What Love Demands in The End of the Affair

Written by Jenny Williams

This wasn’t my first reading of The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, and yet, from the first paragraph I was hooked all over again.

One of my favorite things about re-reading is that when you remember the main plot and how the story ends, there is always something else to compel you to keep turning the pages. Something that usually surprises you.

This time for me, it was the character of Sarah Miles. I found myself drawn to her struggle in a personal way, even though, by the grace of God, I am not embroiled in an adulterous affair, nor am I struggling with a belief in God.

I am currently eight months pregnant with my fourth child. As I wrestle with my inability to stay on top of everyday tasks, and as I try to prepare for the physical and mental demands of labor, I find myself struggling with the limitations of both my body and my love.

I wondered if this increasing awareness of my limitations is where I saw myself in Sarah’s story.

Sarah is wrestling with the idea of a personal God who desires to know her, despite all that she finds unlovely about herself.

It’s not so much that Sarah is questioning her true worth as much as she fears the answer: to believe God can see beyond her helplessness means coming out of the shadows and saying, “here I am, God. What now?”

And this, I think, is what Sarah and I have most in common: We fear of what love might demand.

When we say yes to new growth, in any form, we are assenting to something we don’t fully understand and certainly have very little control over. Sarah recognizes that a love that sees our whole selves and asks us to believe where we are headed is better than where we are now is not a love we can contain.

She struggles to relinquish her love affair with Bendrix because that is a love that began on her own terms. Sarah was comfortable surrendering to it until it started to become something she couldn’t control.

This new love tugging at her heart is beyond her human understanding. And isn’t it the same for each of us, when love asks us to grow a little more?

Much to the surprise of everyone, including the reader, it is precisely this very limited ability to surrender that leads Sarah to fear less and less, what love—true love—is demanding of her.

Love had cracked open the door of Sarah’s heart, and it would prove to be enough.

It feels scandalous that Greene would suggest that God could look at Sarah’s love for a man who is not her husband and see it as fertile ground for love of Him. That God can look at any of us, with our sins and shortcomings and say, “I can work with that” is truly frightening if we dwell on the significance for any length of time.

And yet that’s exactly what Greene invites us to do in this novel.

Sarah is terrified of a God who is not a vapor, but rather a human body who dares to come so close that he invites us to partake of his flesh to become one with him.

God’s love demands nothing short of a complete release of all that we do not understand. That’s the part that troubles Sarah. All too often, it is the part that troubles me.

Even when Sarah and Bendrix are at their happiest, they have settled for an imperfect love that leaves room for doubt, jealousy, and insecurity.

Sarah begins to experience freedom from fear when she accepts that abandonment to God’s love is the only thing that will lead them both to eternal bliss.

Sometimes it takes a shocking story to make us look more closely at our own.

What Sarah taught me this time around is that fear of what love demands isn’t only found in the grandeur of other people’s failings.

In the end, ours is the same invitation as Sarah’s. Maybe what’s holding us back from letting God enter into our weakness and transform us is not as glaring as an extramarital affair. Fear of becoming fully seen and loved by God can lurk in the small corners of our lives, too.

About Jenny Williams

Jenny Williams is the artist and owner behind the online shop for booklovers, Carrot Top Paper Shop, and the coauthor of Eat Like a Heroine. She and her husband work and play together with their three children (and another due this summer) in their home in the woods, just outside of Oklahoma City. You can find all her work inspired by literary heroines at her online home, artistjennywilliams.com.

About Well-Read Mom

In Well-Read Mom, women read more and read well. Our hope is to deepen the awareness of meaning hidden in each woman’s daily life, elevate the cultural conversation, and revitalize reading literature from books. If you would like to have us help you select worthy reading material, we invite you to join and read along with us. We are better together! For information on how to start or join a Well-Read Mom group visit our website wellreadmom.com