Enduring Love Character Analysis

Joe Rose

Joe Rose is the protagonist of Enduring Love and the novel’s chief narrator. He’s married to Clarissa Mellon, and he is a science writer and a committed rationalist. After witnessing a man die in… read analysis of Joe Rose

Clarissa Mellon

Clarissa Mellon is a secondary protagonist of Enduring Love and the wife of Joe Rose. A literary historian, Clarissa is especially interested in the Romantic British poet John Keats, a piece of whose correspondence… read analysis of Clarissa Mellon

Jed Parry

Jed Parry is the antagonist of Enduring Love. An isolated and lonely recipient of a significant inheritance, he’s a deeply religious man who suffers from de Clerambault’s syndrome, which gives a person delusions of… read analysis of Jed Parry

John Logan

John Logan is a family doctor who lives with his wife, Jean, and their children, Rachael and Leo, in Oxford. A former mountain-rescue worker, Logan rushes unhesitatingly toward the scene of the ballooning… read analysis of John Logan

Jean Logan

The wife and, later, widow of John Logan, Jean Logan lives in the couple’s Oxford house with their children, Rachael and Leo. Jean is in mourning throughout the novel, an emotional experience that… read analysis of Jean Logan

Rachael Logan

Rachael Logan is the ten-year-old daughter of John Logan and Jean Logan who lives with her widowed mother and her brother, Leo, in the family’s Oxford home. A precocious child, Rachael argues with Joe… read analysis of Rachael Logan

Leo Logan

Leo Logan is the eight-year-old brother of Rachael Logan and the son of John Logan and Jean Logan. Leo clings to his mother in the aftermath of his father’s death but is still, like… read analysis of Leo Logan

James Gadd

James Gadd is a fifty-five-year-old executive in an advertising agency. The pilot of the balloon featured in the novel’s opening chapter, Gadd attempts to save the life of his grandson, Harry Gadd, who is… read analysis of James Gadd

Harry Gadd

Harry Gadd is the ten-year-old grandson of James Gadd and the child whose imperilment begins the novel. Trapped in the basket of a wind-tossed hot-air balloon, Harry must be rescued before the balloon can be… read analysis of Harry Gadd

Joseph Lacey

Joseph Lacey is a sixty-three-year-old farm laborer and the best friend of fellow-laborer Toby Greene. During the ballooning accident, Lacey attempts to hold down the balloon, and then he assists Toby when he falls… read analysis of Joseph Lacey

Toby Greene

Toby Greene is a fifty-eight-year-old farm laborer who is unmarried and lives with his mother. Like his friend Joseph Lacey, Greene tries to secure the runaway hot-air balloon. Unlike Lacey, however, Greene injures himself… read analysis of Toby Greene

Minor Characters

James Reid

James Reid is a professor of logic who is having an affair with Bonnie Deedes, his student. As the novel opens, John Logan is giving the couple a ride, the evidence of which later leads Jean Logan to mistakenly believe that her late husband was unfaithful.

Bonnie Deedes

Bonnie Deedes is a university student whose affair with James Reid, a professor, inspires Jean Logan’s mistaken suspicion of her husband. At the conclusion of the novel, Bonnie and James Reid confess to Jean Logan their part in her grief.

Jocelyn Kale

Jocelyn Kale is Clarissa Mellon’s godfather and an eminent scientist and professor. He accompanies Clarissa and Joe to the birthday lunch at which Jed Parry attempts to have Joe killed.

Luke Mellon

Luke Mellon is Clarissa Mellon’s brother whose fifteen-year marriage is disintegrating as the novel opens. Clarissa goes to dinner with her brother on the evening after the ballooning accident.

Duty Inspector Linley

Duty Inspector Linley is the police officer who responds to Joe’s complaints about Jed Parry and who interviews Joe at the police station. Because Parry has not yet attempted to harm Joe, Linley insists that there is nothing the police can do.

Detective Constable Wallace

Detective Constable Wallace is the police officer who interviews Joe after Jed Parry’s attempt to have Joe killed. Wallace presses Joe about minor details surrounding the restaurant meal, and he cannot be convinced that Parry was responsible for the shooting.

Colin Tapp

Colin Tapp is an undersecretary at the Department of Trade and Industry and a man of about Joe’s age. When Jed Parry sends assassins into a restaurant to kill Joe, the men mistakenly shoot Colin Tapp instead.

Johnny B. Well

Johnny B. Well is a drug dealer and a former friend of Joe Rose who helps Joe purchase a gun when Joe feels that his life is in danger.

Steve

Steve is an acquaintance of Johnny B. Well from whom Joe purchases a gun.

Xan

Xan is the muscular friend of Steve who is present when Joe buys a gun.

Daisy

Like Steve and Xan, Daisy is present when Joe purchases a gun with the assistance of Johnny B. Well.

Enduring Love

Ian McEwan

Enduring Love Characters