The narrator backtracks in time – delaying the account of dramatic incidents. This keeps us waiting in anticipation as time period are cleverly interchanged, building suspense. There are examples throughout chapter one, of when and how McEwan does this but the best incident occurs in the third page, When we are told about the balloon and a imposing catastrophe- “a basket in which there was a boy…… clinging to a rope, was a man in need of help”, he then backtracks and give the reader details of Clarissa’s reunion with the narrator and purchasing of the picnic. He then skips forward forty minutes to the airport where he describes the people he sees, then skipping forward about an hour again to “the Chiltern Woods – near Christmas Common” and the picnic. He talks about many other things after this until page eight which the returns the reader to page one and the balloon incident.
Another technique McEwan uses is referring to late events, which follow the balloon incident. These hints to what will happen in the rest of the book do not have any real relevance to the reader yet because the hadn’t yet found out about the balloon incident, this creates mystery.
An example of when he also does this is when the narrator tells us about the other characters involved in the balloon incident “John Logan a family doctor, married to a historian, with two children” these are details that only the narrator could have discovered later similarly he also tells us that “Joseph Lacey, sixty-three, farm laborer,” Toby Greene, fifty-eight, un-
married”, “ the pilot, James Gadd fifty-five”, “Harry Gadd, his grandson”, and “Jed Parry, He was twenty-eight, unemployed, living on an inheritance.”
Certain words he chooses are very carefully inserted to imply serious consequences. When the narrator tells us “our fatal lack of co-operation” the way he chooses to use the word ”fatal” is an example of this technique, of all the words he could have used in this sentence the one he cleverly puts in makes it a dramatic statement giving the reader the drama that creates suspense.
The chapter has a central male character that is telling the reader “his own story.” He is the first person narrative, refers to himself as “I”, and talks of “me” and “my.” Therefore, he is an anonymous narrator throughout the first chapter, as he never tells us his name. He gives us little information, he does supply is slipped in carefully among the other information and action in the chapter, which slowly builds up his character. In my opinion on example would be the first time he describes himself is as “a large, clumsy, balding fellow” is very brief and does not occur until page seven.
On page eleven from the way the narrator analyses the way the boy, Harry, is terrified as “a state known as learned helplessness, often noted in laboratory animals” we guess he may be a scientist. He also analyses other events this way to make us think there may well be a scientific connection. This technique slowly develops into an intriguing question of who this man is, because he has drawn us into the plot and made us want to learn more about his character.
At the start of the first chapter, McEwan uses a buzzard to give another view of the action. The narrator tells the reader “I see us from three hundred feet up, through the eyes of a buzzard” this provides an alternative view.
In conclusion to how McEwan creates intrigue and suspense in the first chapter, is by using several different literary devices and techniques in the right places to cleverly draw the reader into the plot. As this, quote proves, “the most gripping first chapter I’ve ever read” written by Rachel Billington of “The Guardian” and the “Daily Mail” – “It’s amazingly perfect fist chapter had me hyperventilating.”
The reason McEwan creates all this suspense and intrigue is because he wants us to read on and to make us want to read on. He also makes a lot of suspense by creating cliffhangers, which make the moments of drama in which the outcome is uncertain. In addition, the fact that the chapter is a retrospective account of the narrator it makes it easier for McEwan to insert and play around with each of his methods.
