McEwan again shows this obsession through the language of Jed and even Joe and Clarissa. We know that Jed is obsessed with Joe. Through the language he uses it can reinforce this to the reader. “We don’t know…we have to…we can” the sheer amount of times Jed uses the word “we” shows us how almost Joe is a part of him as well. McEwan presents this use of language in a very clever way to tell the reader this indirectly. Again so done with Joe “I was out... I wanted...I didn’t care” This again show us Joe care about himself not Jed or even Clarissa. On the other hand Clarissa can think of nothing else apart from Joe. Similarly this is shown to us in the form of language “do you...didn’t you…telling you” McEwan presents this obsession to show us what all the characters are feeling and what they are obsessed about.
It could also be portrayed that each of the main character has an obsession to get away from everyday life; Jed with religion, Joe with science and Clarissa with poetry and Keats. Joe’s love or even obsession for science is strongly shown to the reader through out the novel. McEwan presents this to us through every way he can. He does this to give us an insight of what it is to be like Joe…constantly thinking of science and nothing else apart from that. Event moments after the balloon accident Joe still relies on science “such as in his genetic investment” McEwan shows us that Joe has no other way to cope about this horrific catastrophe. We see this similarity with Jed, after the accident all he can think of doing is to pray, and with this combination of obsession with religion and Joe he has no other way to cope apart from trying to combine the two “God has bought us together”. Clarissa has an obsession with poetry but maybe on a lower scale to Jed with Joe or Joe with science. “For much of the time…we were talking about …John Keats” McEwan could have presented this obsession to us to show the reader how Clarissa copes with her life, through Keats.
When looking at the title of the book can see obsession written all over it? McEwan presents this to us through the word enduring. Enduring means long suffering, hardship, continuing and lasting. This “Enduring Love” can only be perused through obsession and the need of something or someone. McEwan shows this through the title. From the start the reader see that this book want be about a happy ending or about romantic love but about an “Enduring Love”
It can also be explored that there may be another theme of obsession of love. Throughout McEwan presents to us the reader these three charters struggling and always losing to get the right type of love they want. Maybe McEwan is presenting us these three lost cases and is telling the reader that they are all obsessed with love but will never get the right kind. “Just I love you, like that’ we see this through Clarissa as well “we need to love each other harder” when she says this to Joe it is very ironic as McEwan has presented this to us in such a way as we know all Joe will want to love more is his “real science”.
Over all we can see many ways McEwan presents obsession in Enduring Love and after exploring these in conclusion it can be seen that maybe these three very different characters are quite similar in ways due to their obsession. They deal with all the hardship by burying themselves in to what the care about the most, may it be science, poetry or religion. In turn it all gets them to the same place, but just be different routes.
