The End of the Affair

4 ideas

1. The V-1 blast and Sarah's vow

   In June 1944 a V-1 flying bomb hits the house where Bendrix and Sarah are making love. Bendrix is knocked unconscious under a door, and Sarah, believing he is dead, kneels and promises a God she does not believe in that she will give him up if he lives. When he walks in alive she keeps the vow and ends the affair without explanation, and Bendrix spends two years believing she left him for another man. He learns the real reason only by hiring a private detective, who steals her diary.

2. The jealous narrator misreads the evidence

   A narrator driven by jealousy reads every piece of evidence as proof of betrayal, so his account is reliable about his own feelings and unreliable about the facts. Bendrix hires a detective to find Sarah's lover, and the rival he uncovers turns out to be God. His hatred works as a record of how much he loved her, and the reader has to read through his bias to reach the truth the diary gives.

3. A bargain made in bad faith still binds

   A promise made in desperation to a God one does not believe in can hold more firmly than a promise made in faith, because keeping it is what produces the belief. Sarah keeps her vow first out of superstitious fear. Her suffering in keeping it slowly turns into faith, so belief comes after obedience rather than causing it.

4. God as the rival lover

   Divine love can compete with human love on the same ground, taking up the same exclusive, jealous place a sexual rival would. Bendrix ends by hating God the way he would hate another man, and in doing so he concedes that God exists. The novel suggests that fighting God this intensely is already a way of being caught by him.

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