Passion Is Both Imprisoning and Liberating
Analyses the emotional changes of Jed and How does he Imprison Joe’ One of the major characters in the novel is Jed Parry, one of the main male leads. Jed is a harsh Christian, to put it kindly “Please leave your message after the beat. And the may the Lord be with you”. After the ballooning Incident, he develops a voracious obsession with Joe Rose, who we know has a wife; Claries. Jed doesn’t seem like the violent type, though the power of his obsession Is Itself a kind of violence.
He ascribes his love for Joe In his various letters and phone messages, as something dictated by God. He sees himself, as the result of Joey’s escape. The tension here is a slight variation of that between Joe and Claries. It revolves around the battle between science and faith. Throughout the novel, Jed expresses his love and views towards Joe very openly and seems Like the character In which he follows his heart instead of his head. From when Joe receives a phone call from Jed, enquiring when he shall be meeting with IM, he ends his part of the phone call with; “l can come to you. He hesitates while saying this and with no surprise Jed replies with ” No. Tell me where you are. ” The fact that Jed is very versatile and forgiving towards Joe tells us that he is truly in love with him. Jed Is very passionate towards Joe and portrays this deeply; “I don’t know why you’ve chosen me. All I know is that I love you too now, and that there’s a reason for it, a purpose. ” Through this he seems to have put Joe in a very awkward moment. From this he feels and knows that Joe has to react in either a way of horror or agreement.
Joe feels trapped and very imprisoned even though Jed is only expressing his feelings and trying to understand why Joe doesn’t feel the same way. Later on In the novel, Jed starts to (In certain ways) ‘Interrogate’ Joe so he starts to understand exactly how he feels; “look. You don’t have to go about it like this. You could save us both so much misery. ” This back fires as Joe still doesn’t express the truth and his full emotions. Jed continues this ‘act’ as he later on says “What have I done to you?
Why are you keeping this up? ” Joe has Instigated this and feels manipulated and controlled by him. Parry starts to get very affectionate towards Joe Rose, maybe trying to get through to Joe in a different way. He states; “Something passed between us, up there on the hill, after he fell, it was pure energy, pure light? ” He tries to approach Rose in many ways and I believe this is his final attempt to reach Joe. This quote defines the way in which parry express’ love.
He believes this is the true meaning of love and how he feels towards Joe. The fact that Joe Rose Is married doesn’t even cross Parry’s mind even thong en Is very aware AT ten Tact; “l en only way Is Tort ten tenure AT us to talk. ” From this, I think that Parry believes this is all a game; a love triangle in which he believes he van fox but Joe isn’t taking it. By the end of chapter seven Joe finally loses his patience, hails a taxi and leave abruptly when Jed mentions dealing with what he sees as the ‘Claries problem’.
