Vazquez 1

Eileen Vazquez
ENG 305-03
Dr. Hernandez
13 Dec 2017
Out of Love

The protagonist begins the story with a “sad” foretelling from the stormy weather

beginning the day in Sarajevo. The story is not going to be so much about the end of a love affair

as about the beginning of self-awareness that leads the narrator to leave a depressing situation.

The passage focused on shows the shift of the characters perspective of Peter Piper as they talk

about a different time-period that reflects her current situation.

An unnamed protagonist of the age of twenty-five travels to Sarajevo in Bosnia with her

forty-six-year-old lover and professor. The point of view of this story is taken form the

perspective of the female protagonist as she analyzes their “holiday” together away from Mrs.

Peter Piper, so as Mr. Piper can gain more time so as to decide which woman he prefers to spend

his life with: his wife of twenty-four years, or his young “bathing belle.” The narrator also shifts

views to examine the history of Sarajevo and how Princip’s history mimics her own. Upon a

rainy day, the couple observe the footprints that were left where this assassin shot Archduke

Franz Ferdinand, consequently causing World War I. The couple go for a lunch and they discuss

the history of Princip. As the narrator understands it better, she realizes that her love for Peter is

not all that she thinks it is. After the story of Princip is concluded, the narrator also concludes

that her Ind Aff-inordinate love-for Peter is not the Ind Aff Princip felt for his country.

This young adult who wholeheartedly believes in the idea that her image as an attractive

student can capture a more qualified older man as a husband than her sister, who is the defining
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feature of her character. It is evident that she is infatuated with her professor as she repeats nine

times how much she adores him within five pages of a story. Twice she addresses the opinion of

her younger sister who is married to a Harvard professor and how she seems to condescend over

the narrator and flaunt her academic prize. But this is also the reason she was okay with this

affair, the idea of having what her sister had made this conflict okay and unfortunately grows

true feelings for this man. She herself confesses that she had somehow confused ambition with

love because she was a student and he was her thesis adviser, on whom her future in academia

depended.

Peter has never quite decided who he would rather be with, his wife or the narrator.

Without Peter making a decision, the narrator decides that their love is nothing more than a mere

“inordinate affection.” She wants to live her own life and start fresh. Although feelings are there,

she knows that she must move on and not follow the steps that Princip did that just lead to his

death. Weldon writes that “Second chances are rare in life: they must be responded to.” Although

Princip took that chance to fire at the Archduke (having missed the first time); the narrator knew

that her second chance would not be taken lightly. She decides to leave Peter and end any

relationship that they had ever had. She is beginning a new life that is not based on guilt and lies.

The ties that were once binding her down are now the broken. It was once said, “In order to be

free, one must be chained.” The narrator is a living example of that. She was once bound down

with the idea of her being a mistress, but now as the ties are broken; she may now be herself and

move on with the life that she wants to live.

The setting and the theme of “IND AFF” are directly related to one another. The

narrator’s life and Princip’s life were occurring at the same location in different time periods.

Outside a café in Yugoslavia, both characters got the second chances that they needed. Princip
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was able to try and shoot the Archduke again while the narrator was able to end a relationship

that just wasn’t meant to be. Within this small town, two non-related events directly ended up

coinciding with each other, settling the idea of realization into effect.