The End of the Affair
ABC DFG English 1B March 12 2013 A Man’s Love Graham Green wrote the beautiful love story The End of the Affair. The content is about the four characters the novelist, Maurice Bendrix; the couple Henry and Sarah Miles; and the priest Richard Smythe. Maurice meets Sarah and they fall in love deeply. The more Maurice loves Sarah, the more he realizes that there is an indestructible obstacle, which prevents him possessing all Sarah’s love. Maurice’s love affair ends, he lives in hatred and torment because Sarah staying away from him. Maurice has no more doubt when he finds out Sarah’s thought after reading her journal.
The time he comes to her again, it is too late; Sarah can no longer enjoy true love with Maurice; she dies. After Sarah’s death, Maurice lives in regret and sorrow. Maurice considers himself a master of love in The End of the Affair because he shows desire to possess all of Sarah’s love and throughout the story he acts like a love starving person that seeks for it. Maurice’s personality has a big impact on his very own decision that drives his life in chaos. He wants to have the superiority in relationship, especially with women. Maurice stays “ I had no idea whatever or falling in love with her.
For one thing, she was beautiful, and beautiful women, especially if they are intelligent also, stir some seep feeling of inferiority in my […] but I have always found it hard to feel sexual desire without some sense of superiority, mental or physical. ” (17) . Maurice really shows us he is the man of desire, the desire to possess. When we take a look at a group of gorillas, there is one leader. The white-back-mature gorilla is always the leader of the group which he has the right to mate to all the others females. Maurice feels superior because he knows that if he could own Sarah, that where he feel the power of the top male.
Maurice feels jealous with Henry who officially gets married to Sarah. When a man has something, he wants to completely possess it. And in this case, Sarah, a woman who delivers love, Maurice is thirsty for it. He is supposed to suck all the love from Sarah like a vampire sucks all the blood from its victim. The more he loves Sarah, the more love he requires her to deliver. Henry is the main wall that stops Sarah from delivering him more love that what causes him to think “ his desire was simply for companionship”. Maurice is a jealous man. jealousy, or so I have always believed, exist only with desire” (31). He totally he his right to be jealous, which is natural. First Sarah was married to Henry. He is upset because he does not own Sarah. Second, when the Sarah and Maurice make love occasionally but Sarah comes back to Henry afterward. This situation is irony. Finally, Maurice could hate Henry because “while he still owned her presence at the table, the sound of her feet on the stairs […] the kiss on the cheek. ” (32) , he has nothing. Maurice could be a good novelist but he is just a human, and humans have flaws.
Even though love is one of the most important things in Maurice’s life but he cannot take what love has given him. Maurice starts everything in pride. He says “ I measured love by the extend of my jealousy, and by that standard of course she could not love me at all” (43). He thinks his jealousy is the tool, which he can use to measure someone’s dignity. He was wrong, and he regrets afterward. Maurice admitted “ I’ve been a bad lover, Sarah” (105). However, at some point it is not wrong to use jealousy to measure ourselves. As we have known Maurice is struggle at love.
First, he loves Sarah but he cannot have her. Second, he sees that Sarah is stuck with Henry, by their marriage. That could be one of the wall that inhibit him to love Sarah without doubt and jealousy. Like what mentioned in Sarah’s journal “ he is jealous of the past and the present and the future”. The situation looks like Maurice had a bad headache that no medicine could fix. Of course he is one of the two partners in his love affair, he should have the instinct. Maurice feels that it would be going to be somewhat, he said “ I became aware that our love was doomed” (25).
Moreover, the aspiration to possess seems obsessed him, Maurice said moodily “ I would fan myself into anger and remorse” and he can’t help changing the situation, he feels helpless “ I was pushing, pushing the only thing that I loved out of my life”. Unsuccessful possession transforms into hatred and anger. Maurice says “ but if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death: I had to shut my eye and wring its neck” (25) bitterly.
We can assume that whatever Maurice has taken look like the heat, which uses to boil water. All the heat in the vase just wants to blast out. Love turns in to hate. Maurice said “ more than anything in the world I wanted to hurt Sarah” (45). And he even acts like an upset kid behaving with his friend; he just wants to stop the game. Maurice mockingly told Sarah “ we had good time together, we’re adults, we know it had to end some time. Now, you see, we can meet like friends and talk about Henry” (23). That should have hurt Sarah a lot.
He simply revenges the person has given him the pain and the headache. When taking about Maurice, we cannot omit his obsession of love. Sarah’s love seems never enough for him. The depression grows awfully, he thought “ and I began quite seriously to think of suicide”. In short, Maurice puts his entire mind toward Sarah. He loves her for two reasons, for her beauty and for the superiority in their relationship. However, assuming that his inner world seems struggle. His deeds keep moving around in a circle of loving and receiving love painfully.
Maurice seems a hateful person because his head is full of pain and hatred but deep inside that nasty man there is a very usual man, a lovable man. Being left behind by Sarah, Maurice keeps thinking about what she could have done with another man. He becomes a true lover, or he admits himself so. Since the desire to possess Sarah, who carries a loved soul and beautiful body, so significant Maurice imaged Sarah with other man “ Sarah making love, Sarah with X, doing the same things that we had done together” (59). Maurice is a doubtful man, he trusts no one and that sorrows him.
The best moment is his life is when he realizes he was enlightened by Sarah’s unconditional love. He thought when he read Sarah’s journal “ there’s enough left for our two lives, and I thought of that day when she had packed her suitcase and I sat here working, not knowing that happiness was to close, I was glad that I hadn’t known and I was glad that I know. I could act now” (101). That moment is a big change in his mind, it goes from totally doubt to doing whatever to love her unconditionally. It is also the moment that he perceives his biggest mistake ever, doubting ignoring Sarah’s love.
He can be forgiven. When people realize their mistakes, they would either fix them or confess them. Bendrix said “ the slowly growing pain in my upper arm where her weight lay was he greatest pleasure I had ever known” (105). He feels relieved because there is no more jealousy, no more doubt or hatred. At this point he forgives himself. He opens his spirit in order to touch what Sarah would offer him. Maurice shows us what his world of love looks like; it is filled with courage to move forward for the loved one and with passion to never stop loving. His personalities exist in a very special way.
If there were an inner world Maurice would be without hesitation showing off his feeling such as interests or boredom to someone and if there were an outer world he would show off desire to love, to hate. Since there is a part in Maurice exists which always asks for more love, he is sort of lost. He is lost because he doesn’t now much love he needs. I have learned what is true love from Maurice. I can see love sometimes needs a boundary, which divides many parts. Where will be my limit to ask for love or where will be the limit the loved ones could offer me. Work Cited Greene, Graham. The End of the Affair. U. S: Penguin books, 2004. Print.
