Ian McEwan

On Chesil Beach

Right from the cover of McEwan's novel, we can observe the back of a woman who is walking along a way in the middle of the sea. The atmosphere is not clear, the sky is cloudy and the waves rush around the shore. The reader may expect the novel to be about people who are connected with Chesil Beach, that also is the title of the novel. The weird weather may be connected with the feelings of the main character, who may probably have to make a choice, or something that creates problems in her/his mind.

Right considering the structure of the first chapter, the reader may divide it into three parts: the first one has the function to introduce the story, the characters and their lives, the second one gives information about their expectations and fears and the last one (the third part) tells about the meaning of being young in the sixties.

Chapter 1, first part:

Right from the start, the intelligent reader may understand that the repetition of  "they/their" implies a third person omniscient narrator, who has the function to introduce the characters' life. After a while, with the expression "It is never easy", the narrator gives his personal consideration, so the reader is not free to create his or her  own vision, but is influenced by the narrator's one: he thought it is never easy to speak about sexual difficulties. After that the narrator presents the characters: Edward and Florence. The story is set on the first floor of a Georgian Inn, in which the two protagonists are going to spend their honeymoon. Immediately the intelligent reader may notice that the characters are described to make their social differences overt:  Florence is familiar with hotels thanks to her father bringing her with him, her mother has got a car. Edward, instead, has never been in a hotel before.

Chapter 1, second part:

With some expressions like "they were separately worried", in the second part the narrator wants to underline that there's no connection between Edward and Florence because their difficulties to speak to each other make them more distant, nearly alone. It goes without saying that when someone decides  not to reveal herself/himself fully to one another, this may mean that he/she doesn't trust the other person. Is it love when two lovers don't trust themselves? However the narrator tells  about Edward and Florence's expectations and fears separately. On the one side, Edward is worried because on one side, unfortunate experience came too soon and he wouldn't repeat it with Florence not to  disappoint her, on the other side, where he merely suffers conventional first-night nerves, she experiences a visceral dread, a helpless disgust as palpable as seasickness.

Chapter 1, third part:

In the last sequence the narrator focuses his attention on the couple social status: "This was still the era when to be young was a social encumbrance, a mark of irrelevance, a faintly embarrassing condition for which marriage was the beginning of a cure". To tell the truth, nobody cares about them,  unless they were married and it is only after marriage you would be considered adult. This thanks to the responsible choices you weren't able to do the day before  marrying.