Rhetorical Analysis of “A Strange Love Affair”

Rhetorical Analysis

A Strange Love Affair
The narrative essay “A Strange Love Affair,” written by Jan Myrdal takes place during the 1940’s however, it wasn’t until the 1960’s that it got published. Myrdal writes about a married man that reconnects with his first love. Not only that, he almost commits adultery in having sex with this women, but turns down B because of the reason that he loves his wife. He tries to cover up his doubts by saying that his feet stink because of a long journey through Sweden.But in the end the B understands and they have a long talk about self soul and love. The author makes a clear message towards a younger audience about marriage and the importance of commitment and also the overall consequences of love. Myrdal was also successful in appealing to his expected audience.

The audience for this piece is mostly for the younger kids in the 1960’s and in present day when it was published. Back in the 40’s what happen with B and him was something that was unheard of. But in the 60’s and to present day having sex with a women before marriage was not as big of a deal. Reading this piece and considering the title I would expect more about love and passion to have been in the story. Myrdal writes this piece in an informal manner without using any names and vage in details such as, I was in love she was attractive and smart. As a reader if he was so in love with her, why could he not give more detail about this women?

He leaves out many details in that we don’t know why he went to jail or if this meeting into B was planned or not. Most importantly he says “I could not find anything more convincing to say than that I seemed to love the girl I was married to.” The way he says this so softly it almost comes across like he might not mean it, but than you think well maybe he does mean it because it stopped him from having sex with his first love. Also noted was his conscious it was never mentioned, you had no idea if he feels guilty or any emotion what so ever. You are told about his stinky feet though, which might represent his conscious but nothing was stated directly its left up to the readers to decide for themselves

This narrative was both successful and not successful in its effectiveness to deliever a message about the consequences of love. Myrdal writes to the younger generation of people in the late 1960’s and to people of the modern world. In my opinion he was effective in his message to me about love and how when you make a commitment to someone that you need to fulfill your promise to them. I also agree with his actions of being alone in a room with a girl he use to love.

However for that time period you weren’t supposed to be in a room with the opposite sex undressed if you weren’t married. So of course times change and for his audience that type of behavior was okay. People were having tons of sex before marriage. I also believe that he wasn’t successful in convincing me that he really did love his wife based off of one sentence that he didn’t have a better reason other than he loved his wife. He says that sentence with no passion no real emotion to me therefore I don’t believe him. But all in all as I read this I couldn’t help but fill in the blanks with my own thoughts, and that may also have an influence on what I find effective and not effective in his writing.