Chapter 1 has the function to introduct the short story.

From a denotative point of view, it tells the reader about the wedding of the two protagonists and their consequent honeymoon.

The couple, Edward and Florence, are twenty-two years old.

Right from the start, the reader perceives an atmosphere conveyed as an awkward one, because it doesn’t seem to suite the joyful event. Right from the description of the waiters that serve the food, one can understand that there is something unstable.

(TEXTUAL CLUE: “They (the waiters) were nervous too.”)

The couple expect to take a walk in comfortable shoes after dinner, but not even the weather is good!

(TEXTUAL CLUE: “…in weather that was not perfect for mid-July or the circumstances,…”)

The way the setting is described is also suitable to convey the feelings of the protagonists.

(TEXTUAL CLUE: “and a view of a portion of the English Channel, and Chesil Beach with its infinite shingle.”)

Another important element is the significant background information the narrator provides, which lets the reader understand that Edward comes from a lower social status than Florence, because he lacked of her wife’s opportunities.

(TEXTUAL CLUE: “E. did not mention that he had never stayed in a hotel before, whereas F., after many trips as a child with her father, was an old hand.”)

Moreover, the narrator describes problems and characteristics of the era in which the couple lives, in order to explain why the two protagonists naively think they have finally reached their freedom once they have married each other.

(TEXTUAL CLUE: “…on a new pinnacle of existence, gleeful that their new status promised to promote them out of their endless youth – E. and F., free at last.”)

They are such rich in expectations and inexperienced of the world though, that they feel inadequate and they do not know how to face a physical approach, nor even a talk about their fears.

The narrator is not a neutral one, who lets the reader make up an idea about what happens. It’s a third person omniscient narrator who also gives judgments to what happens.