Joe refers to his narrative bias in Chapter Six when he admits if the reader did not know anything more about Jed, his character would be a "projection" of what Joe decided he was like. .
Chapter Nine begins with an account of Clarissa's day. This alone is useful as so far we have heard quite little about her life at work. "At her back, a bad day." The first paragraph pushes us into the scene with an immediate empathy for Clarissa, and almost slightly siding with her, rather than Joe, for having such a stressful day.
McEwan describes first person narrative as looking "over the shoulder" into the current scene. In this chapter we seem to take a step back and can therefore look at Joe's character from a different perspective. Joe comes across far more persistent than we have ever seen him. Described as a "non-stop talking ape", he babbles on at Clarissa about his thoughts as soon as they enter his head, quickly jumping between different topics from Jed to "getting back into science". .
During the novel, Joe's behaviour is frequently compared to a child's. The way he interrupts Clarissa here, and self-centredly won"t let anyone else speak, reinforces this metaphor as children have difficulty accepting other people's opinions if they are different to their own, tend to rush their words and seem unaware of what others are feeling-concentrating simply on their own needs.
The reader also has a better understanding of Joe when they hear others who know him well describe him. Joe's face showing the look of "usually stupid plans" is one example.
This shows Clarissa is not surprised by the change in Joe's look, as she is used to seeing him get excited by over-ambitious or in some way ridiculous ideas. .
Throughout the chapter we barely hear Joe's dialect when he talks to Clarissa, as the narrator tells us what he says using phrases such as "He wants to be back into theoretical physics", rather than Joe saying this in his own words.
