Thinking activity

 Hello readers...

This blog is in response of the thinking activity in our department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University. I am assigned with making draft and my topic is The obstacles in love with reference to The Only Story by Julian Barnes.

The obstacles in love with reference to The Only Story by Julian Barnes

The story revolves around Paul Roberts, a 19 year old Sussex University undergraduate returning to his parents' home in London's green southern suburbs, is the protagonist of this novel .The setting is the early 1960s, with a few allusions to present events. Paul joins the tennis club, which is one of the few social activities available in such settings. He is paired with Susan MacLeod, a 48 year old married woman with two daughters older than Paul, in a mixed doubles match. Surprisingly, Paul and Susan fall in love, and Susan finally abandons her family to live with Paul in South London. Susan descends quickly, having nothing to do but a little housekeeping.

What are the obstacles in love?

As we all know that writing a love story is very common having conflicts either it is of relationships or with the society, but in this story Julian Barnes had brought up some new idea which makes the story very unique and different form othe literary works.

The obstacles in love is the unconventional love between Paul and Susan which turns into an organic one. First they both develop respect for each other then they both develop feelings and decided to live together.From here the conflict starts and we can say thr main obstacle in their love is the age gap that they are having not the viee point of society but time.Here time plays crucial role or wr can say thr main obstacle between them.

Here i wanted to point out some of the main obstacles...

👉 Time

👉 Addiction

👉 Guilt

👉 Responsibility

👉 Mental strenghth

👉 Inner peace

All the above things had affected Susan and Paul in their respective place.For Susan it was impossible to leave her responsibility in order to live with Paul because she has her two daughters and a husband who abuses her.For her it was very hard to remove all the cruelty of her husband from her mind but what makes her happy is the time with paul. On the othet hand paul was very young and he was not able to handle the all those problems of Susan with her family.Althought Paul tries to solve it but in doing that he losses his inner peace.He wanted to be with Susan but because he was not that mature and experienced compare to Susan he was not able to make both of their lives at peace.

Conclusion

The whole story is indeed very beautiful beacause the way Barnes gave the freedom to the readers to assume that what will happen next or what is the reason behind having obstacles in love where their is truth and how things goes on change with the passage of time.

Julian Barnes,The Only Story

http://julianbarnes.com/books/onlystory.html