Ind Aff

“[H]e lit a spark which fired the timber which caused World War I which crumbled the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the crumbling of which made modern Yugoslavia possible. Thirty million dead (or was it forty?) but who cares? So long as he loved his country.”

The repetition of “which” four times stresses the chain of events that Princip’s actions led to; the structure of this narration of occurrences is also an allusion to the Jewish traditional song “Chad Gadya,” which describes a similar fateful chain of events—Fay Weldon once wrote that many of her childhood friends were Jewish (Weldon, Fay. “Fay Weldon on Hampstead: ‘I was a literary groupie from the antipodes.’” The Guardian, 22 October 2018). The rhetorical question “who cares?” underscores the ultimate tragedy to which that the assassination led.

“Ah, but I loved him.”

This is the first time of many when the narrator expresses her feelings toward Peter. To accentuate this expression of affection, Weldon includes the interjection “ah,” which reads as a sigh of love. However, the sighing sound in combination with the “but” also expresses resignation, suggesting that the character loves Peter despite his complaints. This resignation suggests that her dissatisfaction with him will grow throughout the story.

“He said I had a good mind but not a first-class mind and somehow I didn’t take it as an insult. I had a feeling first-class minds weren’t all that good in bed.”

Peter uses his academic status to denigrate his partner, and she doesn’t mind because her wish for his approval has been warped into a need to be sexually desired by him. The alliteration of “feeling first-class” followed by the consonance of “good in bed” creates a structure in the second sentence that emphasizes the supposed difference between “first-class minds” and sexual bodies, implying that one cannot be both under patriarchy.

“Peter was trying to decide, as he had been for the past year, between his wife and myself as his permanent life partner.”

This is the central conflict for Peter’s character. The rhyming of “wife” and “life” suggest a natural association between the two terms, making the idea of the narrator becoming Peter’s primary partner seem unnatural by contrast.

“[W]e knew we would pay more but be given a choice. We chose the wild boar.”

The repetition of “choice” and “chose” underscores The Effects of Pivotal Choices (Princip’s and the narrator’s) in the text. The fact that the couple is “pay[ing] more” highlights the consequences of those choices.

“He was parting the flesh of the soft orangey-red pepper which sat in the middle of his cucumber salad […]. I loved him for his dexterity and patience with a knife and fork.”

This vivid image symbolizes the sexual activity that occurs between the two main characters. The personification of “flesh” using the word “sat” and the detail of “soft” highlight the pepper’s resemblance to the narrator’s genitals. The fact that she appreciates his “dexterity and patience” suggests that he is, like her, “good in bed.”

“Muscular academic is just a generally superior human being: everything works well from the brain to the toes”

The narrator’s sister’s comment reflects the desire the protagonist feels for her lover’s “muscular” physique. While the narrative has suggested that women, under patriarchy, cannot be viewed as both intelligent and sexual, the construction of the male, “muscular academic” suggests that men are granted the ability of being both.

“Princip was nineteen—too young to hang.”

The consonance of “ng” and the homonyms “too” and “to” in “too young to hang” create a sonic parallel between “too young” and “to hang,” a poetic way to eulogize Princip’s youth, which the narrator shares. Although hanging here refers to the death penalty, it also invokes the idea of hanging out, subtly implying that the narrator is too young to hang out with her professor.

“‘Inordinate affection is a sin,’ he’d told me.”

The slant rhyme of “affection” with “sin” strengthens the association between the two words. Peter is concerned about the sinfulness of cheating on his wife, while the reality is the relationship is actually harmful primarily for the reason of the power imbalance between the narrator and him.

“He wanted, I knew, one of the long half-wrangles, half soul-sharings that we could keep going for hours and led to piercing pains in the heart which could only be made better in bed.”

The repetition of “half” demonstrates that the relationship is only half intimacy (“half soul-sharings”) and the other half is just struggle (“half-wrangles”). The fact that an argument can be solved “in bed” suggests that their arguments represent a shifting power balance, but their sex reestablishes the patriarchal structure of their relationship, thereby ending the argument.

“Princip had vanished into the crowd and gone to sit down in a corner café and ordered coffee to calm his nerves.”

This description of the café invokes the protagonist’s time at the restaurant. Just as Princip tried to “calm his nerves” with a drink, the main character tries to maintain her relationship through sharing a meal, but in both cases, a fateful decision soon follows.

“He liked to be asked questions.”

This line stresses that Peter maintains his professorial ethos within his romantic relationship with the narrator—their dynamic is a skewed version of a thesis supervision—and in this way abuses his power.

“The true, the real pain of Ind Aff!”

The use of the synonyms “true” and “real” one after the other is a form of repetition that underscores the excitement of the narrator’s feelings for the waiter. This implies that her relationship with Peter was, in contrast, delusional all along.