TEXTUAL ANALYSIS ABOUT EDWARD'S MOTHER ACCIDENT

Pages 70, On Chesil Beach

In the second chapter of the novel, Ian McEwan gives us the reason why Edward's mother was described like a strange, ill woman: she is a mentally ill person, a brain-damaged lady.

Edward's father told him about the accident when Edward was fourteen.

When she was pregnant of the twins, she was waiting for the train to go back to home, when a silly passenger  opened the carriage door before the train stopped and his behaviour caused Edward's mother   brain-damage.

The narrator describes the passenger mile like a "...City-gent, with bowler, rolled umbrella and newspaper..." , a kind of man that (at a glance) perfectly represents an important social class... so, thinking about the class, the reader can expect a correct behaviour.

Instead that man scuttled away and he didn't help the young woman.

This unlucky event creates  the need to ask some questions about differences, about  prejudices and reality...

Does ocial class  compulsorily influence the acts of people of a specific class...

Social positions are just formalities used to hide men's real character and their bad actions, because they know that prejudices are more powerful than truth.