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
Bendrix writes that he thinks that jealousy “exists only with desire.” His desire at this point in the story’s events, according to him, was “nearer hatred than love.” Henry, on the other hand, had stopped being attracted to Sarah long before he suspected her of adultery. Still, Bendrix theorizes, back then Henry was as jealous as Bendrix because Henry’s desire was for companionship and he felt excluded by the idea that Sarah was having an affair. Bendrix compares his sense of security with Henry’s insecurity, arguing that his security was due to the fact that he had already lost everything. Henry, on the other hand, still felt that Sarah should be at home with him.
Bendrix’s desire, according to him, stems from his hatred, which makes him jealous of anyone who gets to be happy with Sarah—and, more importantly, of Sarah’s own happiness, which Bendrix doesn’t think she deserves. Bendrix seeks to gratify his hatred by finding justification for it, such as discovering that Sarah is having an affair with someone else. This would also enable Bendrix to punish Sarah because he could show Henry evidence of the affair and thus hurt him.
Themes
Bendrix again thinks back to the beginning of his relationship with Sarah. One week after their first kiss outside of Rules, Bendrix called Sarah to invite her to see a movie that had been based on one of his books. Although the movie wasn’t very good, Bendrix liked the scene where a woman’s lover becomes angry with her for not eating onions because her husband didn’t like the smell. Back at Rules after the movie, the waiter brought out a dish of onions and Bendrix had asked Sarah if Henry liked them. Sarah told him that Henry hated onions but that she loved them, and then she ate some. In the present, Bendrix wonders if it’s possible to “fall in love over a dish of onions” and claims that he’d done just that.
Bendrix fell in love with Sarah “over a dish of onions” because she showed him that she was willing to defy her husband to get her own gratification—whether that gratification came in the form of eating onions, having sex with someone else, or falling in love. It flattered Bendrix to think that this woman would take what seemed like a huge risk—if Henry smelled the onions on her breath later, then he might ask where she’d been and make her tell him about Bendrix.
Themes
Bendrix writes, “There was no pursuit and no seduction,” but that he and Sarah had left Rules to go kiss in the same spot. Once there, Bendrix told Sarah he’d fallen in love and she told him that she had, too. They were unable to return to either of their homes to have sex, so they took a taxi to a hotel where they “made love badly” before going to Sarah’s house. At Sarah’s, they continued touching each other. When Bendrix noted that Henry would be arrving soon, Sarah told him that they’d hear him because there’s “one stair that always squeaks.” Later, as they said their goodbyes, Sarah mentioned that it’d be better if she called Bendrix instead of vice versa. This made Bendrix realize “how well she kn[ew] how to conduct an affair like this.”
This description of the official start to Bendrix and Sarah’s affair highlights how quickly jealousy began to take root in Bendrix’s mind. Not only does Sarah’s obvious know-how when it comes to pulling off an extramarital affair indicate that she has had affairs before, but it means that she could even know how to have an affair with more than one man at a time; this further implies that Bendrix could be replaced at any time and he might not even be aware of what was happening.
Themes
