Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

Joe Rose:

• First person narration
• Story telling techniques- exaggeration, hyperboles, metaphors, similes, religious and scientific imagery
• Subjective narrative- his accounts, his order of events, his particular memories, the inclusion of particular details, opinions and judgements
• Primarily his story- an attempt to be objective, failure to show his supposed hatred of the arts, many aspects contradictory to how he wants to be seen
• Speaks with hindsight- emotions and feeling, unreliable as has had time for memories to fade and to tweak aspects that don't match or don't fit the genre

Clarissa Mellon:

• Speaks through a letter- Joe cruelly comparing her to Jed, symbolising the end of their relationship: Jed tried to start one through a letter, Clarissa is ending it- implies her love for Keats and the romantics
• First person narrative- finally at the end, reader to realise what Clarissa was suffering when Joe focused entirely on himself, different to the direct speech of Clarissa- Joe presented her as unreasonable- he was merely self centred
• Her point of viewattempted to be seen by Joe- chapter 9- invasion of her feelings, Joe trying to see himself through the eyes of someone else- attempting to be sentimental, actually just ignorant; still Joe's perspective- the one thing he can't control is her mind

Jed Parry:

• The letters- Joe included them to express the harassment he suffers, as proof that the story is not made up; offer the view point of Jed- swap the position of victim around- empathy with Joe or Jed?; allow moments for the story to unfold, Joe's realisations of the syndrome
• First person narration- oddly similar impression as to when Joe used direct speech to convey the character of Jed