Enduring Love: Chapter 12 Essay Example

worded answer allows us to understand perhaps Clarissa doesn't fully believe Joe and still harbours some suspicion against the whole Parry situation.

What further highlights the gap in their relationship is the abrupt exist of Clarissa. After their embrace in the kitchen saying 'loving things' for 'a whole minute', Clarissa 'broke' away and 'snatched' her coat. McEwan makes use of strong imagery to allow a reader to imagine this abrupt exit. The blunt 'b' sound in 'broke' emphasises this as well as being symbolic in the way their relationship currently on the verge of breaking as they harbour doubts and aren't confiding in each other to relieve each other's conspiracies.

The fact she additionally, 'snatched' the coat in prompt action to leave Joe's company suggests they both find their current situations easier to deal with alone rather than fuelling each other's negative thoughts when they are together. Their disconnected relationship is also portrayed heavily by McEwan in Chapter 12. The over abundance of Joe asking himself questions about how Clarissa may or may not have construed his words is only emphasised with the repetition of 'or'.

Joe is in such a distressed mood that McEwan uses words of uncertainly to stress this: 'possible', 'perhaps', 'impression', and of course, the repeated question marks. Immediately after his string of paranoia and questioning, Joe refers back to their conversation, where the reader sees how clear the divide between Joe and Clarissa is as a consequence of their suspicions and thoughts. Joe attributes Clarissa's speech in retrospect: 'she said', 'she said', she had'. He does however mix in his retrospective thoughts which actually allow him to express his opinions that he earlier

didn't.

For example, his free speech where he thought 'she was beautiful'. This is notable because if Chapter 12 was in dialogue, Clarissa would have seen the love directed to her by Joe however as McEwan writes this Chapter with a mixture of attributed and free speech, Clarissa and Joe seem to only share negative ideas about each other and keep the love inside their heads, particularly Joe. The vicious 'enduring' circle of inner negative thoughts the characters are trapped in is, also, explored in Chapter 12. Clarissa believes Joe is 'alone', 'so alone' which she repeats.

Joe looks back retrospectively how Clarissa thinks he is not 'speaking from the heart'. Which while this links back to the lack of emotion and scientific minded Joe from earlier chapters, McEwan allows us to further acknowledge the distance in their relationship at this point and the fact both are hiding their true feelings. This only continues as Joe has 'a new bad thought'. What are evident in this chapter are the crazy thoughts and suspicions that all characters harbour in their minds and fuel to only distress themselves further. Here, we see the seemingly recurring theme of 'I know what you're thinking'.

In earlier chapters, Jed knows what Joe is thinking, while Joe believes he knows what Clarissa is thinking and vice versa. Perhaps the most pivotal point in the chapter is Joe's distrust for Clarissa when he secretly looks through her desk for evidence. As 'cumulative blamelessness' mounts, Joe begins to question himself and is portrayed as a discontent character by McEwan. Linking to Jed's inner voice on his shoulder guiding him on what do to, Joe questions himself

saying 'What are you doing in here? Trying to stain us with your poison! Get out! '.

This irrational state where Joe is reprimanding himself is pivotal as McEwan presents a delusional yet psychopathic Joe who is beating himself up with inner distressing thoughts. The 'poison' emphasises that this 'self-persuasion' of vicious thoughts each character has is slowly destroying them and staining their true feelings as the characters restrict themselves from each other. Concluding, McEwan effectively writes Chapter 12 in Joe's retrospective thoughts of the previous morning to show his distress and the fact that this 'self persuasion' is slowly desolating the characters.