On Chesil Beach – Ian McEwanz

TITLE: the title shows the place where the story happens, because there is the preposition “on”. The reader imagines where the story happens and the title creates suspense.
POLT: there are two main characters Edward and Florence, they are 22 years old. They are just married and they are in honeymoon. They are spent their first night.
STRUCTURE: the novel is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is divided into three sequences. In every sequence are described events, feeling and the history of the protagonists.
NARRATOR: the narrator is a third person omniscient, therefore the reader is not free to think, because the narrator gives personal opinions. “they were” – “But it is never easy” – “ Edward did not mention that he had never stayed in a hotel before” – Edward and Florence, free at last!”
SETTING: The story is set on the first floor of a Georgian inn.
Their wedding was at St Mary’s in Oxford.
The hotel is on the Dorset coast.
The story is set in July, the weather is not defined.
The story is set on Chesil Beach.
Besides the setting reveals a tension in the atmosphere “squeak comically against the silence” and “they were nervous too”
CHARACTERS: the characters are Edward and Florence.
Florence:
SOCIAL STATUS she is rich because differently she was in a hotel and she had made trips with her father. Besides the car belongs to her mother. “in silver dishes…roasted beef in a thickened gravy, soft boiled vegetables, and potatoes of a bluish hue”. Besides Florence is a musician. “her music career and what to do with the money her father had given her”.
PHISICAL APPEARANCE in Edwards’ eyes she is a beautiful woman “this cheerful, pretty, formidably intelligent woman”. Besides she appears to Edward a glow. “she appeared to glow before him, and she was lovely- beautiful, sensuous, gifted, good-natured beyond belief”. In addition Edward thinks Florence an American woman in her aspect “It was a lovely face, with a sculpted look that in a certain light brought to mind an American Indian woman, a high-born squaw”.
BEHAVIOUR she is nervous and disgusting because she does not want to have sex. “squeak comically against the silence”. “Florence’s anxieties were more serious” and “ she experienced a visceral dread, a helpless disgust as palpable as seasickness” and “her stomach tightened dryly, she was nauseous at the back of her throat” and “the idea of herself being touched ‘down there’ by someone else, even someone she loved, was a repulsive as, say, a surgical procedure on her eye”. In addition she is worry for this condition. “Florence suspect that there was something profoundly wrong with her, that she had always been different, and that at last she was about to be exposed” and “her whole being was in revolt against a prospect of entanglement and flesh; her composure and essential happiness were about to be violated. She simply did not want to be ‘entered’ or ‘penetrated’. In addition she is sure in her passion, violinist, but she is not sure in her feelings. “when the business was music, she was always confident and fluid in her movements” and “for the string quartet that was her passion” and she was the undisputed leader” and “ but in the rest of her life she was surprisingly clumsy and “unsure”.

Edward:
SOCIAL STATUS he is poorer than Florence because he had never stayed in a hotel. Besides his mother have some problems and she had not always a right behaviour. In addition Florence’s father gives a job to him. “ his job with her father’s firm”. Then he is cultured and intelligent. “he always had a paperback book, usually history, in his jacket pocket” and “Edward had a degree, a first in history from University College, London”.
PHISICAL APPEARANCE he wears tie, narrow, knitted, dark blue and a white shirt. “ he had only one tie, narrow, knitted, dark blue, which he wore nearly all the time with a white shirt”. In addition in Florence’s eyes he is curious and she loves his accent, his strength, the way of his conversation, his kindness and the way he looks her. “she adored his curious mind, his mild country accent, the huge strength in his hands, the unpredictable swerves and drifts of his conversation, his kindness to her, and the way his soft brown eyes, resting on her when she spoke, made her feel enveloped in a friendly cloud of love”.
BEHAVIOUR he makes what Florence wants because he doesn’t want to offend her feelings. “polite to a fault, he would not think of contradicting her on such an evening”. Besides he is worried for his sexual performance. “Edward had been mesmerised by the prospect that on the evening of a given date in July the most sensitive portion of himself would reside, however briefly, within a naturally formed cavity inside” and “his specific worry, based on one unfortunate experience, was of over-excitement” and “ he wanted to be in top form for his bride”.
Edward and Florence are both young, virgin and British. And they are both rich in expectations, because they are inexperienced. Both they are worried to have sex: Edward is afraid of physical approaching with Florence, while she hope to have sex because she is married “if only she could, like the mother of Jesus, arrive at that swollen state by magic”. But they do not talk of their problems because they live in a closed society and they have fear to become adult. In addition they thought to be free marrying because the wedding means to be adult “almost strangers, they stood, strangely together, on a new pinnacle of existence, gleeful that their new status promised to promote them out of their endless youth – Edward and Florence, free at last!” . Besides their relation ship is strange because they are not happy to become free and to live together. That reveals their fears and their bad relation ship. As a matter of fact she loves Edward, but she doesn’t prove a strong passion “and she loved Edward, not with the hot, moist passion she had read about, but warmly, deeply, sometimes like a daughter, sometimes almost maternally”. That means she is not only a lover, but she is obedient like a daughter and strict like a mother. Besides he condescends to her times and her timidity. “he had a fairly long history of engaging with Florence’s shyness” and “ ha had come to respect it, even revere it, mistaking it for a form of coyness, a conventional veil for a richly sexual nature” and “between Edward and Florence, nothing happened quickly. Important advances, permissions wordlessly granted to extend what he was allowed to see or caress, were attained only gradually”.