Analyse af Rachel Cusks 'After Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac'

After Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of IsaacThe short story named ”After Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac” is written by Rachel Cusk, is from 2003, and takes place in London. The text deals with a man named Alan whose life is based on routines, but unexpectedly finds a new passion and thereby breaks out of the known life with the help from his son Ian. The switch of his perspective on life brings its difficulties, and puts him in a challenging position where he is forced to choose between two paths of life.In this essay I will attempt to analyze the title, the themes of the text and characterize the narrator. My main focus will be on Alan’s relationships to his wife Sally and his German art-teacher named Gerte respectively and Ian’s role in this text. One of the most important factors of this short story, is the narrator’s son, Ian - he is, in fact, crucial to the outcome of the text’s storyline, and this is shown in the very beginning; “One of the things about having children is the feeling they give you that they know all about you. (…). My son Ian gives me this feeling”. The story evolves around the narrator’s relationship to Ian, and how Ian is his source of courage when it comes to exploring the unknown; “his being there was like some kind of passport, some bridge to another place”. Alan takes unpaid leave off work, to spend time with Ian, and to separate himself and Ian from Sally, who suffers from what could be a postpartum depression. This leads him and Ian to an art gallery, where he discovers his interest for art. Art was in the beginning only something to evolve Alan’s and Ian’s quality time around, where it later on turns out to be the symbol of a path to a whole new life. The art also represents the possibility to live in a more unorthodox way, which he realizes and says, “I looked back at the life I’d lived and thought, (…) how could you have been so ordinary? I was ashamed”. While Ian represents Alan’s source of courage, Gerte is the representative of the atypical life that may be the reward of having that courage; she is the interesting, art-admiring foreigner, and Alan falls madly in love with her; “the significance of that moment, of her words (…), seemed to reach right down to the root of my life. I felt like that my whole existence was the frame for that moment”. The strong statement is beautifully formulated, and is in contrast to the descriptions of Sally, who only is described by her actions. The absence of Alan’s descriptive emotions towards Sally signalizes that he seems to have lost interest in her.After meeting Gerte, he discovers he has changed completely, and cannot live the life he used to live, yet does not have the courage or confidence to leave. This might represent his state of mind when it comes to Sally as well; he is torn between the life with Gerte, where he finds profound love, and the life with Sally that he cannot stand anymore. Sally represents the common way of living; work, get married, have a child. He dislikes her parenting skills, and Alan uses her and his own mother as examples for which kind of parent he does not wish to become himself. It is one of his first points, and it is shown after the first part of the text; “My mother left me on a bus once (…) Didn’t do you any harm, did it? she says. Just like Sally really. I’ve always tried to be different with Ian”. The fact that Alan dislikes Sally’s parenting skills may also be one of the essential reasons that causes Alan’s wish to separate Ian from her.The main character, Alan, gets the reader’s sympathy because he is portrayed as the good, loving father. He cares and spends time with Ian, and Alan describes Ian with emotional descriptions, just like he does with Gerte. By involving the art gallery’s effect on Alan, the sympathy is amplified, because the art comforts him; “when I looked at the pictures they told me not to worry, they told me everything was all right.” This signalizes that he is worried and maybe dissatisfied with Sally, which he reveals when saying “looking at it made me feel things, with Sally at home being the way she was, and so I went in.”Alan is portrayed as the good person in this story, yet attempts to separate his son from his mother, and cheats on her with Gerte.The themes in this story could therefor be (testing) love, parenthood, and revelation of new paths in life.The picture named “The Sacrifice of Isaac” which was painted by Caravaggio portrays a situation from the Old Testament between God, Abraham and Isaac. The well-known story is about Abraham being tested in his faith; to prove that he truly believes in God, God demands that Abraham sacrifices his beloved firstborn son, Isaac. Abraham accepts it, but as he is about to kill Isaac, God interrupts him and tells Abraham that his faith has been proven. This exact story is reflected in Rachel Cusk’s short story; Gerte is testing the love Alan has for her, by giving Alan the ultimatum to choose between her and his son Ian. Like God interrupted Abraham, Gerte also stops Alan from leaving Ian. Moreover, the different characters of the two stories share the same initials, depending on their role in the story; there is God, Abraham and Isaac in one story, and Gerte, Alan and Ian in the other one.