Ind Aff Setting Essay for Ap Literature

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Krystal Brooks September 17, 2012 AP Literature (M1): 12th Grade Mrs. Horton In Fay Weldon’s reflective short story, “Ind Aff”, the narrator struggles to understand her love affair with a married man and realizes that she does not have inordinate affection for him as she thinks when her life is compared to the murder of an Archduke. The narrator ultimately realizes that it was Princip’s fate to kill the Archduke because he had two chances to shoot him and when she sees the attractive waiter at the restaurant, she feels as though it’s fate for him to help her realize she’s trapped and can do a lot better than this “man with thinning hair” (Walden pg. 206). The “black clouds swishing gently all over Europe” (Weldon pg. 202) foreshadow the approaching conflict between the narrator and Peter, her professor. The rain that ruins the narrator and her ex-lovers trip can symbolize the loss of love between the two; however, the rain can also symbolize the purification of oneself. The narrator believes she is with her professor because of the inordinate affection she feels towards him, but the presence of the attractive waiter at the restaurant helps her realize that she is merely confusing “academic ambition with love” (Weldon pg. 206). The places the narrator goes to with her lover help add to the gloomy tone of the story. The narrator describes the restaurant as “private” (Weldon pg. 203) which makes the reader picture the restaurant as a lonely place. Also, as the narrator is talking about her relationship Peter, she describes their hotel bedroom in Europe as being “small and dark” (Weldon pg. 204) and as a “punishment room” (Weldon pg. 205). The descriptions of the room help the reader understand the value of the narrator and Peter’s relationship. Since they settle for a small and dark hotel room, the reader starts to assume that the narrator is also settling

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