STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS - 2nd CHAPTER

The second chapter provides the reader some explanation to Edward's and Florence's present situation and, in particular, to their own fears.

It begins with a question that mirrors the reader's curiosity to find out reasons to their behaviours; it also involves readers and explains the passage from the first to the second chapter.

Edward was born near Oxford in a low class family, with a brain damaged mother; he attended London University, studying history. After last exams, one day he met Florence in Oxford.

Florence, born in Oxford in a wealthy family, studied in Royal College of music and formed a string quartet, hoping in a future performance on a famous stage.

The entire narration is a flashback, as regards the marriage day, but it includes different past facts, even chronologically distant.

For example the narrator refers to one day when the protagonists remember their first meeting, comparing their own impressions; the device is useful to understands connections between past and present and to single up most relevant aspects of their lives.

If compared with the 1^st chapter, the second one includes less descriptions, while narration is prevalent, alongside reflective sequences. As a result narrative rhythm is faster,  but, at the same time, the reader is supposed to consider the way in which each protagonist reacts and thinks in front of events.

As a consequence the narrator is, alternatively, a third-person omniscient narrator and a voice who enters and reveals the protagonists' point of view.

The pretext to present Edward's and Florence's respective childhood, family, education and aspiration about future, is a reflection made up by them on destiny or events consequentiality that made them meet. The way in which they think of the meeting reveals that they associate the relationship to perfection: as a matter of fact they speak about it as an event wanted by destiny, thought for their lives from time out of mind, central, inevitable and the best love they could have.

Finding out all coincidences, all possibilities of their approach is a way to appreciate and to increase the value of their meeting.

The second part of the question makes the reader reflect on the possible circumstances that may have affect their growth; it is built with an ironical tone: at first the adjective modern is not appropriate since, as conveyed previously, English society of the time was rather traditional and there were only first few marks of the Cultural Revolution; besides, the expression so timid and innocent, referred to the protagonist, contrasts with the previous characterisation: the reader has already understood they only superficially seem to be shy and honest, but actually they carry some faults they hide.

The use of irony is an efficient device to remember the reader their real nature and to get him interested in looking for explanation.

Edward's life description starts from the University period, through categories concerning his economical state, his hobbies and habits; his good fitting in his mates and his inclination to brawls reveal he is not timid, but determined, secure and without scruples: he sometimes loses self-control and vents his anger in a rough and brutal way.

His taste for music, electric Blues, acquires a considerable role in his formation (the music that shaped his life): it conveys him some men's sexual intercourse habits, far from social conventions and restrictions, only free satisfaction of their pleasure

It increases his desire of pleasure (hoping to find evidence of paradise on earth), that is impeded by strict roles: every boy who has sex with a girl is obliged to marry her, that is a restraint to Edward's young aspirations. It is clear he is only looking for body satisfaction now, without considering love, or a girl's personality (only considered a mean), without marriage: he appears selfish and immature in avoiding his responsibilities.

His first knowledge about the matter is relevant not only during his youth, when he begins to cause himself body pleasure, but also in the relationship with Florence: even if he really loves her, his thoughts are so overcome by the aspiration to sexual satisfaction that he is obsessed by it, he only waits for their first night together and he also fears to disappoint her.

Edward's difficulties and fears at present can be explained considering the way in which he has approached to sexual matter.

Following a parallel characterization, the narrator provides some information about how Florence learns and relates to sexuality.

She partly lives in a hostel forbidden to males; the situation hasn't got only an objective meaning: it is a metaphor for Florence's avoiding contacts with males, judged embarrassment, puerile invaders by her friends and herself. Her inclination can be understood considering her childhood in her family: in the first years of her youth she has been violated by her father; as a result she has acquired a disgusting image of sexual intercourse and she now wants to avoid any kind of physical contact with boys.

Her violation strong impact is the central origin of her difficulties in relating with Edward, of her fears and temporizing on their first marriage night.

Her familiar life has got enough weight in her formation.

Alongside her problematic relationship with George ( she refers to him like that, revealing her psychological distance from him as a father), she doesn't go on well with Violet: her mother is so intellectual that lacks display of affection and creates a wrong communication with Florence, based on rational advice, given without real worry, love or aspiration to Florence's wellbeing (her mother has never kissed or embraced Florence, even when she was small). Moreover Violet doesn't appreciate Florence's musical ability and career: Florence considers it as a disapproval towards herself (her mother's disapproval of her career and hostility to music in general and therefore to Florence herself).

Finally Florence can't stand her sister's company.

In conclusion Florence feels alone in her family, when she always escapes not to open her mind (concealing her feelings from her family): she isn't frank and she also never falls out with her relatives. She believes hard words aren't forgotten and therefore she doesn't want to tell them: she fears feeling guilty and being disapproved for her own criticism or opinion.

Her isolation derives from strong efforts: (she constantly reminded herself how much she loved her family) she convinces herself and fixes in the mind her love to her family in order to keep silence and to repress her anger vent. She follows the same process with Edward: she psychologically guides her will and instincts to maintain a rational self-control and not to express contrasting opinions. The excess of control will lead her to an excessive vent.

The absence of clarity, her efforts to hide her thoughts and feelings and to avoid quarrels in her family, reinforce her passive attitude and her fear to show her nature, also in Edward's company.

She is so much used to consenting close people, that she runs into difficulties when she has to declare her love, because she isn't sure in defining her feeling (given something away that was not really hers to give), and when she has simply to tell Edward what she is thinking about, as if she gets lost in her thoughts in isolation within herself. Edward perceives she doesn't show everything about herself since their first meeting (her face resemble a carve mask, hard to read). The narrator explains that also her difficulties in talking have contributed to create problems between them.

Another category used to characterize Florence is her studies and hobbies: she likes music and playing violin very much; music has got a considerable role also in Florence's life, but different from blues in Edward's.

Florence appreciates the magnificent abstraction of music: it reveals her attitude to escape reality and to isolate in her thoughts; playing music is a way to be far from world and to reflect on her interiority, expressed through melodies. It follows that she likes the incomprehensible language used to narrate her life: it is like freedom to her.

This is the reason why she considers Violet's hostility to her violin exercises as a disapproval to herself. The reader also understands her particular behaviour as a leader in the quartet, a field where she deals with herself and feels free; on the contrary, when she is out of music, she always represses her personality and therefore she can't play a role in the relationship with people.

Edward has grown up in a family where he had to be autonomous in his own housework, like his father and his sisters, and where he lacked a motherly figure and love, because of an accident that had damaged her brain.

Edward had to be very patient with Marjorie, who hardly ever behaved with a logical order in her actions; his patience was supported by the conviction that her problem would solve in future.

As a matter of fact Edward's family always pretended there was no strangeness and they remotely hoped their fiction would become reality.

Edward's attitude to avoid facing and accepting a problem occurs also in his relationship with Florence; the matter is she turns physical contact down: Edward always behaves with patience and he deceives himself that she is only shy and devoted to social rules and that she actually appreciates his touch.

Edward's personality extends between two opposite attitudes: on the one side he appears very patient, on the other he shows his anger through brawls. Since at home he has always to control himself rationally in order to support the pretence, he vents all what she has suppressed in an irrational manner: the excess of control leads to moments of brutality.

When he becomes aware of his mother's brain damage, he begins to feel distant from her and his family (dissolved intimacy), a lonely sensation: he starts to affirm his individuality, but he also removes responsibilities from himself. The circumstance mirrors his attitude to avoid problems' responsibilities: for example he doesn't feel guilty as for his self-pleasuring and when the problem with her lover comes to surface he thinks she is wrong, differently from Florence, who, even if temporarily, attributes herself all guilt.

His concealed self, long mood rambles and sense of separateness have contributed to his difficulty in talking and expressing himself to people (for example to Florence)

A particular attitude, present in each of their personalities, is their waiting (waiting fretfully for her life to begin - impatient for his life, the real story, to start): they frequently expect the surrounding world to create opportunities, but they don't act to reach them.