Love" A LEVEL ENGLISH LITERATURE
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hThe novel's most evident theme is the notion of love and how it surfaces inthe interaction of its three main characters:
1) Joe,
2) his wife, the Keats's scholar Clarissa, and
3) the erotomaniac and religious zealot, Jed Parry.
Moreover, the novel presents three main dramatic scenes to dramatise the
tensions among the characters:
1) an incident with a hot air balloon in which a man falls to his death,
2) a failed attempt on Joe's life, and
3) Joe's shooting of Parry in defence of Clarissa.
Joe, the rationalist and scientist, represents science, while his wife Clarissa and
his stalker, Jed Parry, represent the humanities. We have the literary culture of
the humanities and the reductive culture of the sciences. McEwan's novel
however does not simply rely on exploring how scientists and poets differ in
their thinking. Ian McEwan provides a reading of a novel that presents a series
of interrelated conflicts between scientific, literary, and religious worldviews.
Ian McEwan explores human beings with conflicting temperaments and beliefs
placed in situations of crisis. Through these crises, the novel investigates and
tests the legitimacy of the characters' different worldviews.
The social elements comprising the relationships of the characters and their
actions may encourage us to consider the claim that there exists a fundamental
divide between the sciences and the humanities. Ian McEwan is exploring this
false dichotomy to suggest that the poles are not so disparate and that there is
a common ground between the two.
, The novel begins with two fast-paced chapters detailing the incident with a hot
air balloon, an emotive narrative informing the remainder of the novel. In this
incident, the narrator, Joe, is projected into an event with an assembly of
hitherto unacquainted men who endeavour to restrain a balloon with a young
boy inside the basket. The group comprises six saviours, Joe, the eventual
hero/victim John Logan, Jed Parry, and three other men. For a few moments
they work in unison, hanging on before a surge of wind launches the balloon
into the air: "With five of us on the lines, the balloon was secure"
But, eventually someone lets go, thus causing a cascading effect of releasers,
with the exception of one man, Logan, who remains steadfast even as the
balloon climbs a hundred feet in the air. Tragically, but not unexpectedly, he
eventually loses his grip and descends to his death. Thus, the novel provides us
with a perfect dramatic sequence to encapsulate an entanglement theme and
the aftermath, the idea that these characters' lives have become inextricably
entangled because of an arbitrary tragedy and that what ensues (the
aftermath) is tightly regulated by the initial event. The major prevalent social
theme is "enduring love," and this theme surfaces in the text just before the
balloon incident. Jed and Clarissa are picnicking in the English countryside
when the incident happens. McEwan tells us of their moments together,
reminding Joe "of our very first meetings and the months we spent falling in
love" . The word ‘enduring’ needs to be looked a closely – it has a dual
meaning depending on the context. ‘To endure’ mean to survive or last
whereas in other contexts it can mean ‘to suffer’ or ‘to put up with’. McEwan
explores love in the light of each of these meanings.
Such an explication could easily be extended through the entire novel in which
the concept of enduring love is explored via the three main characters:
1) Joe and his fight to maintain his relationship with Clarissa,
2) Clarissa and her study of Keats's enduring love of Fanny Brawne, and
3) Jed Parry, the evangelical erotomaniac and his absurd insistence that Joe
has fallen in love with him during the balloon incident and that god has
ordained their amorous union.
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