ON CHESIL BEACH - IAN MCEWAN

"On Chesil Beach is one of the most important books wrote by Ian McEwan.

The book is set on Chesil Beach , on the Dorset coast , in the South West of Grain Britain.

From reading the title the intelligent reader makes hypothesis on the place the story is set. As a matter of fact the proposition "On" suggests that something happened on Chesil Beach . So the use of the beach's name and the proposition "On" creates expectation in the reader.

In this text I'm going to analyze the structural elements of the novel "On Chesil Beach"

: Narrator; protagonists; characterization; setting; setting's function  time references and messages.

From reading the first chapter I can notice that it is divided in three parts.

The first one is an introduction explaining the setting, it introduces the protagonists , and it gives to the readers some textual clues that create expectations in the reader.

The second one describes protagonist's nature and behaviours .

The last one introduces the point of the book: the marriage and the lover's first night .

In the first chapter there is an omniscient third person narrator. I have understand this through a lot of textual clues. I will quote some textual elements:

The use of personal pronoun "They were, they had";

Some reflections, " But it is never easy", " There was no one  in the hotel who would have wanted to stop them". "They were adults, on holiday, free to do as they chose.", " It was not so simple", " Between Edward and Florence nothing  happened quickly" , "Bound to world events by their stupidity ". " It could not go on. It was time to act.";

Statements revealing protagonist's  sensations , " Florence suspected that there was something profoundly wrong with her ." some protagonist's attitudes " she was clumsy and unsure", "There was nothing  she could do, beyond fainting, and she was hopeless at acting".

So the voice we listen to is the narrator's voice.

From the beginning to page  six he gives us information about the background for example hints to the era in which the story is set and focuses his attention on the couple. Narrator also gives judgement "they stood strangely  together". In this way the reader isn't free and he/she is guided  into the topic by narrative clues.

In spite of all that the reader, who can read between the lines, can notice that there is a shift of the point of view. As a matter of fact from page six the third person omniscient narrator speaks from Edward's point of view.

There are two main protagonists. Florence and Edward.

In the first section of the first chapter there is an introduction. Florence is  portrayed like a virgin women who is twenty- two years old .

McEwan uses different devices in order to characterize Florence :

Physical and natural characteristics, she is "cheerful, pretty, formidably intelligent, generous hips, violinist's hands smile broad and artless";

Her  feelings " she experienced a visceral dread", "her hand would rise repeatly to her forehead to brush away an imaginary strand of hair" " Florence anxieties were more serious" , "her problem, she thought, was greater physical disgust." The poet also gives us, in an  indirect way; Florence's social status, she is reach as a  matter of fact she attends  "  school and music college", was an old  hand" ,she has a  " house in the Chiltern Hills";

Moreover Mc Ewan underlines Florence's values  when he named the Jesus's  mother " If only she could, like the mother of Jesus..."so we understand that she is a religious woman.

Edward's description  begins with a comparison  between his and Florence's social classes , I think Edward belongs to the  middle class as a  matter of fact " he had never stayed in a hotel before"," Had not condescended to his ", are phrases that reveal a different social condition. So there is a gap between youth's families.

McEwan makes, like in Florence description, a physical and psychological  description of the male protagonist  " soft brown eyes,", His nature "educated, original, unlike, did no smoke , had a degree".

The main protagonists are also characterized through the atmosphere conveyed by narrator's comments that underline their feelings : anxiety, fear, dread,  for example " it was not raining, but it was quite warm" suggested  the sadness of the honeymoon, "sound of waves, mist was lifting, luminous grey , muddy steps, weeds" suggested a feeling of anxiety. So the setting feeds the atmosphere and it also suitable to personifies protagonists' feelings. As an example the simile "heaped up before them in the misty future, as richly tangled as the summer flora of the Dorset coast" helps the reader to understand the confusion of the two lovers' relationship. They had serious problems in communication and moreover they don't talk about sexual approach because is  a taboo, accusing .the restrictions of the time.

Even if they are afraid of their new  responsibilities they hid and postpone the moment in which they will affront their fears and in which problems will came to surface. Consequently  the problem became an obsession " she experienced a visceral dread".

Time references are used to convey the message of the novel .

We are in the sixtieth, in a time of reticence "time when conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible." "  In just a few years' time, that would be the kind of thing quite ordinary young people would do. But for now, the times held them". As a matter of fact there is a tradition times in which rules had to be followed to be adults. Actually there are a lot of clues that emphasize the rules of young people in society: "This was still the era when to be young was a social encumbrance, a mark of irrelevance, a faintly embarrassing condition." But from the beginning of the book we can notice that, even if Edward and Florence has childlike inexperienced behaviours  , hiding problems, they are conscious about that they have a lot of problems. The solution they had found is to attribute the guilt to the social conventions

Edward and Florence are both joined by the same condition and by a lot of similarities and differences : they are British, virgin, educated, young, they have contradictory feelings, they think their new status signed their maturity " the marriage was the beginning of a cure", but the most important point is that they are reach in expectations and they think to obtain  what they want through the marriage. It result that   Edward was impatient because he wants to have a physical approach with Florence even if he was fear , on the contrary she is afraid  and she feels inadequate, but she hopes to solve her mental problem. So the most important similarity is : trust in their marriage because they hope their union could change their stalemate.

I had explained that the story is set in the XX century, and the protagonists are both youth, but the main contradiction, I have notice thanks to the analysis, is that Edward and Florence live in modern times, but they demonstrate themselves  traditional, according to ancient times: "Even when Edward and Florence  were still alone , a thousand unacknowledged rules still applied".

Really they are afraid and so their rarely stay together and they face personal problem separately "They are separately worried". In addition to this the narrative techniques underline the separation between the lovers. For example the narrator didn't use the personal pronoun "we" but  only "Edward and Florence", moreover they aren't connected even in the description of their expectation.

Summarizing , the analysis of the first chapter reveals the protagonists' complexity . They had a beautiful marriage in " St Mary's Church in Oxford" and they spend their first night " in a tiny  sitting room on the first floor of a Georgian inn" . This clues seem to portray a perfect marriage, but the other textual elements reveal the truth about the relationship starting from the impossibility to speak each other arriving to the problem of their first  night.