How does Chapter Nine differ in its presentation of character? .
Which narration seems more "reliable"?.
Chapter Nine of Enduring Love switches narration from first person through the novel's main character, Joe, to a third person narrative.
When a central figure is telling the story using "I" the reader is aware of their inner thoughts. A sense of intimacy and personal understanding for Joe comes across as we directly experience what he goes through (we feel we "are" Joe's character) and are able to obtain a clearer insight of his feelings which we may otherwise not know about.
However, there are disadvantages of using first person narrative, involving issues such as the trustworthiness of the narrator, and the limitations of understanding the other characters as we focus on only one person's interpretations of events. This bias can be avoided using a third person narrator, who in Chapter Nine is omniscient of both Joe and Clarissa's thoughts: .
"She is already wondering if she has gone too far." .
If this extract was written in first person speech, we would not know what she was really thinking. However it does seem unrealistic to know the thoughts of every character as in real life we are only conscious of our own-and other peoples if they say them out loud.
The chapter concentrates on an argument between the couple so it important for the scene to be read from an outsider's view, explaining both sides of the argument. This avoids a first person narrative persuading the reader that their own attitudes are right or distorting the events by their personal views-allowing the reader to make an unbiased opinion of the situation. For example, in Chapter Ten, we hear Joe confidently claiming he was "so obviously, incontrovertibly right". If Ian McEwan had written the previous chapter in Joe's narration, we might take this "fact" at face-value, believing Clarissa to be the mistaken one (especially if we trusted Joe a lot) when in fact this comment makes him sound stubborn and childishly obstinate.