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The Comfort of Strangers Study Guide

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by Ian McEwan
About 29 pages (8,781 words)
The Comfort of Strangers Summary

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Themes

Sex and Violence

As Mary sits in the morgue looking down at the corpse of Colin, she begins to formulate a thesis as to the violence inherent in male/female relations. Men are born with a desire to hurt and women with being hurt. Robert and Caroline are the perfect example of this relationship - this much is obvious. However, the theory of the natural oppressor and the naturally oppressed is Robert's guiding principle and, given his behaviors, it is nearly impossible to accept this at face value. Even Mary, who would like to explain this horrible symbiosis to Colin's dead body, cannot speak. As an aggressive feminist, she might be expected to agree with Robert on this one point of human nature; but when she is brought nose to nose with the truth, she realizes that.....

This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 842 words. This study guide contains 8,781 words (approx. 29 pages at 300 words per page).

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The Comfort of Strangers from BookRags and Gale's For Students Series. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.

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