Ind Aff

The story’s subtitle, “or Out of Love in Sarajevo,” summarizes the main thrust of the narrative: the narrator falling out of love with her professor on a vacation to Sarajevo. Throughout “Ind Aff,” Fay Weldon emphasizes the inappropriateness of the relationship, partly due to Gendered Power Imbalances in Love, that eventually leads to the falling out of love process.

As the narrator introduces the relationship between herself and her professor-turned-lover, she remembers that he has said that she has “a good mind but not a first-class mind” (Paragraph 4). Though she claims not to be offended by this, it’s an indicator of the imbalance of power in the relationship, as he is in a position in which he can judge her intellectual capacity and have institutional backing in doing so. The term “first-class” not only means “high quality” but also refers to British university grading systems, underscoring the fact that he can influence her educational outcomes. Furthermore, when the couple goes out to lunch, they debate whether Princip’s actions really caused World War I. Peter contends that they did not. He takes a condescending tone, explaining his point of view as if it is fact and then failing to listen to the narrator’s rebuttal. This further demonstrates the power imbalance between them.

Sex is an integral part of the power imbalance in the story, as Weldon explores whether the narrator’s sexual appeal to Peter gives her power or not. Weldon uses sexual imagery to probe this question. Peter picks apart the pepper that comes with his salad. The way this is described invokes a sexual act: “He was parting the flesh of the soft orangey-red pepper” (Paragraph 20). This line, particularly with the word choice of “flesh,” calls to mind spreading open the narrator’s vulva. The fact that he is the active subject in this scene, and the pepper is an object of consumption, suggests that the narrator will have more power if she chooses not to have sex with him.

When the narrator makes the decision to leave, she gives Peter a kiss on his bald spot. Her last gesture of affection toward him is not extreme or “inordinate” but is an unappealing reminder of the age difference between them. The gesture is also infantilizing toward Peter, suggesting that the narrator regains power when she walks away and defuses the sexual tension. Then, the wild boar they have been waiting for is at long last ready, but it appears cold and therefore also unappealing. If the pepper represents the sex that forms their relationship at the surface level, like an appetizer for the real thing, the wild boar represents the meat or substance of their relationship that has turned cold and repellent, no longer hot and passionate.

As the narrator ponders their relationship throughout the story, Weldon portrays several instances of denial. The narrator muses on the attractiveness of Peter despite his age and profession, signifying that she is in denial about their age gap, a form of “self-deception” that, looking back, she notices she and her sister share. Furthermore, when Peter accidentally calls the Austro-Hungarian Empire the “Hungro-Austarian empire” (Paragraph 31), this begins to erode his authority and therefore his appeal for his student-turned-lover. He makes the situation worse by denying what he said, underscoring that they both are in denial about the true exploitative nature of the relationship.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire and the figure of Princip forms a significant part of the narrator’s thought processes in the story. As she ponders the idea that Princip’s actions were out of love, her thoughts serve as a reminder of her own self-effacement. When she feels “[t]he true, the real pain of Ind Aff!” toward a waiter and notices his coworker’s negative expression toward her current relationship (Paragraph 38), it’s the key turning point in the story. The protagonist finally changes, recognizing the self-delusional nature of her feelings toward Peter as she acknowledges to herself that her love is false, in contrast to Princip’s love for his nation.

The narrator’s musings on Princip’s patriotism lead her to reflect on her “inordinate affection” for Peter, a phrase and abbreviation coined by John Wesley. The connection to Princip implies that the narrator has a choice between destruction—a metaphorical death—due to her love affair or walking away. The connection to Wesley suggests that such love is considered inappropriate, at least by traditional Christian values—especially given, as Peter next reminds the protagonist, his “wife’s sorrow.”

The narrator compares herself favorably to Peter’s wife, the subtext being that patriarchy engenders competition over men between women. At the story’s end, the narrator has finally realized that her relationship with Peter should have stayed academic. By imagining that Princip could have theoretically had a similar change of heart and prevented World War I, she suggests that the emotional catastrophe she avoided by not continuing the affair was as significant as the death toll of a major war. This highlights The Effects of Pivotal Choices. The scale of World War I is a metaphor for the far-reaching damages of patriarchy; by stepping out from the competition with Peter’s wife, the narrator not only avoids the implosion of Peter’s marriage but also attempts to diminish the harm of patriarchal structures. Ultimately, in this story, “inordinate affection” directed at an inappropriate person narrowly avoids true tragedy.