Edward eagerly agrees.Īs they move to the bedroom, narration shifts into the past, describing the awkward, solitary childhoods that Edward and Florence have in common. Eventually, an unexpectedly awkward conversation leads Florence to impulsively suggest they go to the bedroom. Edward, on the other hand, is both excited and nervous, desperate to love his new wife in both physical and emotional ways he has been looking forward to for months. Florence, an extremely focused and disciplined classical musician, is extremely apprehensive, feeling very uncomfortable at the thought of being penetrated. As narration describes how they nervously play with their food and make uncomfortable small talk, it also describes their respective attitudes towards sex in general, and towards their impending first time in particular. Although the air is chilly, they sit outside on the patio of the hotel where they are staying, enjoying the view of the beach and the sound of the waves.

The novel begins in the early evening, as Florence and Edward are sitting down to their poorly cooked wedding night dinner. Chapters set in the present alternate with chapters set in the past, which describe how Florence and Edward (the newlywed couple) came to be who, and where, they are. The novel is an intimate, detailed recounting of how two people struggle to reconcile very different expectations of their wedding night. On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from McEwan-a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Knof, Alfred A. Edward, eager for rapture, frets over Florence's response to his advances and nurses a private fear of failure, while Florence's anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by sheer disgust at the idea of physical contact, but dreads disappointing her husband when they finally lie down together in the honeymoon suite.Ian McEwan has caught with understanding and compassion the innocence of Edward and Florence at a time when marriage was presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and independence.

At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. A novel of remarkable depth and poignancy from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.It is July 1962.

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