In AS Byatt’s, Sea Story, it appears as though she uses Laura as a foil for Harold’s love for the sea. It is made abundantly clear throughout the short story that Harold has an affinity for the sea and felt a deep sense of sadness when he left his seaside home to attend Oxford. While attending Oxford, he met Laura at a bar, where he fell in love with her at first sight. The manner in which he fell in love with Laura feels reminiscent to how he fell in love with the sea, or felt an innate connection with it as soon as he was born. Accordingly, my question is as follows: Do you believe AS Byatt had Harold fall in love with Laura because she reminded him of the sea, which he missed mightily while he was away from home, or was it because she truly was the “apple of his eye?”
I would argue the former, as I believe Laura reminded him a great deal of the sea, which he so dearly missed. I make the case based off of their initial introduction. The scene is brilliantly put together as AS Byatt wrote, “When he fell in love it was an immediate shock which was at once absorbed into his inner landscape. He was fishing from his boat, beyond the end of the Brigg when she rose up beside him, a pale women in a sleek black wetsuit, like a seal, her long lovely face streaming with sea water. She trod water and smiled mildy at him and stayed to speak about the weather, the beauty of the bay.” Within the text, I believe there are several key indicators providing evidence of how Laura is intrinsically connected to the sea, which is an enormous component of why he immediately fell in love with her. First, he was on his boat fishing when he first met her. Further, he compared her to a seal, a wild ocean animal and yet another reference to the sea. He then proceeded to talk about her face streaming with sea water and they then discussed the “beauty of the bay.” The amount of references to the sea when he first met her within such a small passage shows me that there was some other factor at play when he fell in love with Laura. As such, I believe that other factor to be his longing for the sea, and Laura is the first person to remind him of it. Thus, he immediately fell in love with her.
I agree with you that Harold may fell in love with Laura because she reminded him of the sea. I really like your summary about how depressed Harold feel after he left his hometown and the sea, “Harold has an affinity for the sea and felt a deep sense of sadness when he left his seaside home to attend Oxford.” This provides a possible reason of why he falling love with Laura who looks like a mermaid as A.S. Byatt written,” There she was, Laura, sleekly blackclad, bright-haired like some marine goddess gathering in the tears,” Also, I want to add more about why Harold fell in love and be so crazy. This is not only because Laura looks like a marine goddess physically, but also, she studied about animals in the sea and went to somewhere with sea for work as A.S.Byatt wrote “I’ve just been offered my dream job. I’m going to be part of a team studying the life-cycle of eels. This letter is my acceptance. I’m off to the Caribbean next week. “She had a stronger connection with the sea, like he used to be, and is what he lack at that time.
I think you could use another way to write about the question, for example, Why Harold had falling love with Laura? This will give more possible answers and can leave more space for the reader to think about, instead of leaving a choice for them to make.