Mcewan's Presentation of Joe in 'Enduring Love'

Pages 62-65, Chapter 7: Discuss how McEwan presents Joe in this extract

In this chapter we see Joe shown with a slightly more coarse side, he shows he has little time or sympathy for Jed and does not sympathise with his emotions. Jed appears to bring out a change in Joe which seems to emphasise his negatives. A prime chapter illustrating this point is chapter 7.
Jed’s obsession with Joe intimidates him. At the start of the novel it is not obvious Jed has an unnatural interest in Joe, although when Jed asks Joe to pray with him there’s a sense of discomfort, however it is clear Joe’s resistance to Jed aggravates him and drives him to try and bring him round to a new way of thinking, something that Joe is less than willing to embrace. By chapter 7 Parry is following Joe and exclaiming, “You love me. You love me, and there’s nothing I can do but return your love.” This appears to be a peculiar claim as it appears that Joe feels nothing of the sort but has instead tried to the opposite and push him away. However Joe does not interrupt him, he doesn’t cut him short he lets him finish. This could send out the wrong message to Jed. This would then intensify Jed’s persistence for making Joe admit to his “love” for Jed, and may lead him to believe that the only reason Jed did not confess to his love is just to remain more dominant. However he does resist in other ways, an example of this is when he refers to him as “Mr. Parry”, implying that he doesn’t want to be on first name terms with him, and how he wants to distance himself from Parry. He may relate Parry to the ballooning accident and therefore wants to feel distanced from the event and make it less of a part of his life.
One of the aspects Joe feels particularly uncomfortable about is his religious fanaticism. There is an irony here as here as he almost describes Parry as a Christ like figure. On page 65 it mentions how “Parry moved his hands from his hips and presented his open palms”, on page 62 he also is...