The Glass Room Analysis

Love is significant in people’s lives. Many forms of love are in their relationships with others, whether it is romantic, platonic, sexual or a mixture of all the above. When someone experiences love intensely for the first time, the feeling can send them into a euphoric shock. A natural concept that young lovers feel is that their relationships are transparent and their love is unconditional. However, Simon Mawer points out that budding relationships progress to eventual collapse due to sexual frustration and a want to avoid confrontation, consequently leading to the questioning of an existence of any emotional connection whatsoever. In the novel The Glass Room, Mawer introduces multiple characters with different relationships with one another.

Hana sees Eva as an escape from Oskar and a new excitement for her that Liesel lacks. However, Hana makes her jealousy known that she wants to be with Liesel in a romantic relationship and that anything that she feels for Eva is not to the extreme that she thinks about Liesel. For all these characters, their sexual pleasure creates an emotional contagion effect when trying to maintain a sense of stability in their romantic relationships. Viktor and Hana feel a compulsion to chase after people who satisfy them physically, but leave devastation for those they leave behind without proper explanation. Although relationships’ successes heavily depend on physical compatibility, this is not put to the test in full capacity until both feel safe and comfortable together. A trust for others is difficult for some and is next to impossible for others. It is essential for couples to develop confidence in each other and feel that they can speak openly with one another. Couples that choose to please each other and repress unspoken emotions tend to lead to creating a false understanding of one another leads to disputes later on, even though the

This concept is undoubtedly the case for many relationships in The Glass Room and brings up the high probability that many of these relationships in the novel end poorly because of a lack of an emotional connection whatsoever between the people involved. Starting with Hana and Oskar’s marriage, their relationship falls apart due to Hana’s journey of sexual exploration and Oskar’s frustration with her doing such behind his back. The couple tries for a baby together, but is never able to for an unnamed reason. Hana decides to try to get pregnant with her lover Miroslav to satisfy Oskar, but chooses to not tell either men that that is her plan. The secret double-life that Hana pursues with Oskar and Miroslav end after her failed pregnancy attempts, as Miroslav leaves her to commit to his wife after she makes him choose between the two women. As for Oskar, Hana tells him about Miroslav, and his response does not sit well with her, saying to her that, “‘If he’s the one you really want, then I’ll let you go. And then he sort of shrugged and held his hands open like this. “But,” he added, “I’ll always be here to pick up the pieces.” That’s what he told me’” (97), with her breaking into tears “Not for herself this time, nor for [Miroslav] Němec, but for her own husband, the squat, unattractive, wealthy Oskar who loves her more completely