Outside Reading Q3 Post #2

So after having explored the idea of first impressions, I decided to look at the unhealthy relationships between some of the characters. Starting with Elinor and a friend of her and Paul's named Kit Neville. Neville somehow thinks he is in love with Elinor and will do anything to get her to sleep with him. He's basically a cad. Elinor is beautiful and everyone around her is immediately attracted to her personality and good looks as soon as they see her. Neville is pompous and creepy. He takes every opportunity he can to touch her. "At the door Neville put is hand between her shoulder blades, guiding her." (Barker 23). He just wants to touch her, rather have a real relationship.
Another relationship that was extremely unhealthy is that of Paul and a model at his art school named Theresa. Theresa is married but separated and her husband stalks her and threatens her but she can't divorce him because she has to prove adultery and battery. So it's an unhealthy relationship within an unhealthy relationship. Theresa lies to Paul in order to have him stay over at night. She pretends to get threatening letters from her husband so he'll protect her. He finds this out...and still stays with her until she moves back to her hometown in northern England. He is devastated and depressed for some time afterwards.This novel says a lot about relationships. Pat Barker means to show us that "loving" someone for the wrong reasons as well as lying to somone you love always ends very badly. She also shows us some good can come from the damage, as Paul and Elinor's realtionship blossoms.

Outside Reading Post Number One

As I was reading my book, Life Class by Pat Barker, I realized that a major theme throughout the book, but especially in the begginning was that first impressions aren't always as important as some make them out to be. Take the main characters Paul and Elinor for example. The story allways follows Paul and is told from his perspective, but from what other's say and some of Paul's actions we see that he is impatient, headstrong and easily swayed. But then we also see a side of him unlike our first impression. "Bastard. All Paul's long frustration...boiled over into hatred for this man with his florried cheeks and silver-topped cane. He jumped up and began striding along the path, meaning to cut them off before they reached the gate" (Barker 10) Paul decided to save a fifteen year old prostitute from a middle aged man because he feels so sorry for her. Almost immediatly after we make our first impressions of Paul, we are forced to change them because Paul does something so noble, a word not included in the original description above.
The same happens with Elinor. Through Paul we see her as a puzzle "She came towards until she was close enought to touch. A stir of desire, almost indistiguishable from irritation. He wasn't in the mood for "the treatment"-by which he meant the air of imtimacy Elinor created between herself and any man she spoke to" (Barker 14) We think she's some kind of,well, whore. But really she's not. If one reads on we see that Elinor is earnest and a hopeless romantic. So, first impressions can be incredibly decieving. One has to read more into someone before they really know the person. Firts impressions shouls never be trusted.