Consider The Importance Of Letters In Enduring Lov

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Consider the importance of letters in the novel. In McEwan’s Enduring love there are four letters, Jed’s letters in Chapter Eleven and Sixteen, Clarissa letter in Chapter Sixteen and Appendix II, which is Jed’s final letter in the book. These letters, though infrequent, are very important in the novel and give the reader more of an in-depth look into the characters of Clarissa and Jed and more of an insight into the plot. From the letters we immediately learn a lot more about the characters of Jed and Clarissa in a very short amount of time. We learn more about Clarissa’s views that Joe has not mentioned, this could be due to the fact that he hasn’t realised as he has been pre-occupied with Jed, or he simply does not care. For example we learn that Clarissa feels Joe has changed since Jed came into his life, and that she believe he triggered Jed’s obsession, “I can understand how he might have formed the impression that you were leading him on”. This is also significant as the reader can see that although the problem of Jed has been resolved, she still blames Joe to some extent. In Chapter Eleven we learn a lot about Jed, he is eager for Joe to know all the details of his life. We are told about where he lives, the history of his house and his family, “It belonged to my mother who died of cancer four years ago, and she inherited it from her sister who got it in a divorce settlement just weeks before she dies in a car crash.” It would not be able for the reader to find out details like these without the letters and they are strongly used to give the reader a deeper look into the characters. The letters included in the novel are clearly a narrative technique used by McEwan. As Joe can be viewed as an unreliable narrator, the letters give the reader a sense of reality throughout the story, for example we can see how Clarissa and Jed really feel about their
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