Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

Points of View and Voices

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  • Created by: H
  • Created on: 15-04-10 11:22

Perspective 1

Joe Rose:

  • First person narration
  • Story telling techniques- exaggeration, hyperboles, metaphors, similes, religious and scientific imagery
  • Subjective narrative- his accounts, his order of events, his particular memories, the inclusion of particular details, opinions and judgements
  • Primarily his story- an attempt to be objective, failure to show his supposed hatred of the arts, many aspects contradictory to how he wants to be seen
  • Speaks with hindsight- emotions and feeling, unreliable as has had time for memories to fade and to tweak aspects that don't match or don't fit the genre
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Perspective 2

Clarissa Mellon:

  • Speaks through a letter- Joe cruelly comparing her to Jed, symbolising the end of their relationship: Jed tried to start one through a letter, Clarissa is ending it- implies her love for Keats and the romantics
  • First person narrative- finally at the end, reader to realise what Clarissa was suffering when Joe focused entirely on himself, different to the direct speech of Clarissa- Joe presented her as unreasonable- he was merely self centred
  • Her point of viewattempted to be seen by Joe- chapter 9- invasion of her feelings, Joe trying to see himself through the eyes of someone else- attempting to be sentimental, actually just ignorant; still Joe's perspective- the one thing he can't control is her mind
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Perspective 3

Jed Parry:

  • The letters- Joe included them to express the harassment he suffers, as proof that the story is not made up; offer the view point of Jed- swap the position of victim around- empathy with Joe or Jed?; allow moments for the story to unfold, Joe's realisations of the syndrome
  • First person narration- oddly similar impression as to when Joe used direct speech to convey the character of Jed
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