It is almost as if the tension is serving a cathartic purpose. This would not have been possible if Joe and Clarissa had not endured the tension. Joe and Clarissa are so nearly reunited in this purifying chapter. Chapter twenty four is also purifying in that the presences which haunt the novel are almost forgotten.
Throughout the novel, Joe has had an obsession with Parry and in this chapter, that obsession is resolved. Other obsessions which have lingered throughout the book are also cured. Joe, in explaining the science of the river to the children, comes to terms with his work as a science journalist rather than a scientist and ceases to view himself as a failure. The most important obsession to be cured is the obsession with John Logan. Jean Logan is obsessive with jealousy and Joe is obsessive with guilt.
Throughout the novel Joe has wondered whether he was responsible for John Logan's death, and Jean Logan has wondered if John Logan was having an affair.
Logan has haunted the entire novel in various guises, as the selfless martyr, the absent father and the possibly but eventually not faithless husband. Chapter twenty four concludes the story of Logan. Joe is also absolved of his guilt about Logan's death in this chapter, because he has done something for Logan. John Logan, being dead, is the only character in the novel who can have a real ending.
The other characters can have issues resolved, but it is only a temporary, artificial ending. Hemingway and Camus: Construction of Meaning and T. Botticellis Spring. The sun also rises. Violence In America..
Will It Ever End? Adult education in the u. Franklin vs Emerson. General Synopsis Of Philosophy. American Short Fiction. Napster, The Internet, And Mp3s. Coincidences of time and place, a predisposition to help, had brought us together under the balloon.
No one was in charge—or everyone was, and we were in a shouting match. Every fraction of a second that passed increased the drop, and the point must come when to let go would be impossible or fatal.
And compared with me, Harry was safe, curled up in the basket. The balloon might well come down safely at the bottom of the hill. And perhaps my impulse to hang on was nothing more than a continuation of what I had been attempting moments before, simply a failure to adjust quickly. This breathless scrambling for forgiveness seemed to me almost mad, Mad Hatterish, here on the riverbank where Lewis Carroll, the dean of Christ Church, had once entertained the darling objects of his own obsessions.
I shrugged as though to say that, like her in her letter, I just did not know. Enduring Love. Plot Summary. Intuition Obsession The Nature of Love. All Symbols Curtains Doors. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.
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Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this LitChart! Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning? Our Teacher Edition on Enduring Love can help. Themes All Themes. Symbols All Symbols. The most important obsession to be cured is the obsession with John Logan.
Jean Logan is obsessive with jealousy and Joe is obsessive with guilt. Logan has haunted the entire novel in various guises, as the selfless martyr, the absent father and the possibly but eventually not faithless husband. Chapter twenty four concludes the story of Logan. John Logan, being dead, is the only character in the novel who can have a real ending. The other characters can have issues resolved, but it is only a temporary, artificial ending. There are many similarities between the final chapter and the first chapter, but the important difference, is the first chapter ends on a dark, pessimistic note, while the final chapter ends optimistically.
Jean Logan has found out John Logan was not having an affair. Bonnie and Reid have introduced a new kind of love into the novel. Joe and Clarissa may be reconciled, and Joe is standing by the river, explaining science to children. The children and the river both add a sense of regeneration to this chapter and the whole novel. It ends with the innocent image of Joe standing with Rachael by the river.
McEwan likes shocking and unsettling his readers, he has done it at several parts through out the novel. It would seem strange that such an unconventional novel could have such a perfect ending. He is the writer who started a novel with a man falling to his death from the ropes of a balloon.
He is the writer who masterminded a shooting in a restaurant. He is not a writer who is going to leave everyone perfectly happy.
For a start, Parry, cannot be totally forgotten. McEwan is aware of this, and the moment the reader turns the last page, safe in the knowledge they have finished the novel, they hit the first appendix. The first appendix is not McEwan at his most disturbing, but it is a tone of voice the reader is not used to.
After the reader has adjusted to the scientific language I think appendix one is quite a satisfying conclusion to the novel. This report explains this in scientific language. The scientific language also makes Parry seem less threatening and more distant. Throughout the novel Joe used scientific language as a consoling factor to distance himself from emotion.
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