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
On July 10, 1944 Sarah writes that she went out for a walk several times during the day hoping to run into Maurice because accidentally running into him won’t break her vow to God. In the park, Sarah saw that “the man with the spots was still attacking Christianity” and wondered if he would be able to talk her into believing that she doesn’t have to keep a promise if she doesn’t believe in the person she made it to. A woman with the man passed out cards to people in the park and Sarah took one.
Sarah sees that her one escape from her promise to God is to be talked out of believing in him—by the “man with the spots” who will later turn out to be Richard. At the same time, she refuses to acknowledge just how much she does believe in God. In other words, Sarah wants to be talked out of believing in God even though she claims that she doesn’t believe in God, and therefore wouldn’t have any belief to be talked out of. This perfectly captures how complex Sarah’s relationship with God is, particularly after separating from Bendrix.
Themes
On the same night, Sarah writes that some of Henry’s coworkers came over for dinner. Henry and one of his coworkers talked about the V1s and Sarah writes that she wanted to tell them about finding Maurice trapped under the door and that she was naked at the time because she and Maurice were having an affair. Sarah wonders if Henry would have heard her if she did say these things. Sarah writes that she turned her attention to another of the men from Henry’s job, Dunstan. Sarah thought to herself that Dunstan would simply accept an affair for what it was and wouldn’t “be cross or indifferent.” Sarah asked herself, “Why shouldn’t I escape from this desert if only for half an hour?” Sarah also remembered that her vow was “only about Maurice.”
Sarah reveals one important detail about the symbolic desert: one can seek temporary relief from it in other people. Although the desert itself is a barren and loveless land, one can pretend for a moment that they are experiencing love with another person. That escape, however, is not a permanent solution; for Sarah, the only possible solutions involve breaking her vow to God and returning to Bendrix, or totally accepting God’s love as a substitute for Bendrix’s.
Themes
In the rest of her diary entries from July 1944, Sarah writes of meeting “D.” for dinner and kissing him once while they were out with Henry. However, Sarah writes that “nothing worked” and that one night she looked up Maurice’s phone number to call him. Sarah writes, “I said to God, […] I can’t believe in you, I can’t love you, but I’ve kept my promise. If I don’t come alive again, I’m going to be a slut.” Sarah threatened to “destroy [her]self quite deliberately” as she waited for Maurice to answer the phone. When someone picked the phone up, however, it was a woman who said she was borrowing the flat while the owner was away.
When Sarah left Bendrix, she lost a part of herself, as well. Just as Bendrix found that he couldn’t have sex with a prostitute because he didn’t love her—and thus wouldn’t have been able to find emotional fulfillment as well as sexual satisfaction—Sarah is unable to re-create the emotional and sexual fulfillment she found with Bendrix with anyone else. However, she threatens to become a “slut” because, as she mentioned earlier, there is a chance that she can find temporary relief from the pain of a loveless life.
Themes
After hanging up the phone, Sarah was unhappy because she didn’t know where Maurice was. She writes that they were “In the same desert, seeking the same water-holes perhaps, but out of sight, always alone.” Sarah also writes that the desert would cease to be a desert if she were with Maurice. Sarah turned to God and asked him what she’s supposed to do with her life. Sarah remembers learning about a king who decided to kill what God loved about him the most in order to get back at God, and Sarah thinks to herself that she wants to do the same thing. However, Sarah writes that she doesn’t think there’s anything loveable about herself and, therefore, God couldn’t love her. Sarah asks God to show her what he loves about her so she can “set about robbing [him] of it.”
Just as Bendrix weaponized hatred in his quest to hurt Sarah and Henry, Sarah tries to weaponize love; more specifically, Sarah wants to take what God loves about her and use it to hurt him by destroying it. At the same time, Sarah reveals her one great insecurity: she believes that she is unlovable. This also helps explain why she feels so compelled to have affairs—it’s not just for sexual fulfillment, but to feel loved and to make herself believe that something about herself is loveable.
Themes
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