How McEwan Presents Ideas about Memory and Recall in Enduring Love :: Enduring Love Ian McEwan Literature Essays

How McEwan Presents Ideas about Memory and Recall in Enduring sleep togetherIn Enduring Love McEwan has created a storyline that refers to the 1stperson narrators own perception of his own mind and memory. Becauseof this we do non know whether to authority Joe or not as he is extremelybiased in his own opinion. At the precise beginning of the novel we, asthe reader, feel extremely safe being in Joes hands because we seethe very scientific, sharp mind however as we go on through thestory we see the loss of rationality and we ar given hints not totrust Joe as much as we did His writings sort of like yours and MrTapp went to the toilet, not his daughter.Within the opening chapter we see as a very clear memory from Joe ofthe heave accident. Within this chapter we see the very rationalside of Joe where we see the view of the billow accident from abuzzards point of view so that it looks like the people who arewithin the balloon accident are on a snooker table coming from alldirecti on. Joe is able to stop time here and point out where suddenly everyone is in relation to himself and the actual balloon.The use of narrative and chronological time not being the same in thefirst chapter also gives the reader distinguishable views of Joes ownmemory and what kind of state he is in within the first chapter thechange from people running towards the balloon to then of Joes andClarissas reunion to then being back at the balloon accident. From the very beginning of the novel we, as the reader, see that Joeis a very rational person who has to think about every single detailof his own life and other peoples lives around his own. However inChapter 3 we see a very emotional part of Joe as he describes whatboth he and Clarissa are up to after the great tragedy of the balloonaccident why didnt I think of this? and she caressed my balls. This defiantly shows another side of Joe that we hadnt seen yet, thisgives the reader the insight into Joe so that we know what differentsides in that respect are to him that can affects his own memory. This isextremely important for the reader as we must know whether thenarrator is trustworthy or not. At his point we are given no reasonto doubt Joe and what he is telling us. However at the end of chapter3 we are given an inclination not to trust Joe as much as we do as Jed