The End of the Affair is a movie about an affair between a married woman, Sarah Miles and a novelist, Maurice Bendrix. Hatred and jealousy are explicitly shown in the movie. Bendrix hates Sarah and her husband. , Henry, because he loves Sarah He can never have her except one night sex. . He is jealous of the Sarah’s husband to be with Sarah at all times. He is Sarah to be apart from him. Sarah’s negating God leads to her death; thus, she parts with Maurice forever. He is isolated. While negation of God of Maurice leads to his eternal grieve and his living in plight. This story is narrated by the male character, Maurice. In this essay, I will examine the reasons for using first person narration to show the intense plight of the male character, Maurice and credibility in the movie, The End of the Affair.

The use of first person narration can indicate the credibility of the story. Maurice is the person who involves in the affair. As one of the chief characters, Maurice has the best understanding towards the things happened around him . Moreover, , other characters reveal their thoughts to Maurice. Therefore, the restrictions imposed on the first person narrator, Maurice is minimized. Sarah’s husband, Henry shares with him about his suspecting of Sarah’s having an affair and tells him his thinking of hiring a private detective to find out the truth. Thus, it makes Maurice know about the life between Henry and Sarah. Moreover, Henry’s keeping sharing with him makes him know that their relationship is not good. They are just like friends but not husband and wife relationship with no intimacy . Moreover, the report from the private detective and detective’s son let Maurice know more about Sarah’s daily life and the people whom she gets along with. Detective’s son’s chasing after Sarah and witnessing Sarah’s putting off the clothes in front of a man, what they think is another lover of Sarah, make Maurice think that Sarah has another affair with another man. Maurice can get hold of the sharing and report to narrate the story to readers,

Maurice’s narration; thus, the first person narration is more reliable as his narration embodies a collection of thoughts of other characters. The detective serves as a bridge to let Maurice know about the thought of Sarah as he steals Sarah’s diary. Sarah’s diary also reveals her thought to Maurice. By reading the diary of Sarah, he knows the whole story of his falling down to stairs and Sarah’s love towards him and her reason for not seeing him in two years due to her promise to God. It is reliable because Sarah writes it, and he knows what had happened by reading the diary while he is unconscious . Sarah is the only witness and the only one who is involved in the incident. Sarah’s revealing of thought in the diary makes him know the whole story which he just knows part of it before. Every character is helping Maurice to obtain more information about Sarah. Maurice can see the incident from many different angles. Thus, the story is much more reliable.

The use of first person narration can help touching the feeling of the character. Narrated by Maurice who is in fact a novelist can make us share the feeling of the character deeply. Being a novelist, Maurice has keen observation and he can express the characters’ feeling fully by using the appropriate diction. Maurice gets used to expressing his feeling and his thought via the character in his novels. His flow of thought can also be followed. Maurice’s narrating the story and his expressing his own intense plight let us catch his passion. The use of monologues of Maurice can further reveal the emotion of him to the audience. It also helps Maurice to address his remarks directly to the audience. The audience will feel that Maurice is speaking to them. His telling the audience about his writing of the diary of hatred lets audience feel his intense plight Audience can get a feeling of involving in the story. Thus, they can touch the feeling of the character more easily. As Maurice is literate and the reliability of the story is enhanced.

By using first person narration, hatred and jealousy which is the main theme of the movie can be explicitly shown to the audience. The movie begins with his typing of the diary of hatred which makes us know that the story is filled with jealousy . Maurice begins to tell the story. Maurice is a jealous man and is jealous of everything connected to Sarah and thus he hates them all. Maurice’s jealousy towards the raindrops which can touch every part of Sarah; silk stockings which can kiss her entire leg; button which can be with Sarah every day; shoes which take Sarah away from him; suffocates Maurice . He is jealous of Henry who doesn’t leave Sarah and can do everything with her. Therefore, he hates Henry. Maurice also hates God who takes Sarah away from him and lets them be apart forever. That matches with the name of the movie. “The End of the Affair”. Using the first person narration will make the audience feel the pressure generated by jealousy and grieve and terror. .

All in all, the use of first person narration in The End of the Affair is successful. The narrator is one of the characters whose stream of consciousness is clearly revealed. The use of reproductive memory can help visualize and vividly present what happens in the past. A reliable atmosphere is created in the movie. The portrayal of hate and jealousy which is the feeling of the first person narrator can bring to audiences’ hearts. This feeling, with no doubt, will be long lasting in audience’s mind!

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