Ian Mcewan's Enduring Love

At the beginning of Joe and Janie’s relationship, she was very much in love with him. When they started their endeavor to the new town, she was very proud of the man she was looking at. He moved to a new town to start his own business and buy his own land. However, as time progressed, the town began to feel lonely to Janie. She never saw Joe anymore, and when she did, he was trying to control her every move. He became very possessive and mean to her. He wanted her to submit to him, and he wouldn’t stop until he had it. The once loving relationship they had, has now become detached.

Joe was on his way to Eatonville to make a better life for himself, he asked Janie where her parents were and Janie explained that she is married and her husband was out getting a mule for her to plow. Joe expresses that that is not a way for her to be treated and asks her to leave Logan and marry him.

Over time, Joe impedes Janie from realizing how strong and independent of a woman she is. Joe makes Janie cover

Joe’s first instance of controlling behavior is met with radio-silence by Janie, indicating that she favors Joe’s company more than she desires to voice her own opinions. She fails to express her displeasure regarding Joe’s comments, and instead strives to maintain appearances, “[making] her face laugh” even though it “[isn’t] too easy” as the citizens of Eatonville watch her (Hurston 43). While Janie appears blasé to appease the crowd, she is upset that Joe prevents her from speaking, he also takes the choice from her. With Joe, Janie is “nothing more or less

Her decision to leave Logan for Joe Starks shows her determination to achieve her dream of love; she does not want to give and take this dream for stability. Logan is extremely ignorant of Janie′s feelings. When she tries to talk with him about them he simply replies: "′Ah′m getting′ sleepy Janie. Let′s don′t talk no mo′.′" (Hurston,30) He does not realize that Janie is serious about leaving him and that she wants him to show his feelings for her. Instead, he tries to hurt her like she hurt him, by pretending not to be worried about her leaving him. Janie gets to know Joe during her marriage with Logan. Right from the beginning he treats her like a lady. This is one reason why Janie is so attracted to him.

Joe Starks stole Janie away from Logan. He saved her from the boringness of their dull marriage. He woed her with his words of kindness. He promised her happieness. “De day you puts yo’ hand in mine, Ah wouldn’t let de sun go down on us single. You ain’t never knowed what it was to be treated lak a lady and Ah wants to be de one tuh show

A sequence of events leads up to Joe becoming almost completely isolated from the outside world. During his time in the isolated continent, Joe becomes addicted to narcotics; he escapes his pain and anguish by succumbing to detached and paralyzed state of mind. Throughout his journey in this secluded continent, he is faced with his hatred of the Germans and his desire to enact vengeance upon them for all that he has lost. When he meets a German geologist exploring the frozen tundra, he inadvertently kills him. Joe experiences ironic feelings of remorse after so many years spent obsessing over the destruction of the Germans. There was no gratification or fulfillment, for Joe, in the German man’s death. Joe felt repulsed and an abhorrence in himself for his

Janie “knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead. So she became a woman”(25) because of everyone back home telling her this dream of hers was impossible, instead of believing it she decided to reach for her horizon and left home. After Janie had the courage to leave Logan, she now saw her future as an open window full of opportunities she just had to take the first step. Although her grandma’s thought of settling in “the memory of Nanny was still powerful and strong” (29) was one thing that would always push her back, she eventually got over it. In fact, all of the men she was attracted to gave her the sense that they had a big future ahead of them, and that’s exactly what she was looking for. When she met Joe she would describe him as if “he spoke for far horizon. He spoke for a change and chance”(29) she thought that being with him would help her turn her dreams into

He wants to run a town and the only way he feels he can look good is to have a pretty woman by his side. In the beginning of their marriage Joe treats he like a queen. He tells her that his woman needs to relax in the shade sipping on molasses water and fanning herself from the hot sun. Janie fell in love with the idea.

As opposed to communicating his outrage he tries to avoid panicking. This is either an indication of incredible resilience or utter shortcoming. There, on the other hand, is a moment when Joe demonstrates that his pride has been harmed, to be specific when he leaves the coin under his wife's cushion in the wake of laying down with her. This is a sudden turn in an identity that is apparently unequipped for harming someone else. Anyhow who can accuse the poor man for he has seen his entire world go into disrepair after the treachery of his loved one. The integrity of his character is completely shown in his pardoning toward the end of the story.

Many films or dramas about love always make me impressed by the power of love. Love can evokes people’s various emotions such as happiness, sadness and anger. Love encourages people to accomplish what they think is impossible or impracticable. In addition, love is an intense and direct feeling that I experiences the most in my life. It is Antigone and Death of a salesman that are the two plays which impress me with the expression of strong love among the roles. The play, Antigone, ends up with tragedy and creates two tragic heroes—Antigone and Creon. Arthur Miller takes advantage of memories, dreams, arguments and conflicts to make up the last day of Willy Loman’s life (Lifcharts.com). Love reflected in the two plays is various, complex and full of tragic feature. Haemon shows his love to Antigone by revolting against his father 's authority and committing suicide; Linda shows her love to Willy by defending him and protecting his American dream, and my friend shows love to his parents by quitting school to support his parents ' company.

Joe was also subconsciously taught to distrust women. From his first experience with the dietician, all he knew was betrayal by the women in his life. His foster mother betrayed his foster father by attempting to help him. In his eyes, women were not to be trusted. The breaking point for Joe was Joanna’s pregnancy scare. To him it was the ultimate betrayal. “You haven’t got any baby, you never had one. There is not anything wrong with you except being old. You just got old and it happened to you and now you are not any good anymore”. (Faulkner 277) Joanna did not know what was happening to her body because she had never been taught. Joe however saw her mistake as an attempt at control. Her age made her useless to him and this realization destroyed her will to live. “Maybe it would be better if we were both dead”. (Faulkner 278) If she could not have Joe then she would kill him and then herself.

Joe Starks is an admirable person. He promises Janie beautiful material things and happiness unlike Logan who only tried to control her and offered her no love. Janie is overwhelmed by this proposal and believes that Joe may be the bee that has come to fertilize her and make her happy, but she is proven wrong. After she runs away from Logan, Joe and Janie travel to a new town that is only occupied by African Americans. There, Joe becomes mayor and is well respected by all. He gains wealth and gives Janie the material things that he promised her, but forces her to work in his local store all day long. He does not allow her to attend parties or have any fun and makes negative comments about her constantly. He says,

The audience can relate to Joe and feel sympathy for him because he was a good man who did many great things for his family and in the end paid the ultimate price. Towards the end of the play, Joe's son Chris anguishes over the fatally flawed decision made by his father, thus eliciting the sympathy of the audience. However, this is not enough to detract from the audience relating to Joe as a

Because of these changes in emotion and attitude that have occurred in both Joe and Violet, Joe feels that he needs to find a way to re-sensitize himself to emotion: As he describes to Malvonne in the apartment, it is the quiet that he cannot take with Violet, he is “just hoping for a lady friend. Somebody to talk to” (49, 46). Joe needs to express himself to someone, but Violet is not letting Joe do that. The narrator describes Joe’s lover as being “Joe’s personal sweet—like candy” (120). Candy, though, as Joe describes in a totally separate incident, “is something you lick, suck on, and then swallow and it’s gone” (122). By providing the image of Dorcas as the temporary candy, Morrison shows how the relationship is not what Joe believes it to be. Yet, Joe wants to convince himself that his affair with Dorcas is more than the transient taste of a peppermint stick, and as he describes in his speech to himself, “This was something else. More like blue water and white flowers and sugar in the air” (122). Joe wants to have a deep relationship with Dorcas—a relationship where he can talk with her and share his feelings, but it is just his mind fooling him into this belief that the relationship is built around a deep bond.