“The human route to sympathy or empathy is a clumsy one but it's all we've got. To understand the consequences of our actions we must exercise our imaginations.”
In Jake’s world behaving as a good Catholic and embracing his transformed self was the norm when he was with Sarah. Following being dumped by her he gradually regresses to his ill-behaved self before his romance with Sarah. He lacks the inhibitions he had when he was in a relationship and now single, heartbroken and confused he becomes less empathetic. The quotation is the self-awareness that he has regarding understanding the pain of the other through imaginations. However, the inclination to have these imaginations is lacking and he gets into fights often and severely injuring the adversary.
“All stories are love stories”
While the novel’s setting does not scream a romantic dynamic since it is set in Belfast during the Troubles, it is indeed a love story. As the opening line of the story, the narrator takes this stance by claiming it is a love story like all stories are. The claim becomes more tangible when the reader meets the two main characters Chuckie and Jake, as they are men in their thirties looking for love. Though they both find love eventually the journey to it is one that is rocky and unclear especially for Jake. Even though he is a tough Irish man who oozes virility he is a hopeless romantic and extremely sensitive in terms of love.
“I don't know -in my small experience of women, I've found it hard to sleep with them at such times. Times when you get the impression that there's more to them than an opportunity.”
Jake is heartbroken and emotionally vulnerable however that does not stop him from constantly falling in and out of love multiple times in the story. After his breakup with Sarah, he delves into the convoluted pool of casual dating filled with meaningless sex and fickle emotions. Since he falls in love too easily he is self-aware of his plight that places him in complicated situations that do not necessarily end well. Jake seems like a man’s man as he full of machismo thus attempts to play into this character with casual sex. However, in the quotation, he expresses this duality that clashes at times.
