Baker - Saturday

The main character in the novel Saturday, Henry Perowne, is a successful neurosurgeon who leads a comfortable life in a post-9/11 world along with his loving wife and two children. In the review by Zoe Heller, Henry is described as a man who has "a contentment that verges perilously on complacency". However, as the novel follows the course of Henry's Saturday, there is a realization that Henry's rational state of mind is infiltrated with unease.

At the very start of the novel, Henry witnesses a burning plane coming down from the sky. He quickly jumps to the possibility that this falling plane might be a terrorist attack, and he is filled with apprehension. As it turns out, the plane was carrying cargo and has nothing to do with terrorism. Henry becomes upset that, for the hour he believed that London was in danger, he was "in a state of wild unreason" (McEwan 40). He feels shameful and foolish for the way he reacted emotionally and is embarrassed by "his readiness to be persuaded that the world has changed beyond recall... how foolishly apocalyptic those apprehensions seem by daylight" (76). He describes the pull to follow the news on television, to hear about what is going on in the world, as "a community of anxiety" (180). This fretfulness has grown stronger since the attacks on 9/11, and Henry recognizes that it has seeped into his own life as well.

Another cause of insecurity for Henry is his daughter, Daisy, and her intangible relationship with a man named Giulo. From the moment Henry is reunited with Daisy after six months without seeing each other, Henry notices something is different about her and pushes back his distaste at the thought that she might be in love with a man. When Daisy is forced to reveal her pregnancy to her family, Henry is disinclined to believe that she willingly chose to be pregnant, and he immediately dislikes Giulo. I think Daisy's pregnancy threw Henry off not only because she is his little girl and he is unwilling to think of her being intimate with a man, but because of the surprise of the reveal. Henry was already off balance and self-doubting because of Baxter, and I think he felt insecure because he had no say in anything that happened. He had no say in when and with whom Daisy fell in love with, he did not get to meet Giulo before Daisy got pregnant to "evaluate" him, and he has to accept the fact that Daisy is an adult. She needs the emotional support of her father, and Henry has to be on her side.