Evident throughout the entire plot of 'Enduring Love', Ian McEwan fuses three different genres: love story, detective story and thriller

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"Enduring Love gracefully bridges genres" ....Discuss

Evident throughout the entire plot of 'Enduring Love', Ian McEwan fuses three different genres: love story, detective story and thriller. Each genre I believe has a set of expectations that captures the reader urging them to read on, for example a thriller genre would stereotypically be led by a fast, tense pace with characters easily identifiable as 'goodies' and 'baddies'. Different, fresh and 'novel' McEwan establishes his break up of typical genres as he mixes the elements of the three main genres and purposely doesn't stick to their rigid framework that many authors swear by. It is however important to assess to what extent that McEwan successfully combines these genres and how effective his method is.

During the exposition of 'Enduring Love', McEwan attempts to "entice the reader into making that commitment" creating an "addictive quality" which I believe he does so by incorporating several stylistic devices, flowing from one to the other throughout the entire of the first chapter. Focusing particularly on the action of the event Joe is describing, McEwan incorporates parts of the romance genre and the detective story, switching from one to the other frequently. "We set off down our path arm in arm...the warmth and tranquillity in her voice", Concentrating on the 'romance' genre, McEwan allows the reader to feel a connection with Joe as we are made aware of his emotions for Clarissa. Exploring different themes of love, we become acquainted with Clarissa's love of Keats poetry, "Clarissa's interest in these hypothetical letters had something to do with our own situation" and the love for others surrounding Joe at the station "it was smiles and hugs, and in thirty-five minutes I experienced more than fifty theatrical happy endings".
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Distinctly, McEwan entices the reader into his 2nd genre choice: the detective story in which he incorporates into the action of the plot. "...nor have I discovered, who let go first. I'm not prepared to accept that it was me." Allowing McEwan to alter his focus in genre smoothly without disturbing the action of the plot, Joe is used as narrator to slow and quicken up the pace of the action leading the reader into sub-plot discussions in a way of tempting the reader by delaying the action. "I'm holding back...I'm lingering in the prior moment", this allows ...

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