Comfort Of Strangers Analysis

The extract from Ian McEwan’s novel The Comfort of Strangers tells the story of Robert and his distant relationship with his family. Robert, the narrator, revisits the time that his parents left him and his sisters home alone in his efforts to see if his sisters did in fact hate him. During their parent’s absence Robert followed his sisters into their parent’s room and watched them play dress up with their mother’s things. The extract is told through the sequence of event: the first is dress up in the early after, then, clean up in the late afternoon, followed by dinner. In this extract, Ian McEwan shows Robert’s distant relationship with his sisters, father, and mother by demonstrating the unreliability of appearances and through the use of details.
McEwan emphasizes the distant relationship between Robert and his sisters Eva and

Eventually, Robert’s sisters tell him to close his eyes while they change; when he opens his eyes, he is “shocked because these were not his sisters, these were American film stars,” (McEwan, 12). McEwan’s choice to describe Robert’s sisters as American film stars furthers the distance between Robert and his sisters. The stereotype of an American film star is a glamorous yet also superficial one which brings out the superficiality of the relationship with his sisters. Once Eva and Maria have the facade of American film stars on they begin to act like stereotypical celebrities by becoming “delighted with themselves,” (McEwan, 13) and “[laughing] and [kissing] each other” (McEwan, 13) like “they were real women,” (McEwan, 13). The association that Robert makes between his sisters’ facade and “real women” is one that brings attention to what he thinks the appearance and behavior of “real women” is. Consequently, this connection speaks poorly the on part of the sisters because it shows that the more makeup Eva and Maria put on the more pleased they become with themselves. The sisters not only mimic the American film