Essay Questions

Explain tragic love in the novel The Alexandria Quartet.

The novel is characterized by tragic love stories that mainly involve major characters cheating on their spouses or significant others. The relationships do not end well for the participants. Everyone involved gets hurt when the truth is later revealed.

The narrator Darley and Justine started out as good friends before they started their affair. They met when the narrator had given a speech at a famous poet’s convention. Justine had a question after Darley’s speech and followed him to a cafe in town. From then, they became very good friends. Nessim who was Justine’s husband at the time also became Darley’s friend. However, Justine and Darley started having an affair behind Nessim’s back that was engineered by Justine. The narrator was always afraid that Nessim would find out and therefore did not live in peace. His companion Melissa was also aware of the affair and this hurt her as well. Towards the end of the novel, Nessim found out about the affair and he felt greatly betrayed by his wife and his friend. He asked Darley to accompany him in a fishing expedition and he shot Capodistria, who was one of his friends. Justine fled the city when her husband found out that she had been cheating on him.

The relationship between Darley and Melissa started off as an affair. Melissa and Darley had met when Melissa was very sick in Pursewarden’s flat and Darley helped her for he had a little knowledge of medicine. After the incident, Melissa visited Darley in his flat and that became the birth of a tragic affair. Melissa was in a relationship with an old furrier who was livid because of the adulterous affair of Melissa and Darley. The furrier threatened Darley’s life for he was always carrying around a gun whenever they crossed paths. The relationship between the narrator and Melissa was not out of love for both parties cheated on one another a couple of times. It was a relationship that was based on sex and financial assistance. The relationship ended when Melissa succumbed to tuberculosis . She left behind her child with Capodistria . The narrator took the child and fled to a small Greek island after the death of Melissa.

Therefore, from these two instances of tragic love in the novel The Alexandria Quartet, the effects of tragic love are demonstrated which include restlessness and panic for fear of being found out, fleeing because of shame and fear of being killed by a jilted lover.

Explain the social classes that existed in Alexandria as brought out by Durell in the Alexandria quartet.

Durrell shows the in depth way of life of people in the city of Alexandria. He does so by describing their social class and how it influences their lifestyle. For example, Justine and Nessim were very wealthy. This status allowed them luxuries of life such as going to high end clubs, living in a mansion and having town cars. On the other hand, Melissa and the narrator were very poor. Melissa was a dancer in the clubs so that she could make ends meet whereas the narrator was a struggling writer. This position did not allow them many freedoms for they were not able to afford even going out to party with their friends.