How McEwan Presents Ideas about Memory and Recall in Enduring Love

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How McEwan Presents Ideas about Memory and Recall in Enduring Love

In ‘Enduring Love” McEwan has created a storyline that refers to the 1st

person narrator’s own perception of his own mind and memory. Because

of this we do not know whether to trust Joe or not as he is extremely

biased in his own opinion. At the very beginning of the novel we, as

the reader, feel extremely safe being “in Joe’s hands” because we see

the very scientific, rational mind; however as we go on through the

story we see the loss of rationality and we are given hints not to

trust Joe as much as we did; “His writing’s rather like yours” and “Mr

Tapp went to the toilet, not his daughter”.

Within the opening chapter we see as a very clear memory from Joe of

the balloon accident. Within this chapter we see the very rational

side of Joe where we see the view of the balloon accident from a

“buzzards” point of view so that it looks like the people who are

within the balloon accident are on a snooker table coming from all

direction. Joe is able to stop time here and point out where

absolutely everyone is in relation to himself and the actual balloon.

The use of narrative and chronological time not being the same in the

first chapter also gives the reader different views of Joe’s own

memory and what kind of state he is in within the first chapter; the

change from people running towards the balloon to then of Joe’s and

Clarissa’s reunion to then being back at the balloon accident.

From the very beginning of the novel we, as the reader, see that Joe

is a very rational person who has to think about every single detail

of his own life and other people’s lives around his own. However in

Chapter 3 we see a very emotional part of Joe as he describes what

both he and Clarissa are up to after the great tragedy of the balloon

accident; “why didn’t I think of this?” and “she caressed my balls”.

This defiantly shows another side of Joe that we hadn’t seen yet, this

gives the reader the insight into Joe so that we know what different

sides there are to him that can affects his own memory. This is

extremely important for the reader as we must know whether the

narrator is trustworthy or not. At his point we are given no reason

to doubt Joe and what he is telling us. However at the end of chapter

3 we are given an inclination not to trust Joe as much as we do as Jed

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