What Is The Function Of Chapter 11?

‘Here I am, the king of my castle’. From this quotation he is explaining that he is the man of the house, his farther died and so did the rest of his family so now he is the ‘king’ of the whole house, but maybe he does not want to be, just maybe he wants Joe to be a sort of farther figure for him, its his desire for this parental closeness, this is like a little childish game that he is playing by saying that he is the ‘king of the castle’.

Also the words and phrases that Parry uses in the letter are also scientific, but why is he suddenly using such words with such extreme meanings. Theses are maybe or most definitely hints of his true and emotional feelings for Joe, he thinks that he feels the need to impress him by talking the way that Joe talks.

‘Exploration has begun of the ocean floor, but the surface remains undisturbed.’ From this quotation we can see a bit of the scientific language that he uses to explain that him and Joe have a lot of catching up to do. The hints of scientific language are hints of the rejection of Joe, a part of Parry and also the flattery of trying to win Joe over Clarissa and to show the feelings and true emotions of his heart, referring back to the title of the novel ‘Enduring Love’ which means like ever-lasting love, love which never stops, so in Parry’s case his continuing and ‘undying’ love for Joe.  So now that Parry also knows a bit about Joe’s back round, Parry will continue to try and impress him by speaking more scientifically and also with the form of romantic art.

As we can obviously see in chapter 11, the whole chapter is written in letter formation and structure. But the why has he written a letter instead of making more phone calls? This is because Parry believes that it will bring Joe closer to him and further away from Clarissa which is exactly what he wants. He also thinks that it is more passionate and romantic to write a letter, because it expresses the feeling and emotions of love clearer than what a phone call would do.

‘Writing to you brings us closer’. Here we can see where he has said that he thinks that writing a letter ‘brings them closer’. I recon that this Parry is kind of a crazy guy and I would not like to be in Joe’s shoes at this precise moment. This chapter is also a change of form for the reader, this is because so far throughout the novel we have been reading everything and seeing everything through Joe’s eyes, through his own perspectives, mind and thoughts. And now all of a sudden we are in Jed Parry’s mind, his body, we are speaking his words and seeing everything through his crazy obsessed emotionally loved mind. This is actually quite good because we now get to see things through someone else’s eyes instead of just Joe’s the whole time, its like a change of environment or atmosphere.

In this chapter we now have a change of themes, we have a quieter theme as to when Joe is being practically stalked by Parry. But the theme that we still and will probably always have throughout this novel is Parry’s obsessive love for Joe. We also have the theme of where Parry constantly refers to the special love, religious bond and closeness that they both share together, the religious love for Joe when he goes on to thank god for the existence and presence of them both. We also get a theme and also a feeling of the constant child ness, which also relates back to the character of Parry.