This appendix does fill in the gaps of certain missing pieces of narrative, such as the situation between Joe and Clarissa. We find out that they get back together and adopt a child, but in such a peremptory way, leaving us as readers confused about why he chooses to do so after we are reading such a personal and emotional response to their relationship in the rest of the novel. It seems to highlight the distance between science and emotion. We feel satisfied hearing about Parry’s condition in this scientific way, even though his syndrome is very much based on emotion, but we are not satisfied in hearing about Joe and Clarissa in this register. This makes us question how love can be seen as a disease and how Parry’s love is so different to that between Joe and Clarissa. Parry is not presented as a threat through the objective scientific language, and explaining things scientifically helps create sympathy for Parry which the reader had not felt through Joe or Jed’s narrative. We begin to see Parry as a victim, realising that he isn’t in control of his behaviour.
“Mullen and Pathe highlight the tragedy for patients and victims alike”
The distance we feel from Parry whilst reading appendix one can be compared to the way Joe uses scientific language as a consoling factor to distance himself from his emotions.
This appendix sums up the thesis behind the whole novel, exploring the idea of ‘enduring love’. The novel explains love in different ways and here, as a possible conclusion to the novel, we are given the scientific explanation.
“The pathological extensions of love not only touch upon, but overlap with normal experience and its is not always easy to accept that one of our most valued experiences may merge into psychopathology”
It is by this point in the novel that we see that science has ultimately defeated intuition. Joe’s diagnosis is correct, proving that a scientific outlook on life can be vitally beneficial. McEwan, after the conflict between science and intuition presented through Joe and Clarissa, seems to want the readers to finish the novel with this positive view of science, though our opinions change slightly when we are presented with the second appendix.
Appendix two is a letter from Parry in his third year of admittance in a mental health institution, and provides a total contrast to appendix one. It is interesting that McEwan gives the last words to Parry, after the first appendix makes him seem so powerless and no kind of threat to Joe. It highlights the fact that Jed’s love will last forever, again acting as a clear connection back to the title ‘Enduring Love’. McEwan’s choice to end the novel with the pathological, insane view of love suggests that it is the only form of love that will definitely ‘endure’, but interestingly, won’t be ‘endured’. Any distance we felt from Parry, or comfort in the fact that he is simply an ill man, is forgotten about after reading the letter, and the novel ends on a sinister tone the readers are more familiar with.
The novel as a whole, and Parry’s enduring love, seem to put the message across that life is cyclical. This is highlighted through the reoccurring event of the picnic in chapter one and twenty-four. It suggests there is no answer, and are no solutions to love. Jed’s subtle threat, “No going back now, Joe!” leave us feeling uncomfortable, even though we know that Joe isn’t receiving these letters. The fact that he knows it’s the thousandth letter he has sent to Joe and the repetition of the word “thousand” is frightening not only knowing that Jed is dreadfully obsessed with Joe, but also accentuates the fact that Jed’s constantly writing these letters and will be for the rest of his life. Appendix one reveals to us that De Clarembault’s syndrome can’t be cured, so by this point we know for a fact that Jed won’t stop this behaviour.
As well as posing a threat, it seems that we know, after reading the two appendices, the extent of Jed’s delusional thoughts is fully realised, providing readers with an unsettling conclusion to a story that ends well for Joe and Clarissa. Although a happy image of them is created, in the back of our minds is still this person, that as we know is very dangerous, obsessing about Joe constantly and will never go away. Joe doesn’t know about these daily letters, but the fact that he doesn’t seems to create an ending with a more sinister, unsettling tone, as us as readers know more than him.
The appendices provide readers with three alternative endings, rather than a conventional novel that would only contain one, which in itself creates a more interesting read as well as each one provoking a different response on the whole novel. The two appendices represent the science versus emotion argument presented to us throughout the novel, mainly through the characters of Joe and Jed. Interestingly, the appendices contain no narrative voice from Joe, our dominant narrator, which says that different points of view can give us a totally different perspective on a situation, and although the narrative structure of Appendix one is rather similar to Joe by it’s scientific register, it still comes across as more believable than Joe’s narrative, as we’re easily led to believe things in ‘fact’ form. As McEwan made up the account, it seems that he is playing with this common human error to make us think about whom and what to trust.
Joe mentions love letters in the novel explaining how Clarissa writes them and are “passionately abstract in their exploration of the ways (their) love was different from and superior to any that had ever existed” , which can be compared to Parry’s final letter that ends the novel. Parry’s love for Joe seemed more ‘superior’ than the love between Joe and Clarissa at the end of chapter twenty-four, as Jed’s love endured, and split the couple up. His love gave him power and control through his attempt to kill Joe and the threat to take his own life in front of their faces. After reading the appendices, the love that Clarissa writes still exists, and is now superior to Jed’s love, but both forms of love have endured.
