After visiting the Logan family, Joe encounters Parry on his way home. Joe wants to avoid any contact with Parry, almost as if he was disgusted by him, as “I didn’t want to touch him.”(p129) Also, since Parry is obviously emotionally unstable and unpredictable, Joe doesn’t always know what Parry means, which makes him uneasy, unleashing paranoia in his mind, as “afterwards I considered his words carefully and began to think that perhaps I was being threatened. But then, it was easy to feel threatened, and I ended up with no clear idea at all.” (p129) Joe will keep turning Parry’s words in his head, eventually feeding his paranoia and fear.
A misunderstanding between both characters, Joe doesn’t understand what Jed wants. ‘You love me. You love me, and there’s nothing I can do but return your love’ says Jed. We learn from this point that Jed is really attached to Joe and that he can’t live without him: De Clerambaults syndrome. The fact that Joe doesn’t always know what Parry means makes him uneasy.
Parry continues writing letters to Joe about god for instance. Joe decides to report these letters as well as Jed’s stalking to the police, without any success. Joe is desperate, but can’t do anything about Jed who is the main element in Joe-Clarissa’s crack in their relationship.
Jed aspires to be like Joe (father figure):
Also, Joe, “aged 47, represented a father figure to Parry, or whether, as a successful, socially integrated individual, he represented an ideal to which Parry aspired.” (p240). This gives us indications to the reasons why Parry, who missed a father, got so attached to Joe, and developed erotomania.
Joe wants Parry to stop tormenting him:
Joe wishes that Parry would get run over by a car. P. 90 “There was just a chance he could have fallen forwards under a passing set of wheels, and I wanted it”. This is not the same Joe from the beginning of the novel who was kind, gentle and guilt ridden after the accident.
Once Jed says he loves him, Joe becomes reluctant in seeing him again. When Jed starts to cry he stays with him. Jed then goes on to say that he will bring Joe to God. Joe’s explanation to stay with Jed: ‘The fact was that he was so harmless, he looked so crushed, and he was speaking such nonsense that I felt genuinely sorry for him.’ Despite this, Joe has the power over Jed.
Clarissa:
Parry is coming between them:
Jed Parry is the main catalyst into Joe-Clarissa’s relationship breakdown. Parry is coming between them, even when he is not physically there. This breakdown is mainly due to a lack of communication between themselves, Joe’s obsession to Jed Parry as well as Clarissa’s lack of understanding to Joe’s problems with Jed.
Clarissa is slightly worried that Joe is going crazy. P.83 “It’s always been a fear that she’ll live with someone who goes crazy. That’s why she chose rational Joe”. However, at this point Joe is not being rational at all. She has never seen him like this and does not understand, as she sees Parry as a man with a crush on Joe and nothing to worry about.
Rupture in their relationship:
At one point, when Joe gets home, he meets an upset Clarissa. This moment marks a real rupture in Joe’s and Clarissa’s relationship, “I had never seen such fury in her before. ‘You even left the drawer open so I’d know when I came in. It’s a statement, a message, from you to me, it’s a signal. The trouble is, I don’t know what it means. Perhaps I’m being very stupid. So spell it out for me now, Joe. What is it you’re trying to tell me?’” (p132) Even though their relationship was degrading before already, from this point on they hardly talk, they can hardly be together and Clarissa eventually leaves for some time to her brother’s house.
He believes that Clarissa might be thinking she’s in for a bad deal. He looses confidence and ends up betraying Carissa’s trust by searching her desk. “To her I was a maniac, perversely obsessed, and worst of all, the thieving invader of her private space. As far as I was concerned she was disloyal unsupportive in this time of crisis and irrationally suspicious” Joe accuses Clarissa of not being loyal to her, and doesn’t consider Clarissa’s accusations.
‘It had always seemed to me that our love was just the kind to endure’ says Joe about his relationship with Clarissa. Joe has hope that once the situation with Jed is over, their relationship will be able to be like before (what he is missing).
Joe is like a child, and ‘uses’ Clarissa as his mother. He needs to tell her things so that she will comfort him. “I had to tell her about his call the night before, and how he had followed me into the library, and about this discomfort, this apprehension I had. I thought of going to find her in the restaurant…”
‘Clarissa thought I was mad, the police thought I was a fool, and one thing was clear: the task of getting us back to where we were was going to be mine alone.’ (Chapter end). After the incident between Clarissa and Jed in her apartment, Clarissa is sorry about not understanding Joe’s problem with Parry. However she believes that it was also Joe’s fault as he didn’t communicate enough.
Role played in the novel, consider contribution to the plot, ideas and narrative style
In “Enduring Love”, Joe represents the scientific perspective. He is a “well-known science writer who wrote from an atheistic point of view.” (p237). This sharply contrasts with Clarissa’s emotional representation of the world and Parry’s religious angle.
The majority of the story story is based on Jed’s obsession for Joe. Without Jed, there wouldn’t be all the problems between Joe and Clarissa. Furthermore, as Joe and Clarissa are profoundly different characters, and since Joe is not very good at conveying and communicating his emotions and feelings, we begin to doubt Jed’s real existence, as even Clarissa is having a difficult time believing Joe.
Jed continues to follow Joe and phones him up 29 times. Joe is naturally annoyed about Jed as he, nor the police can do anything about his apparently harmless presence to Joe. Despite this, Joe doesn’t talk about his fears and apprehensions to Clarissa, which will of course widen the plot, as we see the relationship between Joe and Clarissa weaken. This whole balloon incident, followed by Jed’s erotomania, makes the couple question the strength of their relationship, as it is the first real challenge, or obstacle they face together as a couple.
We see how Joe disagrees on some of Keats work, which is more emotional than scientific, which once again shows an opposition between Clarissa’s artistic and emotional perspective, and Joe’s scientific and rational perspective. These scientific passages emphasize Joe’s rational personality and eagerness for sciences in contrast with Clarissa’s emotional personality shown with Keats. This enables McEwan to create two sharply different characters opposing science and arts.
As the victim of Jed’s erotomania, Joe must endure his love, “the barrage of letters, door-step confrontations and street vigils so familiar in the sad literature of this condition.” (p237) Joe supposedly leaves messages to Parry by moving his curtains or by touching the hedge next to his house, as “there was a glow, a kind of burning on my fingers along the edges of those wet leaves. Then I got it. You had touched them in a certain way, in a pattern that spelled a simple message. Did you really think I would miss it, Joe! So simple, so clever, so loving!”(p.96). Jed deciphers all these insignificant messages and gives them some kind of meaning. Within days, Joe’s and Clarissa’s relationship decayed.
Joe’s visit to the Logan house makes the Logan subplot move on. This subplot is relevant to the main plot due to its solid links to themes such as doubt, misunderstanding and trust within a relationship, which are central themes of the main plot, between Joe and Clarissa. Joe’s future meeting with Mrs Logan will be decisive in the progression of the novel as well as it will unveil, towards the end, what really happened during the balloon incident day with Mr Logan, and who really was in his car.
McEwan usually ends the chapters in a very strong and powerful way, usually summarizing the main events occurred during the chapter. This makes the reader want to continue and find out what will happen in the course of the novel.
Clarissa
Clarissa is one of the main characters in Enduring Love, a novel by Ian McEwan. A young artist and lecturer who represents art and emotion in the novel. This character study intends to analyse Clarissa in depth based on information given in the novel, including her background, interests, relationships and role. A part describing our own reactions towards her character and behaviour is also included. Clarissa is what some people would describe as Joe’s ‘better-half’, but is this really the case?
Background information
Been with Joe for 7 years. Clarissa’s research : John Keats.
Sabbatical term spent travelling around Spain and Portugal, and just came back from Boston. She lives in an art deco apartment and she can’t have children but loves them. She’s very emotional. She was very depressed when her friend’s baby dies. She’s a teacher and does lectures on Keats, she’s a literary critic. Dad died of Alzheimers when she was twelve and now she’s scared of living with someone crazy. (Chapters 1-5)
We learn that her father died of Alzheimer's when she was twelve, and now fears and would never like to live with someone who is ‘unstable’ or who goes crazy (Chapters 6-10)
Clarissa gives seminars every day. She is also a literary critic who can “read between the lines of protesting love”. Clarissa’s family: Professor Jocelyn Kale is Clarissa’s godfather. (Chapters 16-20)
Attitudes and interests
Her interest in Keats hypothetical letters has something to do with their situation and through the relationships she’s analyzed in his poems, she analyzes their own and compares. She’s not good at expressing her emotions verbally but she expresses herself best through letters. (Chapters 1-5)
She enjoys her work, but is sometimes feels strained.
She is obviously very sentimental and emotional, as she reproaches Joe of being unable to ‘take account of its own emotional field’. She is good with people, and is able to talk down Joe. But then becomes offensive as Joe becomes aggressive and asks why he deleted the messages. They begin to row, and Clarissa covers herself up. They never row usually. She is scared of losing her love for Joe. Joe describes her as ‘easy to wound’. (Chapters 6-10).
Clarissa is a very emotional person and she chooses not to speak about her feelings with Joe (shows how much their relationship has deteriorated “Clarissa thought her emotions were the appropriate guide, that she could feel her way to the truth” says Joe. This opposes their povs.
Joe says that Clarissa is the same as Jean in the way that she feels wronged and expects something of him.
Clarissa tries to see the best in everyone.
Clarissa squeals when she receives a first edition of Poems by Keats. Clarissa talks about Keats and Wordsworth, she is very knowledgeable. “She was usually reticent about what she knew really well”. (Chapters 16-20)
Being a Keats enthusiast and specialist, Clarissa expresses herself best through letters, we see it in this chapter where she writes a long explanative letter to Joe. She also knows a lot about relationships thanks to Keats and has analyzed her and Joe’s in this letter. For the first time in the novel we really get an idea of Clarissa’s state of mind, through the letter. (Chapters 21-24)
Relationships with other characters
Joe
Her relationship with Joe is going well until this point, when Joe comes clean and tells her about Jed’s first phone call (“i love you”). They are very close, she blows a kiss at him. She laughs ‘little girl style’ when Joe tells her, and speaks playfully to him and makes jokes. She then becomes quite serious, but finds it difficult to believe Joe. But she says she loves him and ‘they kiss deeply’.
She feels ill and the memory of the balloon accident is coming back to her. It is seriously affecting her. Joe makes it worse by not greeting her. She needs his affection, and wants him to take care of her. Their relationship seems to begin to change from this point on, as Joe becomes selfish and cannot see she is tired and in pain.
She says they both seem ‘to be in different mental universes’. (Opposition : Art >< Science) (Chapters 6-10)
Jed talks about Clarissa in his letter to Joe. He wants to talk to her and Joe to “arrange” things as she is obviously an obstacle, for Jed, in his relationship with Joe. We start to see that Joe and Clarissa’s relationship falling apart. They were still talking, making love… But she still had doubts about Jed. She tells Joe that his hand writing strangely looks like Jed’s. Joe realizes that the way Jed describes Joe, and the fact that he talks about a common past makes Clarissa doubt and Joe realizes that maybe she thinks that it is not Jed that is obsessed by him but the other way round. Joe also realizes that Clarissa may think that he is secretly flattered about Jed’s obsession and love of him. Joe also says that his relationship with Clarissa was, before Jed, like an old clock perfectly balanced so it was easy to keep it going. Now, with Jed, the two of them realize that one little threat is hard dealing with as it is their first. Clarissa says that she feels alone and that Joe is not sharing enough about what is happening with Jed. Clarissa feels that Joe is acting on his own and not telling her everything. (Chapters 11-16)
By chapter 16, they have hit a rough patch. “We were like armies facing each other across a maze of trenches” (139): they have different points of view.
- What Clarissa thinks of Joe: “To her, I was manic, perversely obsessed, and worst of all, the thieving invader of her private space”
- What Joe thinks of Clarissa: “As far as I was concerned she was disloyal, unsupportive in this time of crisis, and irrationally suspicious”.
They don’t have rows but continue their daily routine with small talk, avoiding the truth that they are drifting apart or a row, a conflict of any sort. “We had lost the trick of love and we didn’t know how to begin talking about it” (140). They don’t embrace anymore, they don’t see each other naked, love-making and silent companionship seem contrived, they don’t meet each other’s gaze. They “can’t bare” to discuss Parry (141). Parry has put a strain on their relationship.
-What Clarissa thinks of Joe: “I think it’s all over. I think it’s best to admit it, don’t you?” (145). She says that Joe is always thinking of Parry => love triangle. She wants Joe to tell her the truth “Go on, tell me honestly” (148).
“I’m losing you, it’s frightening.” (148). Clarissa thinks something is wrong with Joe. She gets emotional and cries. “Don’t you realise you’ve got a problem?” (148). There is a lapse in communication between the two. She still thinks he is lying about Jed being outside. She interprets everything through a veil of doubt.
They kiss on the lips. “Now it was settled in her mind I was unhinged, now she told me we were finished, she appeared elated and generous” (150) => Clarissa chooses her state of mind over Joe’s. The reader feels she is self-centered although the book IS written from Joe’s pov. She thinks Joe is mad.
After the restaurant incident, Clarissa sits down next to Joe and speaks comfortingly => they seem to have made up through this dreadful event. (Chapters 16-20)
When she sees Joe with a gun she has “an expression of such repulsion and surprise” (p.214) She never believed him to be the kind of person who would have one.
“Perhaps we were really finished” (p.215) this incident is the last thing that puts a definite end to their relationship?
p.216 Clarissa says how scared she was by Joe’s action but apologizes for not standing by him and supporting him against Parry and admits she was completely wrong.
Explains how betrayed she feels by Joe, when he ransacked her desk and by him dealing with the whole Parry thing on his own, turning away from her and creating a gap between them. He became a stranger to her. (p.218) “A stranger invaded our lives, and the first thing that happened is that you became a stranger to me”.
She holds onto the idea of everything being Joe’s fault, by fear of feeling dumb for not believing him, admitting that she also betrayed his trust.
It’s the first big test in their relationship, after seven years of happiness.
Clarissa and Joe realize how they’ve both got new things and seem to have moved seperatly. Joe: “this mate, this familiar, was transforming herself into a separate person”.
He says her letter only drove them further apart. (Chapters 21-24)
“Within days their relationship was under strain from P’s determined onslaught” (p.237) (Appendix)
Jed
Clarissa is a small obstacle for Jed, it prevents him from being with Joe. “You have to tell Clarissa”. Her role is as an opposition to Jed’s desire. Afterwards, he makes no reference to her anymore and avoids her. He disappears when she comes to the window. “Sparing her feelings?” Jed could feel threatened by her. Clarissa doesn’t believe Jed is stalking. (Chapters 16-20)
p. 204 Clarissa has her first confrontation with Jed Parry, first time they meet since ballooning accident. Jed is threatening her with a knife, she finally has a reason to believe Joe about how dangerous Parry is (and she always denied it or ignored him, now has proof). (Chapters 21-24)
Children
p.224 We see again how close to children Clarissa is and how comfortable she is with them (with the Logan’s). Jean Logan: “She’s very good with them. You both are.”
Narrative techniques & Role played
Joe thinks that Clarissa is using Jed as an excuse to go off with another man. Joe searches Clarissa’s study. Joe talks about not being able to have children and Clarissa telling him that he would have made a good father.
Clarissa finds out about Joe searching in her study and is waiting for him when he gets home. She is furious. (Chapters 11-16)
The weight of Clarissa’s present in Joe’s pocket brings his thoughts back to her and her last birthday. Breakfast in bed, birthday cuddle and opening cards. Clarissa “she took a controlling pleasure in destroying my attention … drawing me into the deep world that was entirely herself”. (Chapters 16-20)
The way we react to her character
She seems to be quite narrow minded and focuses on the fact Joe lied, not on the fact that he owned up. (Chapters 6-10)
“She was creating a little fuss around her” (162). When Clarissa sees Joe, she comes skipping over and leads him to the table by the hand =>child-like description. She is elated and gives Joe an intimate kiss but it is superficial. We believe she is self-centered. (Chapters 16-20)
In conclusion, Clarissa is an important person and contributes enormously to the overall plot. Her character is used to help the reader to learn more about Joe, and represent art and emotion in order to create an interesting opposition between her and Joe which keeps the reader thinking and changing opinions.
Jed
- Background information and physical attributes
Jed Parry was born the second child of a father who died when he was 8 years old. His mother did not offer any support and quickly re-married. Meanwhile, his older sister moved abroad and he never saw her again. At the age of 14, Jed stayed with his uncle in the country. He would borrow a .22 rifle to hunt rabbits. He loved to hunt because he loved the solitude and the pleasures of the kill (page 151).
One of Jed’s most memorable childhood memories was when his class went on a school trip to Switzerland. They climbed a boring rocky path and complained the entire way until they reached a meadow with flowers and grass. This was like arriving into paradise (page 137).
Parry was an intense and lonely child who didn’t have any close friends. He became more and more isolated. He was above average academically; however he was never too good at school. At university, he joined the Student Christian Movement and began to take comfort in faith. He left university with a degree in history and did a few low-skilled jobs. He inherited a house in London and a sum of money from his sister. Once his mother died, he became the sole beneficiary of the house on Frognal Lane, Hampstead and moved into it.
In the novel, Parry is 28 years old and described as “some kind of vengeful fanatic”. He’s tall, lean, and bony, but looks fit. He has a slightly frightening appearance but his voice is feebly hesitant (p24). He seems small “all knobs and bones, no longer the sleek Indian brave, despite the pony-tail”.
Attitudes and interests
When Jed moved into his inherited house, his religious beliefs as well as isolation intensified and he began to meditate on God’s glory. He began thinking that God was setting him a challenge. He saw himself as the messenger of God, so when he first meets Joe, he feels a connection and believes that God has brought him and Joe together purposely.
The first insight into Jed’s religious convictions is when Jed Parry wants to pray after the balloon incident. Parry wants Joe to at least try praying but Joe refuses. This is the start of a complex situation where Jed Parry thinks that Joe is playing games with him and leading him on.
Jed’s religious aspects can be seen throughout numerous details in the book. To begin, his answering machine says: ‘Please leave your message after the tone. And may the Lord be with you.’ (p.47). In addition, he shows that he is strongly devoted to God when he says to Joe, “I thank god out loud for letting you exist” (page 93). He believes that everything is somehow linked to God by some purpose, “So, here I am, the king of my castle which god has granted to me for a purpose of his own.” (page 95). Jed believes that “God was undeniably ‘within’ rather than in his heaven, and believing in him was therefore a license to respond to the calls of feeling or intuition,” (page 152). He also believes that God “gave us our minds, He granted us our wonderful cleverness,” (page 135). Joe writes that Jed’s belief was a “self-made affair, generally aligned to the culture of personal growth and fulfillment,” (page 152).
Jed is also clearly obsessed with Jed. He watches him for hours a day, standing in front of his apartment. “Mostly he stood still, feet slightly apart, hands in pockets, the expression on his face [...] suggested concentration, or perhaps imminent happiness” (chapter 8). He also calls Joe’s house frequently and leaves 33 messages. Jed is very in love with Joe. Even at the end of the novel, when Jed is in a mental institute. He continues to write letters to Joe daily.
Moreover, Jed is convinced that Joe is playing games with him. This paranoia starts off calmly until Jed gets upset that Joe keeps “rejecting him” so, for the first time, he gets aggressive and swears: “You fuck! You’re playing... torturing me [...]. You fuck, you’ll beg for mercy, you’ll crawl on your stomach...” (chapter 10). In addition, Jed gets the illusion that everything Joe does is some kind of message; the reader by now thinks that he must be some kind of freak. He insists, “Everything I see I want to touch and stroke.” (page 95). Jed says to Joe, “I ignored what you were telling me with your eyes and your every gesture.” (page 94). Jed believes that his “relationship” with Joe is some kind of secret; maybe he takes joy in thinking so like a little child.
Furthermore, Jed is completely unstable. It is impossible to know what he is thinking or how is going to react. At first, Jed was very nervous in front of Joe, he didn’t want to meet his eyes, and he “hooks a thumb into his trouser pocket” (chapter 7). But, by the end of the novel, Jed suddenly threatens to kill himself (page 212). It seems that he is wildly emotions and wants to call out for attention. Jed frightens Joe when he writes, “You started this, and you can’t run from it, I can get people to do things for me…” (page 152). Joe describes Jed’s world as a world of, “emotion, invention, and yearning,” (page 147). “He was inviolable in his solipsism, and I was getting the jitters. The logic that might drive him from despair to hatred, or from love to destruction in one leap, would be private, unguessable, and if he came at me there’d be no warning,” (page 144).
Through his religious beliefs, obsessions, and games, Jed has created a world for himself where he lives in complete isolation. He interprets things the way he wants them to be interpreted, not the way they really are. He creates what he wants to see; he is the motor of his own world, yet he gets so involved that he is no longer able to control his world. Joe writes that, “The pattern of his (Jed’s) love was not shaped by external influences, even if they originated from me. His was a world determined from the inside, driven by private necessity, and this way it could remain intact,” (page 143).
- Relationships to other characters
Jed Parry seems to get attached to people very quickly. The moment that he met Joe, he decided that he had to save him and thus a complex relationship started. At the beginning of the novel, Jed experiences pain when Logan dies during the balloon accident. Joe pats him on the shoulder and gives him a reassuring look. ‘Had I known what this glance meant to him at the time, and how he was to construe it later and build around it a mental life, I would have not been so warm.’ (p20). The night of the accident, Jed calls Joe at two in the morning and says ‘I just wanted you to know, I understand what you’re feeling. I feel it too. I love you.’ (p.37)
Jed seems to soak up everything that Joe does, says, or even doesn’t do. This is where his obsession for Joe comes in. Joe describes, ‘Everything, every gesture, every word I spoke was being stored away, gathered and piled, fuel for the long winter of his obsession.’ (p20) This obsession leads to paranoia, which quickly begins to torment and scare Joe. Towards the end of the novel, Joe is terrified Parry is trying to murder him. ‘What reason had I given him for murdering me? Did he think I had mocked his faith?’ (p.47).
Besides Joe, Jed does not form a relationship with any other character from the novel. On the contrary, he destroys the relationships between other characters. The night of the accident, Joe wants to speak to Clarissa about Jed but ends up not doing so as he doesn’t want to ruin the moment of pleasure they are about to have. He ‘unplugged the phone many hours ago’ too (p.53). However, this is the very beginning of a period where Jed has managed to constantly occupy Joe’s thoughts and Joe is also becoming obsessed.
Joe tells Clarissa the truth about the phone call. Clarissa finds this funny and makes fun of the situation: “A secret gay love affair with a Jesus freak! I can’t wait to tell your science friends.” For Clarissa, Jed is just “some poor fellow [that] has a crush [on Joe]. He’s just a joke but Joe feels threatened by him; he does not want to have anything to do with him. Therefore Jed uses the fact that Joe wants to get rid of him to lure him into meeting him.
In chapter 7, Joe starts to thinks that Clarissa is right and that “he [is just] a harmless fellow....” (p.61) but on the other side, Jed is sure something has happened between him Joe at the ballooning accident. He thinks Joe is playing a game with him, that he is pretending not to know what he is talking about. He is persuaded that Joe wants something from him; so that he’ll admit that he loves him. He wants Joe, Clarissa and him to meet and talk about the situation; this is the first time that Parry refers to Clarissa in his delusion.
Jed’s continuous appearances in Joe’s life starts to make him nervous, he becomes stressed and uneasy. Clarissa still thinks that Jed is just a “lonely inadequate man, a Jesus freak who is probably living off his parents, and dying to connect with someone, anyone, even Joe”. Joe starts to pity him but his pity is quickly replaced by anger, anger at Jed for coming in between of him and Clarissa.
P.93 “Begging your forgiveness”
P.94 “Constrained as you are by Clarissa’s feelings” believes that Joe really does love him.
P.95 “I already know a lot about your life. I’ve made it my job, my mission”
Funnily enough, even if Jed is one of the major characters and the reason for the whole novel, his relations are all nonexistent; the only thing that exists is the utter active rejection from Joe’s side and Clarissa who believes Jed is either Joe’s fabrication or just a weird harmless bloke.
Jed only has a relationship with Joe. He writes to Joe, “My love for you is hard and fierce, it won’t take no for an answer, and it’s moving steadily towards you, coming to claim you and deliver you. In other words, my love – which is also God’s love – is your fate,” (page 136). Jed not only loves Joe but also obsesses over him. He stands in front of Joe’s building for about one hour every day and then leaves. Jed sends Joe 3 to 4 letters a week. They are long, ardent, and written in an increasingly focused present tense. In his letters he makes numerous religious references which would have seemed formulaic had they not been so fervent. Also, he is interested in reading all articles writing by Joe so he pays someone 500 pounds to read Joe’s “sad dry thoughts,” (page 133).
At some point, Jed becomes angry with Joe. He accuses Joe of leading him on and playing games with him. He also accuses him not facing responsibility for the affair that he started. Also, he worries that Joe’s arrogance could bring him down (page 135). Joe perplexes Jed, “How is it possible to love God and love you at the same time?” (page 134).
Jed is the one who created the crack in Clarissa’s and Joe’s solid relationship. His imaginary affair with Joe puts a strain on their relationship and create unease in their everyday life, she starts doubt him, think that maybe he’s not the right man for her. These little cracks are described through Joe’s eyes in a 3rd person narrative. “Don’t get angry with me Joe. You didn’t see his face, and he wasn’t in the square.”
Jed starts to take more and more space in Joe’s life, he calls him and asks him to meet him; he promises him that if they meet he’ll never bother him again. Jed wants Joe to stop playing games and let his true feeling out so that they can be together. When Jed mentions Clarissa it is too much for Joe he gets the taxi and leaves. Jed continues to harass Joe, he waits for him at his door, calls him…
Jed’s constant stalking creates further tension between Clarissa and Joe, they start to grow distant. She doesn’t believe Joe. She starts to doubt his rationality, that maybe he’s gone insane. “When she was twelve her father died of Alzheimer’s, and it’s always been a fear [...]. That’s why she chose rational Joe”. Clarissa’s doubt is emphasized by chapter 9, which is told in her point of view.
Jed proposes to work thing out with Clarissa.P.98 “I’m convinced there are ways of handling it that will make it far less painful for her.” This ironic seeing as this is true and that Clarissa suggests the same thing later in the book when it’s too late, of course she does this with different motives but it definitely would have made it far less painful for everyone…
Chapter 12 shows how Jed’s constant intrusion is getting in between Clarissa and Joe; it starts with misunderstandings and misinterpretations of expressions to the point where they get suspicious of each other. Clarissa- “His writing is rather like yours.” “Had she met someone?” P. 102 “Clarissa considered Parry my fault.” Clarissa does not consider Jed as any kind of threat, to the extent that she thinks all of it is a joke.
Jed also plays his own role, the role of a “De Clérambault” patient ready to do anything to get what he wants. P.129 “This was a moment he had prepared for.”
P.129 “I’m pretty well off, you know? I can get people to do things for me. Anything I want. There’s always someone who needs money. What’s surprising is how cheap it is, you know, for something you’d never do yourself?” He even hires killers to get rid of Joe, if he cannot have him then nobody can. Hi illness makes him have mood swings which lakes his future actions unpredictable.
“Its okay, Joe” with a sudden “warm look.”
The biggest peak in the tension and suspense happens in chapter 22, Clarissa is held hostage by Jed’s knife. This marks a turning point in the story with the end of two relationships, Clarissa’s and Joe’s and Joe and. This is end to which the novel has been building up to since the first page.
P.245 Jed is still convinced of his connection to Joe, seeing signs everywhere he goes. He even believes that he has accomplished his goal in converting Joe “when you are his, you also become mine.”
Jed believes that “He (Joe) needs my help, I told myself whenever I came close to giving up, he needs me to set him free from his little cage of reason,” (page 133). Nevertheless, he is confused with what God wants him to do. “Was I to deliver into His hands the author (Joe) of these hateful pieces against him?” (page 133). All Jed knows he should do is provide Joe with love. But Jed’s love is like God’s love; patient and embracing.
Jed plays a big role in the deterioration of Joe and Clarissa’s relationship. Jed makes Clarissa doubt what Joe says, even when he explains, “There’s nothing wrong with my mind. It’s a good mind. Sweetheart, he’s a real threat, he could be dangerous,” (page 148). In the end, Clarissa tells Joe that their relationship is over because, “You’re always thinking about him (Jed). It never stops,” (page 148).
- How reader is encouraged to respond to character
At first, we have the impression that maybe Joe is exaggerating the situation; Jed simply seems to be in love with him but Jed manages to get Joe’s number and his address therefore we start to see Jed as a small threat (p.60-68) This small threat keeps disappearing and coming back in the first half of the book. “Jed is just a bag of nerves, a sorry sight which is in love with Joe”.
The readers feel possible sympathy for Jed. It seems like Jed has a logical reasons to acts the way he does around Joe. He seems harmless and thus we start to believe that maybe Joe is dramatizing the situation.
Then, he starts to get really threatening saying that Joe “is cruel” that he has “all the power and he loves “him. We get the first hints of Jed possible physical danger.
He acts more and more deranged; he stays in front of Joe’s door and calls him. The 33 voice messages left on Joe’s machine start to be very worrying. We start to wonder what he will do to get what he wants, to get Joe.
Clarissa’s point of view makes us doubt if Jed is really as bad as Joe says. Maybe, Joe is exaggerating. Jed’s attitude starts to become aggressive, he swears, screams…
On page 124, the sudden discovery that Jed is a “De Clérambault” gives the reader an explanation to Jed’s attitude and a slight relief.
It’s funny and scary at the same time that he seems so happy to be in a mental prison and be alive just because he believes Joe loves him. To the reader this is in some way comforting because everyone is happy. On the other hand, it’s scary because he lives on the bases that Joe still loves him even though they are not in contact with each other (apart from what Jed believes to be messages such as a slight breeze or the movement of the leaves.)(p.245)