Fun but a little too over-the-top critique of hedonism.

It's noteworthy that every time our protagonist thinks he is in love, he becomes infuriated when his lover goes out and lives her own life apart from him. One of the themes Murdoch touches that is similar to The Sea, The Sea is the paradoxical idea of beholding, of loving someone to the point that love becomes restrictive. This desire to "hold" a loved one in both senses of the word stem from identifying one's self with the other to the point where one forgets that the other has a separate will from one's own.