After Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac

The bible states that in ancient times, Abraham, the father of many nations, was commanded by God to sacrifice his only son and heir, Isaac, for the lands of Moriah and to verify his love and fear for God. As Abraham is about to sacrifice his son, he was interrupted by the angel of the LORD. His willingness to give up his son was enough proof for God and Isaac would live.
In the short story After Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac (written by Rachel Cusk, published in 2003) the main character, Alan, is involved in the same situation as Abraham. Gerte wants Alan to choose between his son Ian or herself.
The story takes place in modern day London and the fundamental layout of the story is the narrator Alan reminiscing the instance he almost left his wife Sally for the German teacher Gerte. Alan lived a terribly ordinary life before the birth of his son, Ian.
"I looked back at the life I’d lived and thought, how could you have done this and that, how could you have been so ordinary?" (line 53)

His wife suffered of what can only be interpreted as a form of depression. She could not stand being near the child when it cried. It made her mad. This caused Alan to take an unpaid leave from his work to take care of his son. One day when walking Ian around London, Alan discovers an art exhibition which fascinates him in an unknown way. He attends the exhibition and finds himself very intrigued by the renaissance artwork. It makes him stop thinking about the stressful life he holds and makes him realize there is more to life. Suddenly he has turned into this cultivated human being and he looks with the shame at the current life he is living.

"I was ashamed, ashamed of Sally, ashamed of our house and the things in it, ashamed of our friends and the things we talked about." (line 54)
His current life and friends are presumably not fit for his now cultural, artistic life. He's embarrassed by all of it except for his son, for he was the one thing that made him worth something. The only person that did fit his new life was the teacher of his evening class of history of art. The German woman by the name of Gerte and it was as if she awoke a hidden and concealed passion inside of him. He describes Gerte as the exact opposite of his wife Sally, which at this point is a truly good thing, seeing as his wife as a depression and causes this feeling of stress for Alan. He wants to leave his wife but he cannot man himself up to the task and it never happens. He does however ask Gerte out for a drink and the two of them begin an affair. Alan is not feeling guilty by it though, because he thinks it is the right thing to do.
"What’s funny is that I never felt I was being unfaithful to Sally, even when I actually was." (line 63)
He felt Gerte was better than Sally and it was justified by his learning about taste and beauty.
Alan's relationship is however weakened by his love for his son, making him unable to commit fully to Gerte. She gives him the option to choose one of them, leaving Alan in a difficult situation, but he ends up choosing Gerte. We're told that Sally knows about the affair, seeing as she is the one who books Alan's cab for the airport.
"Sally knows about facts.
She booked my cab for the airport."(line 98)
Even though Alan chooses Gerte, she tells him to go home to his son at the airport, now knowing that he loved her more than his own son, and Alan goes home to his forgiving wife, now bound to her by their mutual love of their son.

The story is very likely to be a modern adaptation of the tale of the religious patriarch Abraham. The first and most obvious indication of this is the initials of the characters in the story. Alan is Abraham, Ian is the son Isaac. Sally is Abraham's wife, Sarah and Gerte is of course God.
Another great thing to notice is the circumcision of Ian. God told Abraham along with his descendents were to be circumcised when they are eight days old as a covenant to God. Although the circumcision of Ian doesn't have anything to do with the actual story, it is still relevant and seeing as it is even mentioned in the anecdote, it can only be because of the relevance with the tale of Abraham.
Abraham is to sacrifice his son to prove that he truly fears God and Alan does it to prove his love for Grete, but both men face a challenge and dispute, to choose one out of two that they love with all their heart.
A notable thing about the title of the story is that it is based on Caravaggio’s interpretation of the sacrifice of Isaac and not by the actual story in the Bible. Caravaggio painted this piece of art in the painted in the Renaissance time period and it is likely that Alan had seen that exact painting in the exhibition he attended. The reason for this is that art plays a great part in the story. Had Alan not walked into the exhibition of Renaissance, things would not have turned out the way they did.