A Perpetual Search for the Idealized Lost Loved Object: An Object-relations Reading of Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love

Abstract

This paper attempts to present the journey of mental suffering in Jed Parry, one of the major characters in Enduring Love. In this regard, it is noted that this journey begins and questions the borders of Self and Other in life and boundaries of love. Jed Parry is perceived as a religious fanatic and what comes next is Jed’s obsession with Joe and his attempt to convince him that they are in love, and at the same time Joe is preoccupied with the idea that Jed is obsessed with him. We present a close reading of Enduring Love by elucidating some of the psychoanalytical reflections on Jed via the lens of child-mother conceptual theory. Specifically, we explore the psychic anxieties and the influence of this early female figure on Jed’s interactions in light of Object Relations Theory of the psychoanalysis attributable to the Fairbairnian, Kleinnian, and Winnicottian analytic traditions. We trace the psychoanalytical origins of Jed’s anxieties and tensions into childhood and also highlight a much earlier female (mother) influence. We will show how deprivation from the establishment of a satisfying contact with this primary love object (mother) can wreak havoc in the character’s psyche and cause his ego to move towards establishing relations with his internal objects instead of natural, real objects in his external world.