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Book 2, Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The End of the Affair, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Hatred
Faith, Acceptance, and the Divine
Jealousy and Passion
Adultery, Deception, and Honesty
Summary
Analysis
Henry drops his hat on his way out of the restaurant after Bendrix gives him Parkis’s reports, so Bendrix walks out after him. In a narrated aside, Bendrix says that, if he could, he might have turned back the clock and decided to walk right past Henry that night he saw him on the Common. However, Bendrix doesn’t think this would have ultimately mattered, saying, “I am beginning to doubt whether anything I can do will ever alter the course of events.”
Bendrix expresses his belief that nothing he did would have stopped or altered any of the events in the story he’s writing. This would imply a belief in a higher power, such as God, who has preordained that certain events will take place. At this point, Bendrix does not consider himself religious, but this moment hints at how his spirituality will evolve going forward.
Themes
Bendrix wanders into the Victoria Gardens and spots Henry sitting on a bench. It is clear that Henry is crying and Bendrix, overcome with an uncharacteristic feeling of sympathy, apologizes to him. Henry invites Bendrix to sit down and asks if he and Sarah also had an affair. At first, Bendrix is evasive, but Henry tells him it’s the only possible reason for Bendrix’s decision to hire a detective. Bendrix starts to feel overcome by jealously again, so he tells Henry that there were also others. When Henry asks him why, Bendrix says it was because Henry is “a bore and a fool.”
Bendrix has been in pain over the loss of his relationship with Sarah for a long time, and Henry’s questions offer Bendrix the opportunity to make Henry suffer as well. By sharing with Henry the extent of Sarah’s infidelities and telling him that they were all his fault for being boring, Bendrix hopes that he’ll rouse anger in Henry, who might uncharacteristically fight back. This also shows a different kind of jealousy in Bendrix: he is jealous that Henry has gone so long without being eaten up by the same jealousy that Bendrix has been torturing himself with for years.
Themes
Henry asks Bendrix why his affair with Sarah ended, and Bendrix explains that he also became “a bore, boring her with complaints and jealousy.” Henry and Bendrix look around at the empty park in silence for a while before Bendrix goes on to say that he and Sarah had simply used up all their love—Sarah could do all kinds of domestic duties in her home with Henry, but all she and Bendrix could do was have sex. Henry says that Sarah is “very fond of [Bendrix],” to which Bendrix replies that “One isn’t satisfied with fondness.” Henry, however, retorts that he is. Henry says it isn’t “human nature” for love to go “on and on” as Bendrix wanted. Bendrix remembers that Sarah said something very different when she ended their affair.
Bendrix’s revelation that he had turned to “complaints and jealousy” as a way to cope with the fact that he and Sarah could only have sex together—while Sarah and Henry got to share an entire life together—reveals just how desperate Bendrix was for a meaningful and honest relationship; he wanted to have a wife whom he could share his whole life with, not just a mistress to have sex with on the sly. Furthermore, Bendrix is not “satisfied with fondness” because he wants to possess all of Sarah—all of her love, her loyalty, and her body.
Themes
