The confort of stranger-commentary

Authors Avatar

Commentary - English A1 SL

The passage from ‘The comfort of Stranger’ by Ian McEwan is a narrative passage which humorously anecdotes about a naïve young brother, Robert, and his teenage sisters, Eva and Maria. The naïve young brother can be compared with the immature sisters who were wearing their mother’s clothes and cosmetics while they were alone in the house. Later, the boy tells his father everything that happened while they were at home. Not simply to make the readers to laugh, McEwan shows his contempt of the two beautiful sisters, the theme of naivety, unreliability of appearance is prominent throughout the writing.  

Throughout the story, Robert seems to be the most important character who allows the writer to reach the climax and create a comic relief. As Robert calls his mother ‘Mama’ and ‘I believed he knew everything, like a god’ show that the boy’s ingenuousness makes him unable to tell a lie to his father. This deducts that Robert’s characterization emphasizes the difference between the sisters, Eva and Maria, and comes into an effect of exaggerating the thoughtless action of the girls. At the same time the author may suggest that the boy is slightly alienated from his siblings. In the last paragraph, father’s action of staring at Robert and asking “what have you been doing this afternoon” shows that he believes that Robert cannot tell a lie to him and, as expected, Robert tells his father everything what Eva and Maria have done. This is not simply a comic relief and the climax that makes the passage interesting, but an action which shows whether being a naïve person and not lying is a good choice or not, after all.

Join now!

In the first paragraph, McEvan creates a detailed imagery and description of the rising action: Eva and Maria wearing cosmetics and trying to look as beautiful as they can. McEvan describes Eva and Maria in Robert’s point of view, and mainly uses verbs and nouns; white and beautiful are the only adjectives, carefully is the only and one adverb and “these were American firm stars” is the metaphor that has been used to describe the girls’ actions and beauty. Still and all, by spending 13 lines of his passage to describe the sisters, McEvan excludes emotional elements, and makes ...

This is a preview of the whole essay