MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Ian McEwans Status as a Postmodernist Diploma Thesis

Brno 2008

Supervisor:

Written by:

Mgr. Lucie Podroukov, Ph.D.

Prohlen:

Bc. Markta Michlov

Prohlauji, e jsem diplomovou prci zpracovala samostatn a pouila jen prameny uveden v seznamu literatury.

Souhlasm, aby prce byla uloena na Masarykov univerzit v Brn v knihovn Pedagogick fakulty a zpstupnna ke studijnm elm.

V Prostjov dne 23. listopadu 2008

Bc. Markta Michlov

Declaration:

I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and that all the sources of information I have used are listed in the references.

I approve that this diploma thesis is stored and available for study purposes in the library of the Faculty of Education at the Masaryk University Brno

Prostjov, 23 November 2008

Bc. Markta Michlov

Acknowledgement:

I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Lucie Podroukov, Ph.D., for giving me the inspiration to write this thesis and for her support and guidance throughout the writing process.

Contents

1 Introduction.........................................................................................................................................4 2 McEwans Work in Context of Postmodernism..................................................................................6 3 The Cement Garden...........................................................................................................................12 4 The Comfort of Strangers..................................................................................................................20 5 The Child in Time..............................................................................................................................25 6 Enduring Love...................................................................................................................................34 7 Amsterdam.........................................................................................................................................44 8 Atonement ........................................................................................................................................58 9 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................................66 Resum.................................................................................................................................................74 Summary...............................................................................................................................................75 References............................................................................................................................................76

1 Introduction

Ian McEwan is one of the most widely read and internationally recognized authors of contemporary British fiction. Owing to his distinguished work, McEwan has already joined the ranks of classic authors of British literature and, as a result, there have been numerous attempts to define his literary style. He is often categorized as a representative of postmodernism, but on closer examination, his work does not seem to be so easily classified. Most literary theorists who are seriously engaged in exploring contemporary British writing avoid using any labels in defining McEwans work. They are aware of the broadness and vagueness of the term postmodernism (eg. Hilsk 1991) and of the diversity of contemporary British fiction (eg. Bentley 2005, Morrison 2003, Hilsk 1991). In the first chapter of his critical work Understanding Ian McEwan, Malcolm poses a question regarding McEwans position in contemporary British literature, i.e. the literature of the 1980s and 1990s: Where does McEwan stand in relation to this particularly dynamic period in British fiction? and he concludes that the writer is definitely part of the dominant trends in 1980s and 1990s fiction, but also shows interesting divergences from them (Malcolm 2002: 7). Following from the findings mentioned above and from the fact that McEwans work has gone through substantial development, a hypothesis may be formulated that his work is neither realistic nor purely postmodernist in case we perceive works of postmodernist literature as bearing certain common characteristics in terms of themes and techniques. According to Martin Hilsk, the 1960s and 70s saw the traditional realistic novel split between so called nonfiction novel and various narrative forms of metafiction 1. He points out that the fundamental feature of contemporary British prose is moving towards hybridism
1

A non-fiction novel is based on artistic elaboration of some documentary material while metafiction emphasises the fictitiousness of the narrative.

which means that the avant-garde, experimental tendencies generally do not occur in a clear, definite form. They are constantly mingled with the techniques of realistic fiction (Hilsk 1991: 23). This thesis will deal with the extent to which McEwans novels can be marked as postmodernist. For this purpose six of his works have been chosen 2. Firstly, the concept of postmodernism will be defined in general terms. Secondly, selected novels will be analysed as regards the authors narrative style to find out which of the postmodernist features are present. Finally, the postmodernist features in the novels will be summarised in order to review the expectations of the hypothesis stated above.

2 McEwans Work in Context of Postmodernism

The selection of the novels gradually crystallized as there was a single criterion to cover the longest possible period of the authors professional career.

Ian McEwan ranks among contemporary British authors who have been writing and publishing their works in the era designated as postmodernism. Therefore, it becomes necessary to explain the concept of postmodernism in order to place McEwans work into its context. Literary theorists agree that postmodernism does not identify with totalitarian explanations and arranging all kinds of experience in order. There is no definite validation of acts or events. There is always some doubt and the use of images and symbols gives opportunity for free interpretation. Postmodernism refuses any comprehensive interpretations of the reality, both external typical of realists, and internal taken up by the modernists. It is not worth seeking for meaning. Life is a matter of chance and there are no patterns. On the other hand, social and political conditions are subject to critical comment. Bentley lists a number of society-related issues including provincialism and globalisation, multiculturalism, national identity, gender, class, ethnicity etc. Although he emphasises the diversity of contemporary British fiction, he notices the frequent focus on the relationship between fiction and historical context. He cites Linda Hutcheons term historiographic metafiction in relation to the novels dealing with our reflections on history. The two events which must have left trace in the end-of-century fiction were the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001 3 (Bentley 2005: 1 3).

The authors are often said to produce metafiction or fiction about fiction, i.e. self-referential fiction concerned with the possibilities, limitations and devices of writing. Therefore, they use a range of self-reflexive forms and
3

McEwan refers to the events of September 11th, 2001, in the interview for Reynolds and Noakess book Ian McEwan: The Essential Guide. In his view, we are never completely secure in the world, there is always an edge of danger (Reynolds and Noakes 2002: 12).

intertextual reference. This is connected with the role of the author in his story. The writer is not firmly in control and never knows how the narration may develop. For postmodernist authors the grand narrative4 is totalizing and their work does not make claims on a meaningful representation of the reality 5. For this reason they frequently challenge not only established genres and literary forms but also the borders set by the society. Pastiche becomes a way of breaking established styles and rules. The employment of parody, paradox, language play and fragmentation further intensifies the experimental mode. Bentley claims that the 1990s is a decade known for its fascination with parody, pastiche, retroism . . . and its general scepticism towards grand narratives (Bentley 2005: 4). Recycling previous forms appears in music, fashion, TV series, films and other areas of cultural life. The subjects are no longer bound by any kinds of social limits. Lye mentions that various marginalized aspects of life seem to get in the centre of attention. Motifs of everyday life are perfectly acceptable as it is possible to find aesthetic qualities anywhere. Last but not least, greater significance is attached to the physicality and human body as such (Lye 2002) . Bentley suggests four central thematic categories in British postmodern fiction: millenial anxieties, identity at the fin de sicle, historical fictions and narrative geographies. The first category involves issues of identity, multiculturalism suppressed by global consumerism, the consequences of historical events, trends in scientific theories, interest in biology and genetics (Bentley 2005: 5). The last of these tendencies is clearly presented in McEwans work. Bentley draws attention to Patricia Waughs study Science and
4

The terms grand narrative or metanarrative were used by Jean-Franois Lyotard in his book The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979). Lyotard defines postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives which is connected with the progress in sciences. <http://www.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/pm/lyotard-introd.htm> 5 Bentley (2005) explains how the process of reality coming into fiction can be reversed. In the 1990s many aspects of life relied heavily on fictional forms. These are used by the media and the way politicians communicate their attitudes to the public (Bentley 2005: 4).

fiction in the 1990s in which she explores, among others, how McEwan embraces the relation between scientific rationalism and the world of subjective emotions in his novel Enduring Love (Bentley 2005: 7). The concept of identity is immensely complex. The traditional identity categories such as class, gender, sexuality, race or nation, have gained new vigor and several new ones have been added6. Bentley comes to the conclusion that it was the interest in the relationship between fiction, reality and the construction of identity that gave rise to the prevalence of self-reflexive narratives as the means of communicating identities. He puts this hypothesis in connection with the abundant experimentation with textual forms which, according to Stoddart, reflects the anxieties about the pertinence of writing to articulate meaning. The concept of identity also involves a concern about youth culture and subcultures. So called Bildungsroman becomes a popular form and the concerns of childhood and adolescence appear in the fiction of many authors of the 90s. McEwan is cited among those who have paid considerable attention to these themes (Bentley 2005: 11). The third broad area penetrating the end-of-century writing is historical fiction. It often deals with the relationship between personal experiences and official histories. Many writers try to face up to the traumatic events of human history the experiences of violence, war and oppression. Their works frequently explore the relationship between fact and fiction and historical events are used as symbols carrying wider application. Malcolm also mentions fascination with history among the dominant features of the 1980s and 90s fiction and he ascribes considerable

Bentley mentions for instance the politics of the body, the anonymity of virtual identities in cyberspace, the new identity of black British writing, cultural hybridity, the process of devolution, deconstruction and pluralization of the self, nostalgia for lost or displaced selves, themes of memory and identity (Bentley 2005: 8 10).

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interest in history and public or national life to McEwans novels7. The related issue of cosmopolitanism with its widespread popularity among postmodern British novelists is also explored by Malcolm who draws the conclusion that only three of McEwans novels exceed the enclosed space of British environment (Malcolm 2002: 8 - 9). The last of Bentleys categories, narrative geographies, incorporates yet another concern, that of physical environment. The most frequent setting is the postmodern city and its psychological effects on the individual. Bentley calls this phenomenon psychogeography (Bentley 2005: 14). The city, as a sterile, even hostile environment, provides a setting for several novels by Ian McEwan, for instance The Cement Garden, The Comfort of Strangers, The Child in Time, to name but a few. Martin Hilsk in 1991 placed McEwan among the most significant representatives of the youngest generation of British prose writers. Time has confirmed his prominence. McEwan has earned a reputation for his originality which Hilsk identifies as the key characteristic of this generation each of the authors is his own man, speaks his specific, individual language. He emphasises the impossibility of identifying a common theme or poetics of their novels. Although Hilsk avoids generalizations, he points out several features shared by most of these writers, especially language and stylistic virtuosity and attempting to render the aspects of the British society which no one dealt with before. According to Hilsk, the typical tendency may be called eccentricity, meaning deviation from the centre, moving away from the average. In general, he ranks Mc Ewan among those British prose writers who offer a new view of British
7

The most obvious examples mentioned by Malcolm are The Child in Time, The Innocent and Black Dogs three novels concerned with history and politics, and Amsterdam which he considers social satire (Malcolm 2002: 7 8).

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reality, introduce new subjects as well as new artistic methods (Hilsk 1991: 139). Morrison emphasizes McEwans tendecy towards controversy in disrupting traditional conventions in several ways. At one time McEwan adopts an overtly political approach and at the other he focuses on the study of an individuals psyche leaving the concepts of time and history aside:

His later work certainly does deal with public and political issues, ranging from childcare to German unification. Here equally, however, it is by focusing narrative attention not on the general but on the particular, on the private psyche of individuals, the problems and disturbances of their thinking and feeling, that broader insights are captured ( Malcolm 2002: 67).

Ian McEwans novels are not easily characterized in terms of themes. Nevertheless, some of his novels present certain common features. The early works, both short stories and novels, all develop themes that earned the author the nickname Ian Macabre. The issues explored had usually been avoided in fiction until the overall liberalisation of the British society in the 1960s. Hilsk points out that this change of climate was reflected not only in a series of legislative measures but also in the arts. The issues of sex and sexual intercourse, which had been great taboos in the British society, became a public matter. The role of the family in the society was shattered. He draws attention to the revolutionary ideas published by R.D. Laing, an influential psychologist and psychiatrist of the 60s who identified family as a source of mental disorders, especially schizophrenia, and provided a detailed analysis of an oppressive function of the family. He also

12

pronounced an argument that the family absorbs the power establishment of the society. The so called new liberalism of the 1960s and the permissive society of the 1970s became a breeding ground for controversy and a public debate over sexuality which, sooner or later, must have found vent in British prose (Hilsk 1991: 14 17). McEwans early works confirm these theories. There are shocking and bizarre subjects of secret burial, incest and masturbation (The Cement Garden), sexual perversion and obsession with death ( The Comfort of Strangers), erotomania and mental disorder (Enduring Love), transvestism and euthanasia (Amsterdam).

3 The Cement Garden

McEwans first novel deservedly aroused a lot of interest among the literary public. Most of the reviewers considered it a remarkable achievement. John Fowles,

13

for example, applauded the work, recognizing its uniqueness: McEwan has a style and a vision of life of his own . . . No one interested in the state and mood of contemporary Britain can afford not to read him8 Thematically, The Cement Garden foreshadows the future McEwans novels. The most obvious subject is that of childhood. According to Childs the interest in the child in contemporary British fiction reflects renewed discussions of the status of childhood . . . at the conclusion of the twentieth century. He points out three dominant themes, namely child murder, child molestation and the influence of childhood trauma on later life (Childs 2005: 123 - 124). Although he focuses on the period of the 1990s, it is clear that McEwans writings anticipated these concerns much earlier. The issue of children becoming adults and adults returning to childhood runs through his lifelong work. The sudden loss of parents and the childrens desperate effort to get along without them, Julies endeavour to replace their mother, Toms inclination to transvestism and Jack and Julies incestuous behaviour are rather unnatural encounters with the adult world which necessarily have serious consequences for shaping their adult lives. Another theme treated in detail is that of gender issues. There are constant references to the gap between men and women. From a simplified viewpoint, the characters are practically schematic. The Father is a typical representative of the male world. There is no doubt about his position of authority in the family regardless of his invalidity:

There were a few running jokes in the family, initiated and maintained by my father. Against Sue for having almost invisible
8

Review quotes available on <http://www.bookclubs.ca/catalog/display.pperl? isbn=9780099755111>

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eybrows and lashes, against Julie for her ambitions to be a famous athlete, . . . and against me for my pimples which were just starting up at that time. . . . Because little jokes like this one were stagemanaged by Father, none of them ever worked against him. . . . Jokes were not made against Father because they were not funny. (McEwan 1997: 15 - 16)

Jack, in spite of his animosity towards his father, shares certain qualities with him. He is keen about the idea of spreading concrete over the garden and while mixing the cement with water he seems to feel affinity for his father: I was pleased that we knew so exactly what we were doing and what the other was thinking that we did not need to speak. For once I felt at ease with him. (McEwan 1997: 17). Malcolm stresses certain traits or features which he considers aspects of the male sphere. Jack is ugly, selfish, potentially and actually violent, constantly masturbating (Malcolm 2002: 58). There is another male character who shares the supposedly male needs to dominate and to be in control, namely Julies boyfriend Derek. The reader must notice the rivalry between him and Jack resulting from the fact they both want to take on the traditional mans role of the head of the family. Although Julie soon penetrates Dereks intention to become one of the family, . . . big smart daddy (McEwan 1997: 134), she actually grows disgusted with him when she finds out he lives as his mothers fair-haired boy. It seems Julie conforms to the stereotype of the dominant role of men. When Derek turns out to be unable to play this role, he loses Julies respect immediately. The role of women is equally well defined. Again, the Mother is the archetype of a female. She is submissive, gentle and quiet. In spite of the familys struggle to make ends meet, she does not have a

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job and devotes all her time to housework and the care of the children. She always backs up her husband in front of the children, even if she does not share his view. From the beginning of the novel, the male and female worlds are separated. The characters sometimes solve serious matters regarding gender. While discussing Toms desire to look like a girl, Jack tells Julie that their brother would look stupid. Julies passionate reaction has wider implications in terms of gender relations:

You think its humilitating to look like a girl, because you think its humilitating to be a girl. . . . Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because its okay to be a boy, for girls its like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading. (McEwan 1997: 47 - 48)

The narrator also concentrates on the contradictoriness of the two worlds. He describes Julies behaviour after Fathers death: She wore make-up and had all kinds of secrets. . . . She had long conversations with mother in the kitchen that would break off if Tom, Sue or I came in suddenly. (McEwan 1997: 29 30). Similarly, after Mothers death, Julie and Sue have secret conversation in the kitchen. This dissonance between the two worlds may be related to another set of images explored by Malcolm, that of exclusion and inclusion. He argues that exclusion prevails both within the family and in its relations with the outside world. The parents never get any visitors, the children never bring friends. There are no neighbours, the Father even plans to build a high wall to isolate the family completely. He is also isolated in his own family. His children either fear him or

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despise him. Jack also frequently feels isolated, when he cannot take part in his sisters conversations (Malcolm 2002: 61). Much like McEwans later novels, The Cement Garden also touches problems related with the state of the society and public life. The childrens rebellion against authorities, rules and norms reflects the state of the society. Malcolm considers this opposition to be a metaphor for the specifically British rejection of a sterile, authoritarian and patriarchal past (Malcolm 2002: 65). The narrative style can hardly be called experimental. It seems quite straightforward and realistic, there are no abrupt twists in the chronological order or form. Yet the narration embodies passages which may surprise the reader as they somehow do not fit the alleged language of the narrator. The novel is written as a first-person narration. Jack, a protagonist, tells the story of himself and his family from his point of view. The narrators language seems mostly laconic, unadorned, detached. Jack tends to use casual vocabulary and very simple sentences. These characteristics help to portray Jack as an apathetic and bored teenager with little interest in what is happening around him. His life appears to be empty, he does not care about personal hygiene, school is just a nuisance, and he has no friends. Although the novel appears to be a very personal narration, the reader cannot resist a feeling of distance between the narrator and the events in the book. Malcolm considers Jack an unreliable narrator and emphasises the strangely detached focus of the narration (Malcolm 2002: 48). There is no doubt that Jacks accounts of the events in the story and his own emotional state are somehow mechanical. He describes many extreme situations with coolness and emotional aloofness. The tenuity of the passage about his fathers death evokes the style of an official report:

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My father was lying face down on the ground, his head resting on the newly spread concrete. The smoothing plank was in his hand. I approached slowly, knowing I had to run for help. . . . The radio was playing in the kitchen. I went back outside after the ambulance had left to look at our path. I did not have a thought in my head as I picked up the plank and carefully smoothed away his impression in the soft, fresh concrete. (McEwan 1997: 18 19)

Williams partly explains this emotional emptiness by the problem of how to convey with maximum authenticity the thoughts and sensations of a mind that has not yet achieved full maturity. He uses Charlotte Bronts argument that Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings (Williams 1996: 216). This view, however, is at least disputable. Lack of order, alienation, insufficient communication and lack of the security of a loving family life must necessarily cause psychological flatness. Jack grows emotionally stale and numb, he is somehow paralysed. Although Jack has no control over his emotional development and the character is flattened, the reader might feel something more in the background. This should be emphasised as a typically postmodernist feature. Nothing is stated directly. There are only implications and glimpses for the reader to make sense of. On the other hand, Malcolm draws attention to a postmodernist feature in the narrators language. He points out stylistic deviations from the simple language of a teenager frequent examples of complicated structures and sophisticated vocabulary such as weary admonition. He considers these stylistic elements to be a self-referential device which makes the narration an example of metafiction (Malcolm 2002: 50 51).

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Genre mixture features markedly in this novel. Malcolm considers the book a psychological study of adolescence with many elements of the Gothic and the urban horror (Malcolm 2002: 51 52). There are psychological motifs such as adolescent resistance to a parent verging on malice, feelings of shame and guilt, incestuous desire, which mingle with the Gothic features. The decadent lifestyle of the forlorn siblings in the neglected house, the decaying body of their deceased mother buried in the cellar and its smell spreading round the house create a typically Gothic mood. The descriptions of the settings contribute to the gloomy atmosphere. The familys house was old and large. It was built to look like a castle, with thick walls, squat windows and crenellations above the front door (McEwan 1997: 23). Not only the house but also the surroundings are dismal, grey places. In the fourth chapter Jack describes one of the abandoned prefabs in the neighbourhood:

Most houses were crammed with immovable objects in their proper places . . . But in this burned-out place there was no order, everything had gone. . . . There was a mattress in one room, buckled between the blackened, broken joists. The wall was crumbling away round the window, and the ceiling had fallen in without quite reaching the ground. . . . I thought of my own bedroom, of Julies, my mothers, all rooms that would one day collapse. (McEwan 1997: 40 41)

There are no explicit references to specific times or places, the family does not have a surname, Mother and Father are never identified by their names. The

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protagonists are trapped in a timeless atmosphere. The characters linger on in the stiffness of their days while the house is slowly decaying:

The days were too long, it was too hot, the house seemed to have fallen asleep. We did not even sit outside because the wind was blowing a fine black dust from the direction of the tower blocks and the main roads behind them. And even while it was hot, the sun never quite broke through a high, yellowish cloud . . . (McEwan 1997: 71)

I masturbated each morning and afternoon, and drifted through the house, from one room to another, sometimes surprised to find myself in my bedroom, lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, when I had intended to go out into the garden. . . . I stood in the centre of my room listening to the very distant, constant sound of traffic. Then I listened to the voices of children playing in the street. The two sounds merged and seemed to press down on the top of my head. I lay on the bed again and this time I closed my eyes. When a fly walked across my face I was determined not to move. I could not bear to remain on the bed, and yet any activity I thought of disgusted me in advance. (McEwan 1997: 74)

The environment is very symptomatic. No one notices that the children are absolutely forlorn. No one cares about the welfare of others. The description of the

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complete loss of order and social responsibility gives the impression of admonitory reproach and social criticism.

4 The Comfort of Strangers

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The most evident postmodern feature of The Comfort of Strangers is the subject itself. According to Lye the challenging of the borders and limits, including those of decency is one of the typical elements of postmodernist fiction (Lye 1997). Here the relative borders of decency are disregarded by an overt description of human perversion leading to abnormal violence and crime. Robert and Caroline are unable to rise above their physicality, they are confined in their bodies, obtaining sexual pleasure from sado-masochistic practices. As Lye points out, postmodern authors put an emphasis on the incarnate, on the humans as physical beings in a physical world (Lye 1997). The obscene subject matter is however not the core of the story. The author seems to turn away from any unified theme. The subject matter is somehow dispersed or disrupted by the characters aimlessness. They are passive, trapped in their meaningless existence which is symbolized by the paralyzing heat. The protagonists, Colin and Mary, seem to be bored with each others company. Sometimes their mutual attitude is almost hostile. They sleep in separate beds and their communication is restricted to a ritual hour before dinner when they listen to each others account of last nights dreams only because they need to share their own:

This was no longer a great passion. Its pleasures were in its unhurried friendliness, the familiarity of its rituals and procedures, the secure, precision-fit of limbs and bodies, comfortable, like a cast returned to its mould. . . . They would deny indignantly that they were bored. They often said they found it difficult to remember that the other was a separate person. When they looked

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at each other they looked into a misted mirror. When they talked about the politics of sex, which they did sometimes, they did not talk of themselves. It was precisely this collusion that made them vulnerable and sensitive to each other, easily hurt by the rediscovery that their needs and interests were distinct. (McEwan 1982: 18 19)

The author suggests their alienation in the foreign city. When exploring the city, they get lost frequently and fail to agree on the right way. Their estrangement and hopelessness makes them vulnerable and they end up as victims of Robert and Carolines perverted plan. Colin and Marys misunderstandings as well as the unequal relationship between Robert and Caroline serve yet another purpose. McEwan frequently touches on gender issues and feminism:

Mary had climbed the first steps of the palace and was reading the posters. The women are more radical here, she said over her shoulder, and better organized. . . . She turned and smiled at Colin. They want convicted rapists castrated! . . . Its a way of making people take rape more seriously as a crime. Colin moved again and stood, with his feet firmly apart, facing the street on their left. . . . Its a way, he said irritably, of making people take feminists less seriously. (McEwan 1982 : 24)

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Gender issues and inequality take its extreme form in Robert and Carolines relationship. Roberts male dominance is clear from the very beginning. He reveals it while telling Colin and Mary the story of his childhood in a typically patriarchal family after he has invited them to his bar. He tells them about his fathers cruel treatment of the whole family: Everybody was afraid of him. My mother, my four sisters, even the ambassador was afraid of my father. When he frowned nobody could speak. At the dining-table you could not speak unless spoken to first by my father (McEwan 1982: 32). Robert also tells them how severly his father punished him when he broke his ban on eating chocolate:

Later my mother came to see me in my bedroom, and in the morning a psychiatrist came and said there had been a trauma. But for my father it was enough that I had eaten chocolate. He beat me every night for three days and for many months he did not speak kindly to me. . . . And to this day I never eat chocolate, and I have never forgiven my sisters. (McEwan 1982: 38)

It becomes clear that Robert follows in the footsteps of his father in the way he treats his wife. Carolines position, however, remains under the mantle of mystery till the penultimate chapter of the book. Colin and Mary suspect Robert of beating his wife, who behaves in a subservient manner. Only towards the end of the novel, in her conversation with Mary, Caroline reveals her own attitude to her husband and tells Mary of her weird pleasure in being humiliated:

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Robert started to hurt me when we made love. . . . I think I tried hard to stop him. One night I got really angry at him, but he went on doing it, and I had to admit, though it took a long time, that I liked it. . . . Its not the pain itself, its the fact of the pain, of being helpless before it and being redued to nothing by it. Its pain in a particular context, being punished and therefore being guilty. We both liked what was happening. I was ashamed of myself, and before I knew it, my shame too was a source of pleasure. It was as if I was discovering more and more. I needed it. Robert began to really hurt me. He used a whip. He beat me with his fists as he made love to me. I was terrified, but the terror and the pleasure were all one. (McEwan 1982: 108 109)

The subject matter is not the only postmodern feature of the novel. McEwans style is characterized by sophistication and refined complexity. It may be said that the plot is sacrificed to style. There is little action, the author prefers to concentrate on the depiction of the gloomy atmosphere of the city and the protagonists feelings of misery and aimlessness. The narrator remains detached from the story and describes the settings, events and feelings with precision and formality. This technique makes the reader aware of the narrators presence. Malcolm identifies the authors pursuit of self-referential fiction frequently reminding the reader of the narrative process. He points out extensive intertextuality, allusions to several literary works such as Ruskins and Manns 9 (Malcolm 2002: 70 71).
9

Malcolm mentions a paraphrase from John Ruskins The Stones of Venice and Thomas Manns Der Tod in Venedig both of which have Venice as their setting and the latter even shows remarkable similarity of the subject matter (Malcolm 2002: 75 79).

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The setting, both local and temporal, is somehow blurred. It is not identified explicitly, although it is generally considered to be contemporary Venice. The city, however, is never named. Moreover, it is described as a hostile place, with its maze of narrow streets and imposing palaces, without signs. The maps are sold in the kiosks but tourists never know which one to buy and the mysterious vendors never answer their questions about directions. The loss of direction is symbolic both the story and the characters are trapped in a vicious circle. The gloomy atmosphere of the city contributes to the sense of the Gothic style. The author thus makes use of pastiche, which is another characteristic tool in the hands of postmodern writers. According to Malcolm the novels Gothic elements are used to emphasise the intrusion of past into present and the eruption of the brutal and the macabre into the seemingly everyday. . . . Such a treatment also functions as a metaliterary comment on the Gothic and as an attempt to refresh an at least partly automatized and stale genre (2002: 79 80).

5 The Child in Time

Although The Child in Time shares a lot of motifs with its predecessors, it is often considered a breakthrough in McEwans literary career. In her review for The

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Irish Times (23rd August 1997) Eileen Battersby points out that in his third novel McEwan has shifted away from the grotesque extremes and has instead become concerned with disturbed and disturbing psychological trauma (qtd. in Reynolds and Noakes 2002: 172). The diversion from McEwans typical elements of the Gothic including violence, psychotic states, sordid details and other macabre or taboo subjects is emphasised by Malcolm (2002: 90)10. There are several themes, however, which appeared in McEwans previous works and he treats them from a new angle in this novel. These involve the themes of childhood and adulthood and the tension between their respective worlds, gender roles and relations, personal freedom, the relativity of time and the role of chance. Other topics treated in the novel foreshadow the primary concerns of the authors later works public policy and the practices of political circles, the intricacies of science, obsessional behaviour and the state of the society. The author reveals his intentions regarding the thematic structure of the novel in the exclusive interview for Reynolds and Noakess guide to McEwans works. He was interested in how private fates and public events collide and aimed at uniting public and private concern. (Reynolds and Noakes 2002: 12). The postmodern tendency of the novel also resides in focusing on the fact that security is a mere illusion and we are always on the edge of danger. According to the postmodern theory every truth is relative. The author emphasises this idea of relativity, which is supported by the central theme of the child or childhood. The childrens world is presented as a counterpart of the adults world. The development of an individual through time articulates the transience of things in time. Stephen often emphasises the difference between his views as a child and as an adult. He recollects his unquestioning respect
10

Malcolm samples a comment by Brian Martin written for the Spectator: the macabre, sordid, sadistic world of McEwans earlier novels has passed. His Gothic adolescence has given way to adult life and grown-up insights (Malcolm 2002: 90).

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and admiration for his parents during their five-year idyll in North Africa where his father, Flight Sergeant Lewis, served in the RAF. These memories stand in sharp contrast to his view as a grown-up man. He can see weaknesses in his parents, their doubts and uncertainties. He is no longer able to understand the childrens world which is manifested in Stephens incomprehension of Charless childish behaviour. The style of the narrative is distinct from the previous two novels. First and foremost, it is not presented in a linear, chronological order. The narration starts two years after the abduction of Stephens daughter Kate. The reader becomes acquainted with the protagonist, Shephen Lewis, an author of childrens books, who walks from his flat to Whitehall to attend a meeting of the Official Commission on Childcare, where he participates in the Subcommittee on Reading and Writing. This is his only commitment as most of his life is spent in seclusion. His life gradually seeps away and he drowns his memories of the happy times with his wife and daughter in Scotch. The reader gets to know about the protagonists life story in fragments separated by episodes in the Whitehall. While sitting in the committee, Stephen recollects various incidents from his past life: He daydreamed in fragments, without control, almost without consciousness (McEwan 1999: 7). This fragmentariness is characteristic of the whole novel. The author alternates descriptive passages with stream of consciousness. There are fragments of Stephens life before Kate was lost, recollections from his childhood, the beginning of his career, glimpses of his relationship with Charles Darke and his wife Thelma, visits to his parents house. Chapter three, for instance, is about his visit at Julies new home, a country cottage she bought after they separated and sold their common flat in London. The detailed description of the journey is suddenly interspersed with a

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passage recollecting Stephens encounter with Julie after her return from a retreat in a monastery. This section is devoted to the description of their mutual feelings and how their relationship was influenced by the sense of loss. He gradually proceeds to a deeper, almost philosophical contemplation on male and female interpretation of life and its sense. After a few pages the author returns to the realistic account of the journey only to interrupt it again with an account of the protagonists metaphysical dj vous experience which proves to be a kind of transfer into a different time where he witnesses his parents as a young unmarried couple discussing something very seriously. He watches them sitting in a pub and talking and starts to feel lonely and excluded and experiences a strange reversal into an unborn child having no one to look forward to his birth: He had nowhere to go, no moment that could embody him, he was not expected, no destination or time could be named; for while he moved forward violently, he was immobile, he was hurtling round a fixed point (McEwan 1999: 66). Later his mother tells him about the situation she experienced with her future husband and her account exactly corresponds to what Stephen saw through the window of the pub. She tells him they were talking about an abortion but suddenly she saw a pale face of a child at the window and she knew that she was looking at her own child. That was the moment when she started to love the child inside her and decided firmly to have him. This story, however, comes more than a hundred and fifty pages later. Chapter three thus reveals the authors postmodernist understanding of the concepts of time and memory. Their validity is impeached by his supernatural experience as he recognises a place he has never been to: He had never been here before, not as a child, not as an adult. But this certainty was confused by the knowledge that he had imagined it just like this. And he had no

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memory of imagining it at all. . . . How could he have expectations without memory? (McEwan 1999: 61). He is attempting to connect the place and its day with a memory, a dream, a film, a forgotten childhood visit but finally he has to admit that the strange familiarity of the location has its origins outside his own existence (Ibid. 62). The postmodernist character of this element resides in the fact that a subjective experience creates reality. The traditional perception of objective reality is in contradiction with subjective reality but here they surprisingly correspond. Reality arises from what we experience. The sense of elusive memory is strengthened by an appearance of two old-fashioned black bicycles, an allusion to the episode in the previous chapter where Stephen and his mother recollect their trip to the sea on the same heavy black bicycles. Reynolds and Noakes come up with the idea that Stephens journey to see Julie is a metaphor for a journey through time (Reynolds and Noakes 2002: 39). The treatment of time plays a significant role. The novel itself is written as a series of overlapping memories, flashbacks and current accounts. The characters are aware of the relative and perfidious nature of time which may be explained in many ways. Stephen discusses this issue with Charless wife Thelma, who is a scientist. He tells her about the experience he had on the way to their country house in Suffolk. He witnessed a road accident and helped the driver of a lorry whom he later transported to the police station. The passage about the accident and the process of saving the driver are described in great detail. Stephen points out his strange perception of time: In what followed, the rapidity of events was accommodated by the slowing of time (McEwan 1999: 106). A few pages later he tells Thelma about his feelings: Its got something to do with time, obviously, with seeing something out of time (Ibid. 134). Thelma explains him that the

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understanding of time may have many forms: But whatever time is, the commonsense, everyday version of it as linear, regular, absolute, marching from left to right, from the past through the present to the future, is either nonsense or a tiny fraction of the truth. . . . Time is variable (Ibid. 136). The most experimental treatment of time is presented by Charles Darke, Stephens friend and a successful politician and businessman who retreats into childhood and completely succumbs to this illusion. In the interview included in Reynolds and Noakess Ian McEwan: The Essential Guide, the author expresses himself to the notion of a deeper patterning of time. He talks about childhood and its perpetual presence in our lives which makes the sense of time very subjective. He confirms this subjectivity of time by the way it accelerates in a crisis. Finally, he stresses the play with time he used in his novel which he framed by the sense of arrival of Stephen and Julies second child: The novel more or less unfolds within the gestation period of a pregnancy (Reynolds and Noakes 2002: 13). Time is, without doubt, the central theme of the novel. The title is symbolic and may be interpreted in several ways as well as the notion of time. It may denote the development of a fetus in a mothers body as Stephens second child develops in Julies body throughout the novels plot. It may also represent the miracle of birth of Stephen and Julies second child after a long period of anguish after the loss of their daughter Kate. It is also worth noting that the novel is divided into nine chapters. As in McEwans earlier novels, the narrator is anonymous but it is always Stephen, the protagonist of the novel, whose point of view is presented. The author, however incorporates a typically postmodern element of metafiction stepping in the text with a detached comment. Malcolm adduces several examples of this

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technique when the narrator addresses the reader11. A few pieces of the text do not present anyones viewpoint. These are rather detailed accounts of situations or events given by the anonymous narrator12. Furthermore, Malcolm points out several passages where the point of view belongs to a different character, namely to Mrs Lewis13 (Malcolm 2002: 93). There is another feature drawing attention to the process of writing. The Child in Time, as many other postmodern novels, is a self-referential work. Malcolm ascribes great significance to the formality of language and syntactical complexity (Malcolm 2002). Last but not least, the style of the novel in question bears several elements of pastiche which present themselves both thematically and stylistically. As was mentioned above, the author himself attempted to compose a mixture of private fates and public matters such as political problems, public policy on childcare and gender issues. In terms of genre, The Child in Time is a combination of a psychological novel, a novel of social criticism and a political novel. The author was inspired by a book on the history of childcare manuals Dream Babies by Christina Hardyment and he created fragments of such a satirical manual which he used as epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter. Then he decided to write a social comedy which was generically turned into a novel combining both strong emotional passages and issues of public interest 14. Other features incorporated in the novel involve supernatural elements, scientific theories and philosophical
11

One of Malcolms examples is the narrators reflection from the second chapter of the novel: only when you are grown up, perhaps only when you have children yourself, do you fully understand that your own parents had a full and intricate existence before you were born (Malcolm 2002: 93). 12 These are especially passages when Stephen and Julie see each other again after a long time. The author does not prefer anyones point of view and recounts the reunion between them from an uninvolved perspective. 13 Mrs Lewis, Stephens mother, tells her son about her youth, the beginning of her relationship with Stephens father and how they felt when they found out about her pregnancy (McEwan 1999: 195 208). 14 The author talks about the origins and development of the novel in an interview for Reynolds and Noakess Ian McEwan: The Essential Guide (2002: 11)

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contemplation. Malcolm considers psychological novel and dystopia as the most noticeable genres present in the novel (Malcolm: 2002). The latter deals with the political and social situation in Britain in the near future and reveals the authors expectations regarding the political development as a result of the so called Thatcherism, the system of political thought which pursued the free market economy, monetarism, privatisation and a reduction of the welfare. The condition of the country is far from being portrayed in flattering colours. The narrator describes the collapse of public transport, the presence of licensed beggars, the privatisation of schools, armed policemen in the streets and tendentious media slanted in favour of the government. Pastiche is also employed in the presence of a real historical figure in the text. The author merges history and fiction when he introduces the character of the Prime Minister. Although the Prime Minister is neither referred to by name nor his/her sex is mentioned, most critics and experts agree that the character was inspired by Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the UK between 1979 and 1990. Reynolds and Noakes also stress a significant aspect of the novels formal structure: Every detail serves a purpose in a wider picture although the reader must often wait to see how (Reynolds and Noakes 2002: 39). This narrative technique makes the reader involved in the creative process of narration. It helps them to take an active part in discovering the protagonists inner life and in the interpretation of the symbolic devices used in the novel. Some of these symbols remain hidden to individual readers as it is possible to explain them in different ways. The Bell, which is first mentioned in Chapter three, may serve as a good example. On his way to Julies house Stephen has to pass a pub called The Bell. It is the place that features in his enigmatic vision from his parents past before he was born. The name

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of the pub is mentioned several times and it seems to be used as a symbol of the female principle of the perfection of wisdom15. The complexity of this novel makes it impossible to classify as a purely postmodernist work. The first of the features beyond postmodernism is the treatment of the characters. While postmodern characters are typically flat, the novels protagonist, Stephen, is a psychologically elaborate figure. The author pays attention to the way Stephen copes with the loss of his child and to his relationship towards the people around him. The detailed descriptions of emotional states are very compelling and create an impression of describing a personal experience. The despair after Kates abduction, the period of estrangement from his wife and the process of the recovery of their marriage are skilfully written passages in which the feelings play a crucial role. Another feature opposed to postmodernism is McEwans partial focus on describing outer reality. He does not resign on the existence of objective reality except a single passage describing Stephens experince of stepping back into the past before his birth which is presented as a supernatural and inexplicable event 16. All the other hallucinations he has are strictly explained using scientific or psychological arguments. These involve for example Stephens distorted perception of time in the road accident he witnesses while driving to visit Charles and Thelma or his illusion about seeing Kate in another young girl. The former is also an instance of McEwans interest in science which he often demonstrates through his

15

According to Tibetan Buddhism there are two principles which must be combined in order to achieve enlightenment. These are represented by the ritual objects held by lamas in their hands. The female principle, or wisdom, is represented by the bell (called drilbu in Tibetan) and held in the left hand while the male principle, or compassion/activity, is symbolized by the thunderbolt (called dorje in Tibetan) and held in the right hand. The bell means the body and the dorje represents the mind (Buddhist Symbols). 16 Even here the truly postmodern understanding of reality is questionable. The subjective and objective realities run in parallel. Stephen really believes in the objective reality and he tries to make sense of the inexplicable and illogical things he experiences (see p. 29).

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later novels and emphasises in interviews. He expresses his respect for rationality and celebrates the achievements of scientists. He even criticises the postRomantic sense in literature where the character who trusts his intuition wins over the one with a rational attitude. McEwan is convinced of the necessity of writing a novel in praise of rationality (Koval 2004). The realistic and detailed descriptions of settings only confirm this tendency. The author makes a point of the depiction of London streets, peoples appearances, the interior of the supermarket where his daughter was abducted, his parents house, his own flat, Charless treehouse, and Julies house in the country where they finally find each other again before their second child is born. He gives attention to such details as the position of a cup and a saucer, a carton of fruit juice or a stack of ironed laundry. These passages alternate with exhaustive accounts of the characters feelings which together make the internal structure of the novel rather complicated.

6 Enduring Love
Enduring Love belongs to those works of literature which combine the typically postmodern elements with existential concepts and thus corresponds to the idea of the so called neo-existentialism (Existentialism and Human Emotions). The postmodern elements involve the themes of delusion and equivocal borders or limits of reality as well as the clash between science and reality or science and religion. Existential concepts are represented by bad faith, despair and forlorness. 17 After the
17

Bad faith is defined as an escape from anxiety and despair into a false or inauthentic way of existence accompanied by bitter resentment. The feeling of despair results from the realization that there is no sure footing in the world, and we can never know the results of our actions beforehand.

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publication of the novel, Glamour brought out a critical praise which summarizes the crucial issues it deals with: A timeless tale about the way fate and faith shape our relationships part existential fable about the human desire to control fate, Enduring Love is also, most affectingly, a story about the strength and fragility of married love. The recurring motifs and recycled themes from earlier novels are not left out of this novel. The reader can notice the motif of the failure of a relationship between a man and a woman as a result of an unexpected and strange event. Love and obsession, fascination with science and a contradiction between rationality and religious attitude of mind are among McEwans favourite subjects. Enduring Love involves the several features typical of postmodern literature. Paranoia, for instance, plays an important part in the novel. The role of chance and an event suddenly turning the protagonists life upside down is very strong as well. All these themes and stylistic features are treated in detail in this chapter.

The randomness of fate is frequently addressed in McEwans work and a number of theorists point to this fact. The author himself manifests his fascination with the accidental happenings in the interview ran on the NPR affiliate KUSP in 1998: The random element in life is a gift to a novelist to make a pattern of it, to make some sense of it, to contest its meaning or even ask whether theres any meaning to it at all (Shoeck 1998). He emphasises the extraordinarily powerful influence these events have on our lives. In his review for the Boston Globe, Nesson points out that In Ian McEwans novels, something terrible always happens (Nesson 1998). This is one of the
Forlorness is another type of feeling connected with ones discovery that God does not exist and that an individual is alone in the world, unable to rely on anything absolutely ( Existentialism and Human Emotions)

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characteristics most McEwans readers and critics agree on. As the plot develops, the characters have to deal with the repercussions of a terrible event which challenge both their moral sense and rationality. Sometimes these concepts seem to be in contrast as in the first chapter of Enduring Love. It describes a ballooning accident in which a hot-air balloon is drifted away by the wind with a 10-year-old boy in the basket and Joe Rose, the protagonist, with four other man try to save him by gripping the ropes and dragging the balloon to the ground. When one of them lets go, however, the balloon lurches upwards. The others drop off in time to save their lives except for John Logan who keeps hanging on the rope until it is too late to get to the ground and a few minutes later he falls down from about three hundred feet above the ground. After Logans death Joe feels guilt. He tries to make sense of his death and he concludes it was pointless as the boy carried away in the balloon was finally able to take control over it and save himself: The impossible idea was that Logan had died for nothing. The boy, Harry Gadd, turned to be unharmed. I had let go of the rope. I had helped kill John Logan. But even as I felt the nausea of guilt return, I was trying to convince myself I was right to let go (McEwan 2004: 32). Rationality goes hand in hand with selfishness. John Logan shows great bravery trying to rescue the boy but it costs him life. The other four men manage to jump down before the ascent of the balloon. Mars-Jones clearly refers to the selfishness behind their reaction: But when one of them drops off, it rapidly becomes a race not to be the last one holding on, the one who will not have time to jump before the ascent of the balloon makes escape impossible (Mars-Jones 1999). In his interview for The Salon McEwan himself acknowledges that the scene opening the novel aims at introducing the moral dilemma caused by selfishness. He calls this issue the underlying basic moral factor about ourselves (The Salon

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1999). On the one hand, human beings compete to survive and defend their own interests. On the other hand, they also need to cooperate and become integrated as members of a social community. This puts them in a state of quandary. It makes them choose between self-absorption and selflessness which may become selfdestructive. After witnessing Logans fall, Joe finds himself somehow relieved: I looked across the fields and the thought scrolled across: that man is dead. I felt a warmth spreading through me, a kind of self-love, and my folded arms hugged me tight. The corollary seemed to be: and I am alive (McEwan 2004: 19). The sense of guilt comes later and he tries to exorcize it from his mind by visiting Logans widow and promising to help her find the alleged lover of her husband. The author seems to suggest the relativity of moral standards. He brings evidence that there are no unified principles of morality. We cannot rely on any established rules or modes of behaviour as life makes them unique to every single situation.

The unreliability of any universal truth - or rather logic - is referred to repeatedly in the novel. In her letter explaining why their relationship has to be reassessed, Clarissa suggests that Joes logic and his unshakeable scientific approach failed in Parrys case: You seemed to be carrying your agitation over into this new situation, running from your anxieties with your hands over your ears, when you should have been turning on yourself those powers of rational analysis you take such pride in (McEwan 2004: 217). The narrator himself admits that there isnt only ever one system of logic when he concludes his story by telling the reader how the police resolved Parrys case after his bungled suicide in Joe and Clarissas flat (McEwan 2004: 214).

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The contradiction between the rational 18 and the emotional or religious worlds is another significant problem to which the novel offers no resolution. Joes view of the world is presented as strictly materialistic and purely rational. He does not trust anything except scientifically verifiable facts and material data. He categorically rejects Clarissas emotional explanations of what has been happening in their lives as well as Parrys fanatical outbursts of religious belief. Joes attachment to scientific knowledge presents an autobiographical element in the novel. Enduring Love is not the only opportunity McEwan has used to profess his zeal for science:

. . . theres a tradition in Western literature that celebrates the heart, the intuition, trusting your feelings. Perhaps it derives a great deal from our Romantic tradition. The scientific, the rational, is often cast into the minds of villains . . . But I thought I would like to write a novel that rather celebrated the rational. Not necessarily by making my rational hero too sympathetic, but by celebrating his thought processes. (Interview with Ian McEwan. Reynolds and Noakes 2002: 17)

The failure of a relationship between a man and a woman is another theme McEwan often returns to. It is always caused by a strange and unexpected event in the protagonists life. In general, McEwans attitude to love is somehow ambiguous. He often focuses on romantic feelings and the enormous power love has in human relationships. Neither does he fail to emphasise how delicate and uncertain love is.
18

According to Malcolm Joe is not entirely a rationalist, but rather an empiricist as he relies on what can be observed and calculated (Malcolm 2002: 167).

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At the beginning Joe and Clarissa have a faultless relationship. They have been able to overcome the fact Clarissa could not bear a child and their mutual respect has enabled them to live happily without quarrels so common in other marriages. The intrusion of a stranger, however, gradually corrodes the special bond between the spouses. As in McEwans earlier novels, the roots of the catastrophe lie in an accidental event which seemingly does not have any connection with the protagonist. In Enduring Love such an event is represented by Joes chance encounter with Jed while getting involved in the hot-air balloon accident. As far as the style is concerned, Enduring Love may be considered rather a complex novel. Although Malcolm calls it a traditional and accessible novel without any substantial degree of experimentation in terms of narrative and narration (Malcolm 2002: 159), Enduring Love definitely involves several features of stylistic intricacies typical of postmodernist literature. The all-encompassing point of view is provided by an external narrator. The first-person narration, however, is ambiguous. Joe has two parts in the narration he is the main character, whose account of the events is necessarily restricted, but he is also casted in the role of the narrator. In this role his point of view is unrestricted as he observes the reality through the other characters eyes. He tells the story in which he acted as a character from a distance and tries to rationally convey Jed and Clarissas feelings as well. The shifts from restricted to unrestricted narration represent an interesting dialectics and an example of a metanarrative approach. The beginning of the first chapter starts with Joes account of the event that turned his life inside out. The narrator, however, tells the story from a detached perspective, as if he was outside his own body: I see us from a hundred feet up . . . (McEwan 2004: 1). This approach is accompanied with his metanarrative input which informs the reader of the fact that

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the story is told in retrospect and the narrator is fully in control 19. The feature of metafiction appears in a different form much later in the novel. Chapter nineteen is devoted to the second stirring event of the book an evening in a restaurant where Clarissa, her godfather Professor Jocelyn Kale and Joe are celebrating Clarissas birthday. The peaceful evening, however, ends in a shooting scene. Two armed men hired by Parry enter the restaurant with the intention to kill Joe. After the third climax of the novel in which Jed Parry commits suicide right before Joe and Clarissa in their flat, Joe as the narrator comes up with an alternative resolution to the longlasting problem of their relationship. The report-like account of Parrys incursion into their privacy, the afternoon spent under the threat of his knife and finally witnessing his attempted suicide is full of direct speech and free of any irrelevant meditation. This passage, nevertheless, is replaced by a metafictional contemplation of what would probably follow in a traditional happy ending. Joe and Clarissa should fold into each others arms and leave their problems behind. Finally the narrator explains why this ending is impossible:

But such logic would have been inhuman. There were immediate and background reasons why the climax of this afternoon could not have been in this particular happiness. The narrative compression of storytelling, especially in the movies, beguiles us with happy endings into forgetting that sustained stress in corrosive of feeling. (McEwan 2004: 213)

19

The sentences suggesting the narrators control over the narration involve: The beginning is simple to mark.; What idiocy, to be racing into this story and its labyrinths, sprinting away from our happiness . . . ; Knowing what I know now, its odd to evoke the figure of Jed Parry directly ahead of me . . . ; Im holding back, delaying the information. (McEwan 2004: 1 2)

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Although the novel is not markedly experimental, there are still several features of postmodernist approach. One of these elements is the form of epistolary novel. Chapters eleven, sixteen and twenty-three take the form of letters free of the narrators comments. The former two are Parrys letters for Joe, the latter is Clarissas missive giving her view of the whole story and the failure of their relationship. Somewhat apart from the main body of the novel is Appendix II the thousandth letter Jed Parry wrote to Joe from an insane asylum where he had been hospitalised for three years. In contrast to the letters mentioned above, this one is provided with an introductory note explaining where and when it was collected as a source for Dr. Wenns study of homosexual erotomania - a fictitious article on de Clrambaults syndrome which is dealt with in the following paragraph. Typically for McEwans zeal for science, the novel is complemented with an appendix providing a seemingly scientific paper reprinted from the British Review of Psychiatry20. As Miller makes obvious in her Salon article neither the British Review of Psychiatry nor the studys authors exist (Miller 1999). In a humorous way Miller recounts what McEwans academic article caused in psychiatric and psychological circles and among book reviewers. The experts mentioned in the article adopted the text as a hard fact and became victims of McEwans hoax. This successful trick represents an exquisite example of mingling fact and fiction21. By using the form of an academic article, the author employs the literary technique of pastiche. The imitation of the genre is masterful, with attention to detail. The text reports the results of a fictitious empirical research study with the
20

Appendix I provides the article titled A homo-erotic obsession, with religious overtones: a clinical variant of de Clrambaults syndrome describing this mental disorder in the form of an academic text involving the introduction to the problem, a case history a specialist discussion and conclusion as well as the list of references. It is based on Jed Parrys case. 21 The issue of mingling reality and fiction is further complicated by the fact that although the journal and the article are fakes, the mental disorder pursued in the text really exists.

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obligatory structure involving the abstract, introduction, case history, discussion, conclusion and references. The other genres discernible in the novel include psychological triller and crime fiction. The features of crime fiction are clearly distinguishable as well. The protagonists and later his wifes life is placed at risk by a stalker whose homosexual erotomania manifests itself in harassing the object of his delusion. This creates an atmosphere of suspense. The victim of the harassment gradually becomes obsessed with the stalker trying to get rid of him in all possible ways and re-establish some kind of order in his life. Being denied by the police and distrusted by his wife, Joe finally obtains a gun with determination to settle the matter by himself. The use of pastiche is connected with the fragmentariness of the novel. Malcolm cites Cowleys term narrative of moments and endorses it: certain episodes seem to stand out as complete in themselves and somehow separate from the novels main story material (Malcolm 2002: 161). Using symbolic devices is among the literary techniques McEwan uses in his works. Here the title itself is symbolic of the relationship between Joe, the protagonist, and his wife Clarissa. The childless couples attachment seems to be unshakeable until Clarissa is driven to doubt about Joes relation to Jed Parry, his alleged pursuer. The counterpart of Joe and Clarissas relationship is represented by Jeds pathological love for Joe which is caused by a mental disorder, de Clrambaults syndrome. Here enduring may not be an adjective but a present participle of the verb endure describing how to cope with unwanted love22. Reynolds and Noakes also draw attention to the symbolic role of the characters names. Clarissa, for instance, is described as a perfect woman in all respects
22

The victims of de Clrambault patients may endure harassment, stress, physical and sexual assault and even death. (McEwan 2004: 242).

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intelligent and successful, thoughtful, virtuous and physically attractive (Reynolds and Noakes 2002). This seems to be an allusion to Samuel Richardsons Clarissa, the heroine of the longest novel ever written in the English language, who is described by Stopford Brooke as the pure and ideal star of womanhood ( The Nuttal Encyclopaedia 1907). In the interview published in Reynolds and Noakess guide, McEwan explains his psychological interests in the internal life of the characters. He focuses on how misunderstandings can block communication between people and how the novel as a literary form is able to demonstrate the mechanics of misunderstanding:

You can have unreliable narrators that will draw the reader into the wrong side of a dispute and then turn it round later. You can be single-minded about it and withold information, you can be omniscient. But over two or three hundered years we have evolved a literary form that I think is unequalled in its ability to get inside the nature of a misunderstanding. . . . So inevitably if you write novels youre going to find yourself writing about at some level conflict between people. (Interview with Ian McEwan. Reynolds and Noakes 2002: 18)

Psychological portraits of the three central characters are truly elaborate. Clarissa and Jed are substantial psychological entities in their own right explored in some detail in the novel (Malcolm 2002: 163). The reader gets to know Clarissas personal background and the motives behind her actions. In Malcolms words Jed is literally a psychological case study. His highly disturbed emotional state is

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analyzed in the language of psychiatry in appendix 1, and his erotomania . . . and what it leads to form one of the novels central focuses (Malcolm 2002: 163). Most importantly, Joe Rose constantly examines the world of his mind and the reader knows everything about the development of his emotinal state. Malcolm designates his psychological portrait as elaborate, rich and ambiguous (Malcolm 2002: 163). In conclusion, it must be said that although the novel embodies many features of postmodern writing, such as the pastiche of genres, certain fragmentariness and mixing reality with fiction, the characters stand aside this characteristics as a result of the detailed psychological portraits provided by the author.

7 Amsterdam
McEwans seventh novel, Amsterdam, earned its author international reputation as it won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1998. The award of this prestigious prize aroused mixed reactions as many critics considered Amsterdam inferior to McEwans earlier works23. It is generally considered carefully structured, symmetrical and precisely written24 but the critics lack a real motif(Nagy 2003) or a convincing climax. Some of them speak about disappointment, others about an elegant surprise. Juliet Waters calls it an easy Sunday afternoon read, tightly woven, plot driven and funny in a nasty way but also easily forgivable (Waters 1998). Nevertheless, there have been favourable comments as well. They concern especially the novels readability and topicality. Lezard, for instance, considers
23

McEwans previous works The Comfort of Strangers and Black Dogs which were shortlisted for the same prize met with more favourable reception from critics. 24 Nagy labels it as an exercise in stylistics and a profesionally narrated story (Nagy 2003)

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McEwan a damned good writer and his prose so compulsive that you just dont want to stop reading it (Lezard 1999). The thematic structure is rather complex for such a short novel. As usual in his previous novels, the issues of general social relevance blend with the private matters of the characters inner selves. Malcolm regards Amsterdam as a dark and sour account of contemporary Britain where self-interest, egoism and selflessness predominate over honesty and moral behaviour (Malcolm 2002: 189). The author also hints at the entanglement between the political circles and the media. It is especially conspicuous in the reaction following Vernons decision to publish the compromising photographs25 of the prospective Prime Minister Julian Garmony in his newspaper The Judge :

Front-page headlines divided more or less equally between blackmailer and flea and most made use of a photograph of Vernon taken at a Press Association banquet looking somewhat squiffy in a crumpled dinner jacket. . . . About the same time, the parliamentary party seized the moment and passed an

overwhelming vote of confidence in the Foreign Secretary. The Prime Minister suddenly felt emboldened to speak up for his old friend. A broad consensus emerged over the weekend that The Judge had gone too far and was a disgusting newspaper, that Julian Garmony was a decent fellow and Vernon Halliday (The Flea)

25

The photographs show Garmony as a transvestite dressed up in womens clothes and make-up and posing in a seductive way. Vernon publishes them in order to achieve a turnaround of his newspaper and to prevent Garmony from becoming Prime Minister which Vernon considers a disaster for his countrys government.

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was despicable and his head was urgently needed on a plate. (McEwan 1998: 127)

He also points to the fact that in political circles the end justifies the means. Garmonys wife immediately declares her unreserved support for her husband. Her appearance on television is a perfect instance of a professional speech delivered by a professional wife of a politician who knows very well how to influence public opinion:

She spoke of her pride in Julians career, the delight they had taken in their children, how they had shared in each others triumphs and setbacks and how they had always valued fun, discipline and, above all, honesty. . . . Right at the beginning, she said, Julian told her something about himself, something rather startling, even a little shocking. But it was nothing that their love could not absorb, . . . Their trust in each other had been absolute. She had only this to say: the newspaper would not succeed because love was a greater force than spite. (McEwan 1998: 123 - 124)

This incident ilustrates a typical feature of the postmodern society where the distinction between the private and public spheres is blurred as a result of the powerful influence of the media and information technologies. The novel is a stinging social satire on British upper classes. All the artists, politicians, journalists, publishers and other participants of public life whose careers

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thrived during the Conservative rule in Britain are criticised as a pack of hypocritical and calculating egoists:

How prosperous, how influential, how they had flourished under a government they had despised for almost seventeen years. Talking bout my generation. Such energy, such luck. Nurtured in the postwar settlement with the States own milk and juice, and then sustained by their parents tentative innocent prosperity, to come of age in full employment, new universities, bright paperback books, the Augustan age of rock and roll, affordable ideals. When the ladder crumbled behind them, when the State withdrew her till and became a scold, they were already safe, they consolidated, and settled down to forming this or that taste, opinion, fortunes. (McEwan 1998: 11 - 12)

With his thirst for power, Garmony is a typical representative of a distinguished politician:

It had been a while since he had met a politician close-up, and what he had forgotten was the eye movements, the restless patrol for new listeners or defectors, or the proximity of some figure of higher status, or some other main chance that might slip by. (McEwan 1998: 13 14)

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Clive and Vernon represent the intellectual elite of the society. Their conviction of their own exceptionality is comical. Clive, who is an acknowledged composer, considers himself a genius, a true artist devoted to his idea of music as an unfettered expression of the composer and a means of communication:

There were moments in the early morning . . . when Clive stood from the piano and shuffled to the doorway to turn out the studio lights . . . and had once more a passing thought, the minuscule fragment of a suspicion that he would not have shared with a single person in the world . . . ; the thought was, quite simply, that it might not be going to far to say that he was a genius. A genius. . . . There hadnt been many. Among his countrymen, Shakespeare was a genius, of course, and Darwin and Newton, he had heard it said. Purcell, almost. Britten, less so, though within range. But there were no Beethovens here. (McEwan 1998: 133) Clive affects to reject any compromise for the purpose of public appreciation or material success. As a middle-aged man, he finds himself at the peak of his career, widely recognized as an extraordinarily talented composer. Therefore he has the distinction of being commissioned to write a Millenium Symphony, which should become his paramount piece. Vernon, too, is convinced of his outstanding natural talent. He is a newspaper editor who, partly by chance, worked his way up from a lieutenant for two significant editors to the chief of one of the countrys most prominent newspapers, The Judge. He feels responsible for the newspapers success and is willing to use any kind of information to come up with a breakthrough article. When

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he decides to publish the compromising photographs of the Foreign Secretary, he feels like a saviour of his paper:

In the accumulating momentum of the week, practically every hour had revealed to Vernon new aspects of his power and potential, and as his gifts for persuasion and planning began to produce results, he felt large nad benign, a little ruthless perhaps, but ultimately good, capable of standing alone, against the current, seeing over the heads of his contemporaries, knowing that he was about to shape the destiny of his country. (McEwan 1998: 101)

Before finally closing his eyes after the voluntary euthanasia at the end of the novel, Vernon indulges himself with his fantasies of grandeur: As he settled he had an image of himself as a massive statue dominating the lobby of Judge House, a great reclining figure hewn from granite: Vernon Halliday, man of action, editor. At rest (McEwan 1998: 170). The themes of personal success and social status are closely connected to moral issues involved in the novel. Nick Meyer calls it a morality tale with a distorted moral and lists a number of issues the author touches on: euthanasia, political scandal, media ethics, midlife crisis and other nineties-appropriate issues (Meyer 1999). To introduce his novel McEwan used a quotation from W. H. Audens The Crossroads The friends who met here and embraced are gone, Each to his own mistake. Similarly to other McEwans works, the characters in Amsterdam get involved in a morally difficult situation and are haunted by the repercussions of their deeds. Clive fails to help a woman threatened by a rapist

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during his hike in the Lake District, which he undertakes in order to revive his artistic potential. After several hours of hiking, inspiration finally comes to Clive and he wants to prevent its destruction at any cost. It would be destroyed in case he decided to intervene in the argument between a man and a woman which is taking place a few metres from him. After some hesitation he decides not to interrupt the rape. He works for his own benefit and does not subordinate any of his preferences to other peoples needs. What is interesting is his interior voice of self-justification:

Whatever it might have involved apologies, or, ultimately, a statement to the police if he had approached the couple, a pivotal moment in his career would have been destroyed. The melody could not have survived the psychic flurry. Given the width of the ridge and the numerous paths that crossed it, how easily he could have missed them. It was as if he wasnt there. . . . He was in his music. His fate, their fate, separate paths. It was not his business. This was his business, and it wasnt easy, and he wasnt asking for anyones help. (McEwan 1998: 88 89)

Vernon appears to be Clives opposite as regards character qualities and the attitude to moral issues and personal values. He is a pragmatic capable of using any means to achieve a turnaround of his newsaper. Compared to Clive, Vernon does not seem to let moral scruples prevent him from working up to a desired goal. He intends to publish the compromising photographs of Julian Garmony in his newspaper without concerning the consequences for their protagonist26. There is no
26

The pictures taken by his former lover, Molly Lane, and provided by her husband show Garmony as a transvestite dressed in womens clothes and make-up and posing in a seductive way.

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doubt in Vernons mind that he should publish the photographs and he wont let it trouble his conscience. He seems to be proud of himself:

Where others would have felt a weight upon their shoulders, he felt an enabling lightness, or indeed a light, a glow of competence and well-being, for his sure hands were about to cut away a cancer from the organs of the body politic this was the image he intended to use in the leader that would follow Garmonys resignation. Hypocrisy would be exposed, the country would stay in Europe, capital punishment and compulsory conscription would remain a cranks dream, social welfare would survive in some form or other, the global environment would get a decent chance, and Vernon was on the point of breaking into song. (McEwan 1998: 111)

Vernon does not escape punishment, which is also one of the most frequently pursued concepts in McEwans novels. Garmonys wife gives a press conference supporting her husband and defending their family life and designates Vernon as a man with the mentality of a blackmailer and the moral stature of a flea (McEwan 1998: 125). Her spirited speech has an overwhelming influence on public opinion. Vernon is immediately condemned as being intolerant to private preferences of individuals, a man directed by self-advancement. Finally he is forced to resign. The author thus seems to have a consistent attitude to morality issues which hardly corresponds to the postmodernist view. Postmodernists abandon all universal theories, general rationality and metanarratives. As a result, moral codes are impeached as well. According to post-modernists there are no valuable and valid

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norms, no valid and reliable external realities which may help, guide our behaviours and deeds (Sajjadi 2007: 134). Postmodernism rejects traditional imperatives and evaluative standards. They insist on personal interpretation and moral autonomy. Sajjadi concludes that there is no such thing as a worldwide morality (Sajjadi 2007: 135). Although at first glance it may seem that female characters play a marginal role in Amsterdam, deeper insight unfolds a significant interest in gender issues. All the women who appear in the novel are exceptional personalities with an indispensable influence on the course of events. Rose Garmonys part in resolving the transvestite case of her husband has already been mentioned. The most remarkable female character, however, is definitely Molly Lane, who, though deceased, seems to be omnipresent. She dominates the action from the opening chapter which is set at her funeral. The reader finds out that Molly, a restaurant critic and photographer, was a strong, independent, self-confident and uninhibited woman who died prematurely after losing control of bodily functions accompanied by mental illness. Both Clive and Vernon are her former lovers who cannot stop thinking about her. At the funeral they ponder over her last days under the control of her possessive husband George Lane, a publisher, whom she never took seriously. George isolated his wife from the outside world preventing her from communicating with her friends when her disease culminated. Chetrinescu points out the wrongs perpetrated by the mens world on women depriving them of their personal space and trying to gain control over their lives. Clive and Vernon seem to represent the mens world as the society oppressing women, hence they become scapegoats for the unfair treatment of women (Chetrinescu 2001). The reader, however, can hardly resist questioning Mollys morality, too. It was Molly that took and stored the

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compromising photographs of Garmony: This was what had drawn her to Garmony, the secret life, his vulnerability, the trust that must have bound them closer. . . . Had it ever moved beyond the bedroom? (McEwan 1998: 70). Moreover, Molly is depicted as a cunning manipulator in relation to men. This may be illustrated with a scene from the first chapter in which Garmony talks to Clive at Mollys funeral: Garmony reached out and, with his forefinger and thumb, caught hold of the lapel of Clives overcoat and drawing him close, spoke in a voice that no one else could hear. The very last time I saw Molly she told me you were impotent and always had been. (McEwan 1998: 16). The number of her lovers is difficult to work out and all of them were completely bewitched by her charm. Chetrinescu presents yet another topic permeating the text. It is the concept of spatiality. She explores how pain is associated with a persons perception of space, time and human relationships. In her view, Amsterdam is a novel centred around the modern myth of the body. The elements of pain and disease are connected with the idea of space. According to Chetrinescu, space is not an objective category, it is subjective and relative. In diseases space is a dimension of the self. The lack of mobility causes restriction in terms of space. Furthermore, there is a pain which represents a social boundary as well. The diseased focus their attention to the body. They suffer from inferiority complex and become afraid of social contact. Their social relations are controlled by pain. Molly Lane is the first victim of a disease and the ensuing isolation and suffering. Her separation from the outside world and her dependency on her husbands make her focus on her body and she finally allows the disease to subjugate her mind and resigns herself to the dissolution of her personality and death. Clive and Vernon start to feel infected and watch their physical and mental decline with growing apprehension (Chetrinescu

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2001). Gradually, Clive becomes so much overwhelmed by his anxieties that his mental fears start to affect his physical state. He experiences moments of paralysis, a total inability to control his body and to pursue any action. He prefers the solitude of his house trying to concentrate on finishing his Millenium Symphony and later leaves for the Lake District in hope for inspiration: His feet were icy, his arms and chest were hot. Anxieties about work transmuted into the baser metal of simple night fear: illness and death, abstractions which soon found their focus in the sensation he still felt in his left hand. It was cold and inflexible and prickly . . . Wasnt this the kind of sensation Molly had . . . ? (McEwan 1998: 25). Similarly to Clive, Vernon exaggerates the subjective symptoms of a disease, unable to define their cause and limits: All this was a worry, but it was a worry that was several days old. There was now a physical symptom. It involved the whole of the right side of his head, both skull and brain somehow, a sensation for which there was simply no word. . . . Perhaps he was dead. His right hemisphere had died (McEwan 1998: 31). Plagued by anxiety they decide to avoid their torment by performing mutual euthanasia. Julian Garmony also feels the need to seek refuge from the outside world after his private life is put under the microscope of the public. Chetrinescu concludes that spatiality is a fundamental experience for any individual to communicate with their surroundings, to exist as a social being (Chetrinescu 2001). Another subject worth mentioning is the theme of friendship. In spite of their lifelong friendship, Clive and Vernons mutual attachment is seriously impaired by pursuing their career ambitions. Vernons intention to publish the photographs of Garmony causes a flaming argument between him and Clive. He considers Vernons reasons irrelevant and argues that the photos would ruin Garmony not only politically, but also personally. He appeals to Vernons liberal attitudes towards

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sexual revolution and free sexual expression he once defended. Vernon, in return, appeals to Clives sense of justice when he demands that Clive should notify the police of the incident he witnessed in the Lake District. Their cumulative misunderstandings and disagreements make Clive ponder about the essence of their friendship while analysing their argument and the pact they have made about euthanasia:

Their row of the evening before was still sounding in his ears, and he worried that the echoes would pursue him into the mountains and destroy his peace. And it was hardly just a clash of voices he still carried with him, it was growing dismay at his friends behaviour, and a gathering sense that he had never really known Vernon at all. . . . To think, only the week before he had made a most unusual and intimate request of his friend. What a mistake that was, especially now that the sensation in his left hand had vanished completely. . . . But how vulnerable he had made himself that night. It was no comfort that Vernon had asked the same for himself; all it cost him was a scribbled note pushed through the door. And perhaps that was typical of a certain . . . imbalance in their friendship that had always been there and which Clive had been aware of somewhere in his heart and had always pushed away, disliking himself for unworthy thoughts. Until now. (McEwan 1998: 64 65)

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In terms of form and style, Amsterdam maintains continuity of McEwans previous work. Due to its size, the book might be called a novella with a

conventional chronological narrative and an omniscient narrator who often uses authoritative utterances such as What actually happened was this . . . or It can happen sometimes with those who brood on an injustice . . . (qtd. in Malcolm 2002: 191). This is connected with a typical feature of metafiction, a self-referential language which demonstrates the authors concern for the creative process and attention to the techniques of his own style. Nagy calls it a precisely written book and a professionally narrated story. The author allows enough room for the characters points of view but the language is always very sophisticated (Nagy 2003). The realistic portrayals of the characters undoubtedly belong to McEwans style as well. He analyses their mental states at different points of the novel so that the reader could follow their feelings and thoughts in detail. From this point of view, Amsterdam is a psychological novel. The reader of McEwans books, however, is used to pastiche integrating several genres into a complex unit. The authors use of suspense and several crimes commited throughout the novel suggest the engagement of a detective story or thriller. The substantial use of satire and the ironic tone of many of the novels passages makes it a political fiction par excellence. Malcolm calls it a piece of social satire, which is a question of terminology, but the essence remains (Malcolm 2002). Amsterdam offers a trenchant criticism of a generation of British politicians and intellectuals flourishing in the last two decades of the twentieth century. The unreliability of human perception and the relativity of any universal truth have already been mentioned in the passage dealing with the thematic structure

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of the novel. They are typical of the postmodernist attitude to works of literature and the world as such. Some of the issues of moral behaviour, the choice between personal success at the expense of others, professional rivalry and legitimacy of euthanasia remain unresolved. Last but not least, the protagonists subjective perception of space and their physical symptoms support the concept of unreliable universal concepts. McEwans employment of humour and irony in Amsterdam is something of a novelty compared to his previous works. The passages about Clives indulging in the images of his own greatness and the scenes from the meetings of The Judges editorial staff definitely have a comical effect. As regards mingling reality and fiction the author seems to draw inspiration from contemporary events stirring the world of high politics. The authors of the Reading Group Guides webpage hint at the parallel between McEwans fictional political scandal of Julian Garmonys taste for transvestism and the real scandal which the US President had to face in 1998 when the book was published (ReadingGroupGuides.com 2008). Garmonys wife Ruth resembles Hillary Clinton in the lofty and elegant way she copes with her husbands scandal in the public. McEwan also demonstrates how such shocking news are seized upon by the press and other media. On the whole, it might be said that Amsterdam draws on elements of McEwans earlier work both in terms of form and subject matter. Its brevity, the precise quality of the prose, mixing the elements of different genres, as well as recycling the themes are characteristic of McEwans style. His next novel, Atonement, the first to be published in the new millennium, takes a slightly different course.

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8 Atonement
Atonement is very highly regarded among literary critics. Many of them consider it McEwans masterpiece which surpassed the Booker Prize-winning

Amsterdam. John Updike regards the novel as a beautiful and majestic fictional panorama and Geoff Dyer assigns it a vital role in contemporary fiction: . . . it is about creatively extending and hauling a defining part of the British literary tradition up to and into the 21st century (Dyer 2001). Chalupsk also underlines McEwans originality in the context of contemporary British fiction. He emphasizes the

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complexity of the novel and analyzes the authors ability to combine a variety of themes and narrative techniques (Chalupsk 2006). The themes, according to Chalupsk (2006), represent the climax in the thematic continuity of McEwans works. Many of his favourite themes appear again the stillness and tension as a premonition of a future disaster, the constraints of a patriarchal society, the relative stability of an imposed order, the transition from childhood to adulthood and the loss of innocence. The theme of innocence and experience seems to be the main thread of the whole book and reflects postmodernist abandonment of any fixed rules or universal order in the world. At the beginning of the novel Briony is a naive romantic longing for moral order but her yearning for perfection also has its dark side. She has a destructive potential, a desire to have the upper hand and to know what is happening inside peoples minds:

She was one of those children possessed by a desire to have the world just so. Whereas her big sisters room was a stew of unclosed books, unfolded clothes, unmade bed, unemptied ashtrays, Brionys was a shrine to her controlling demon: the model farm spread across a deep window ledge consisted of the usual animals, but all facing one way towards their owner as if about to break into song, and even the farmyard hens were neatly corralled. (McEwan 2002: 4)

There are frequent hints on the unrealistic nature of Brionys world. As an imaginative girl she indulges into daydreaming and creates a world of her own by means of her writing:

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The pages of a recently finished story seemed to vibrate in her hand with all the life they contained. Her passion for tidiness was also satisfied, for an unruly world could be made just so. . . . A love of order also shaped the principles of justice, with death and marriage the main engines of housekeeping, the former being set aside exclusively for the morally dubious, the latter a reward withheld until the final page (McEwan 2002: 7).

Gradually, she is forced to face the harsh realities of life and finds out how difficult it is to cope with them. The selectivity of memory and the relativity of ones experience manifest themselves in many events of her life her account of the fountain scene, Robbie and Cecilias lovemaking in the library, the crime of rape. On the other hand, she finds her child world very restrictive: Pen in hand, she stared across the room towards her hard-faced dolls, the estranged companions of a childhood she considered closed. It was a chilly sensation growing up (McEwan 2002: 116) and she longs to severe the sickly dependency of infancy and early childhood (McEwan 2002: 74). Paradoxically, she is haunted by guilt about her childhood mistake for the rest of her life. Atonement clearly deals with several historical issues such as puritanism of the 1930s society in Britain which stands in contrast to the depiction of the society where class is placed above ability and moral behaviour. McEwan also devotes a large part of the novel to the horrors of World War II including the compelling description of the situation during the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940.

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The technique used by the author in Atonement fits in what we call postmodernist writing. It is possible to define the novel as a metanarrative, fiction about the process of writing. The uncertain but omniscient narrator steps into the text in several ways and thus makes it ambiguous. The fiction and reality merge and the reader is confronted with a decision about the narrator who tells them the provisional truth at the end of the novel. The complicated narrative structure of this novel is a typically postmodern feature. In Atonement both external and internal narrators are involved. At first the narrator appears to be external and adopting the omniscient point of view. Later, however, it comes to light that the narrator is one of the characters, a part of the narrative discourse itself. On the whole, there are several different narrative viewpoints involved in the novel including that of Brionys sister Cecilia, her mother Emily, and frequently of Robbie. According to Chalupsk, the author achieved the effect of a dissolved totality and a sense of detachment through conveying different characters points of view (Chalupsk 2006: 7). The fountain scene, for example, is presented twice, first as if the narrator was in the centre of the scene, and secondly, Brionys interpretation is provided. Cecilia and Robbies lovemaking in the library is also dealt with twice. Brionys point of view is that of a naive and prejudiced young girl while the second account is given from the lovers viewpoint and reveals their passion and affection for each other 27. The author, however, depreciates the credibility of the characters accounts by signing
27

Brionys point of view is presented in these words: The scene was so entirely a realisation of her worst fears that she sensed that her over-anxious imagination had projected the figures onto the packed spines of books. . . . Briony stared past Robbies shoulder into the terrified eyes of her sister. . . . His left hand was behind her neck, gripping her hair, and with his right he held her forearm which was raised in protest, or self-defence (McEwan 2002: 123). Cecilia and Robbies viewpoint shows completely different emotions: Nothing as singular or as important had happened since the day of his birth. She returned his gaze, struck by the sense of her own transformation, and ovewhelmed by the beauty in a face which a lifetimes habit had taught her to ignore. . . . Finally he spoke the three simple words that no amount of bad art of bad faith can ever quite cheapen. She repeated them, with exactly the same slight emphasis on the second word, as though she were the one to say them first. . . . She was calling to him, inviting him, murmuring in his ear. Exactly so. They would jump together. (McEwan 2002: 137 138)

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the third part of the novel with the initials BT 28. The reader suddenly realizes that all the points of view are probably figments of Brionys imagination and this inkling is confirmed in the last part of the book which serves as an epilogue or postscript where Briony informs the reader of her lifelong struggle to face up to the consequences of her crime. The final passage is thus a concentration of the concept which Reynolds and Noakes (2002) call the theme of life as fiction. Briony as the narrator of this text emphasizes the omnipotence of a novelist whose imagination is entitled to set the limits and the terms (McEwan 2002: 371). She reserves the privilege of creating the reality of her own although she indirectly reveals the true course of events at the same time29. She also admits there have been eight versions of her novel within fifty-nine years the last of which gives the happy lots to Cecilia and Robbie. On the last page Briony advocates this act trying to forgive herself:

I like to think that it isnt weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair, to let my lovers live and to unite them at the end. I gave them happiness, but I was not so self-serving as to let them forgive me. . . . Robbie and Cecilia, still alive, still in love, sitting side by side in the library, smiling at The Trials of Arabella? Its not impossible. (McEwan 2002: 370 371)

From the very beginning what seems to be the all-knowing narrator enters into the text to foreshadow future events. The first inconspicious flash of future

28 29

The initials BT denote Briony Tallis, the central character herself. The lovers did not end well as Briony wrote in the last version of her novel. Robbie died during the evacuation of the Allied forces from Dunkirk in 1940 and Cecilia followed him a few months later in the bomb attack on the London Underground.

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insight relates to Brionys plans with her first play which she wants to rehearse in honour of her brothers arrival. After her mothers positive appraisal of the play the narrator intimates that Briony was hardly to know it then, but this was the projects highest point of fulfillment (McEwan 2002: 4). Another future vision is much more lucid telling the reader openly that Briony will write the story of her guilt and atonement:

Six decades later she would describe how at the age of thirteen she had written her way through a whole history of literature, beginning with stories derived from the European tradition of folk tales, through drama with simple moral intent, to arrive at an impartial psychological realism which she had discovered for herself, one special morning during a heatwave in 1935. (McEwan 2002: 41)

John Mullan calls this element prolepsis the readers premature knowledge of eventualities (Mullan 2003). One of the most direct examples of prolepsis appears in the sentence opening Chapter Thirteen 30: Within the half hour Briony would commit her crime (McEwan 2002: 156). The passage telling of Brionys accusation that Robbie was the rapist is closed with another subtle hint of her future attitude: She would never be able to console herself that she was pressured or bullied. She never was (McEwan 2002: 170). Fragmentariness, which is another feature of postmodernist fiction, is also one of the strategies involved in Atonement. Part One of the novel is composed of the accounts of individual characters experience. They deal with their respective
30

The chapter deals with the search for the lost twins, Brionys cousins, and the discovery of Lola who had been assaulted by a rapist. It ends with Briony giving evidence against Robbie and the inspectors taking him to the police station

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views and mental processes. Thus the reader finds out about the experience of Briony, Cecilia and Emily Tallis, Robbie Turner. There are also several episodes which at the moment of the first reading seem somehow out of context but gradually the reader reveals how they dovetail the plot. The fragmentariness of the narrative, however, is more noticeable in Part Two. This section is told from Robbies point of view and recounts various episodes from the front alternated with his memories of Cecilia, the flashbacks of the events from his past at the Tallises, snippets from the letters he exchanged with Cecilia. There is another interesting point to be made. The protagonist of Part Two is strictly referred to by his surname Turner in the passages describing the war while in the episodes from his former life he is called Robbie as in the firt part of the novel. Addressing him as Turner is symbolic of the sense of alienation caused by the war. Part Three, again, consist of fragmentary episodes recounting Brionys harsh experiences as a trainee nurse in an Army hospital in London. Parts Two and Three also differ structurally from Part One which is divided into numbered chapters. The sections in the latter two are only divided by line spaces and the use of two-line initials. Last but not least, it is necessary to point out the role of symbols is the novel. McEwan employs them several times and it frequently becomes clear only after reading further. Brionys play, The Trials of Arabella, is one of the most obvious examples and it plays a significant part both in the introduction and the finale of the novel. It is a way of showing Brionys attitude to life, her fascination with romance and her need for moral order (Reynolds and Noakes 2002: 129). Moreover, it hints at the issue of social classes. Robbie, a cleaning ladys son, does not belong to Cecilias society, which causes a tension between the two. Robbie would probably not be automatically treated as a criminal if his social status were higher. The reader

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also feels subtle inappropriateness of a potential relationship between Cecilia and Robbie. The sense of a reasonable marriage is reflected in the description of Brionys first play:

At some moments chilling, at others desperately sad, the play told a tale of the heart whose message, conveyed in a rhyming prologue, was that love which did not build a foundation on good sense was doomed. The reckless passion of the heroine, Arabella, for a wicked foreign count is punished by ill fortune when she contracts cholera during an impetuous dash towards a seaside town with her intended. (McEwan 2002: 3)

Reynolds and Noakes (2002) touch on various symbols used in the novel. Uncle Clams vase31, for instance, may act as a symbol in several ways. The vase survived all the horrors of war without damage and seems to be a fixed element in the stability of the family. When Robbie accidentaly breaks the vase, it may be interpreted as a presage of the familys disintegration. Reynolds and Noakes also draw the readers attention to the setting as symbol. The temple on the island near the Tallises house is described so that it implies a larger corruption and decay (Reynolds and Noakes 2002: 136). The island features in the novel again when Briony finds Lola in the evening of the rape. The author emphasizes the artificiality of the island32 which, as Reynolds and Noakes suggest, relates to Brionys impulse

31

Uncle Clam was Mr Talliss brother who served as a Lieutenant in WWI. He obtained the precious vase from the officials of a small French town as a token of gratitude after he had evacuated the town and saved about fifty people. He finally died in the war. 32 The bridge led to nothing more than an artificial island in an artificial lake. It had been there two hundred years almost, and its detachment marked it out from the rest of the land, and it belonged to her more than to anyone else. She was the only one who ever came here. (McEwan 2002: 163)

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to step out of reality into the artifice of the world of the imagination (Reynolds and Noakes 2002: 143).

9 Conclusion
This work was written with the intention to respond to the hypothesis about Ian McEwans debatable status as a postmodernist. It examines the extent to which six of his novels belong to the concept of postmodernism. The profound analysis of the novels makes it possible to draw several conclusions both in terms of themes and the authors style. In general, it is obvious that his work has gone through significant development and the novels from different periods of his career vary considerably. On the other hand, many features confirm they are books from the pen of the same author.

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The first noticeable feature in terms of themes is the focus on shocking and bizarre subjects. This corresponds to the postmodernist tendency to cross existing borders and limits. The themes involve, among others, human perversion, violence, crime, focus on the body, obsessive behaviour, mental disorders and other unconventional topics. From this point of view, McEwan is one of those British authors who participated in forming the literature of the 1960s. Not only has he drawn inspiration from them, but he has also banished some of the taboos from the British reality. McEwans attitude to the subject matter of his works is connected with his treatment of any totalizing interpretations of the world. As in most postmodernist works, truth is always relative and security is an illusion. He often deals with the distinction between subjective and objective realities and shows how subjective experience creates reality. Different interpretations of the same reality play a significant role in The Cement Garden, The Child in Time, Enduring Love and Atonement. The protagonists of these novels often get under the command of their selective or unreliable memory. McEwan also disrupts any totalizing concepts and existing social patterns and thus reveals their relativity and limited validity. Chalupsk draws attention to McEwans criticism of the concepts of the world under the control of authorities and the patriarchal view of the world (Chalupsk 2006: 3 4). The most typical representative of the imposed order seems to be the father in The Cement Garden who demands unreserved obedience from all members of his family. Another example of male despotism is Robert in The Comfort of Strangers whose behaviour is a result of the patriarchal environment he was raised in. In Amsterdam Clive and Vernon represent the male world as the society oppressing women. Gender issues

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permeate all the novels analysed above. McEwan frequently deals with unequal relationships between men and women and the archetypal division of gender roles. The author expresses his critical attitude in The Cement Garden, The Comfort of Strangers, Amsterdam and Atonement. Atonement presents an example of postmodernist approach to the interpretation of reality and history. It shows the extent to which reality and fiction may be interrelated and the unreliability of any historical account. In the coda of the novel the reader has to realize how selective and unreliable a narrative may be. Not until the last few pages does the reader find out that the happy ending is only the last of many versions of Brionys novel. Towards the end of the book the narrator suddenly impeaches all that has been written so far and leaves the reader somehow confused and disappointed. Another typical element recurring in McEwans novels is definitely the atmosphere which the author consistenly creates from the very beginning of his narration. The reader becomes overwhelmed by an impression of stiffness or paralysis. Jack in The Cement Garden, Colin and Mary in The Comfort of Strangers, Cecilia and Mrs Tallis in Atonement all suffer from paralyzing heat and they are overcome by inactivity. The characters seem to be stuck at a standstill and imprisoned in an emotional vacuum. At the same time, the reader is unable to divest himself of a tension which somehow foreshadows a future disaster. This might be considered part of McEwans narrative strategy brought to perfection in Atonement (Chalupsk 2006: 2). This resignation and passivity of the characters could be regarded as a typically postmodernist sense of the world where there is no depth and life which is just a series of unpredictable occurences over which no one can claim any authority. The emphasis is very much on the chance and contingency as fundamental conditions of our being (Lye 2002). The role of chance, a single

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moment which turns the protagonists life upside down, is crucial in many of McEwans works. The most straightforward treatment of this motif appears in Enduring Love, where a hot-air balloon accident brings together the novels protagonist, Joe Rose, and a young religious fanatic Jed Parry who becomes obsessed with Joe and makes his life hell. The same idea recurs in several more novels such as The Child in Time (a moment of inattention deprives Stephen of his daughter and destroys his family life), Amsterdam (an incident in the Lake District where Clive fails to help a woman threatened by a rapist) and Atonement (the fountain scene which shocks Briony with its sexual undertone). Furthermore, McEwan often presents the fragility of male-female relationships destroyed by a chance intervention from outside. Jed disrupts Joes longtime relationship with Clarissa (Enduring Love), Colin and Mary start to feel uncertain about their relationship when they meet Robert and Caroline ( The Comfort of Strangers) Stephen and Julies marriage falls into pieces after the abduction of their daughter (The Child in Time) and an unexpected event destroys the hope of common future for Cecilia and Robbie (Atonement). Social and political issues are subject of critical comment in most of the novels which is also characteristic of the postmodernist era in literature. The issues explored involve the state of the hypocritical society which favours social status and personal success (The Child in Time, Amsterdam, Atonement), public policy, the role of political manipulation and the practices of political circles ( The Child in Time, Amsterdam), opposition to the norms of patriarchal society ( The Cement Garden, Atonement), and the loss of order and social responsibility ( The Cement Garden, The Comfort of Strangers, The Child in Time, Amsterdam). These subjects are closely interrelated with moral issues. All the novels are involved with certain moral

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dilemmas or predicaments. The authors attitude to the problems of ethics are sometimes conveyed in the way he treats the characters (Clive and Vernons decline leading to their mutual euthanasia in Amsterdam). More often, however, the question of morality of the characters behaviour remains open. One of the most distinctive examples is the secret burial of the mother executed by the children in The Cement Garden. Moreover, few of the vile deeds commited in the novels are punished (Robert in The Comfort of Strangers, Marshall in Atonement). It may be reasoned that this approach to morality is connected with the postmodernist understanding of morality as a subjective phenomenon which rejects any universal standards. Last but not least, McEwan is concerned with the theme of childhood and its relation to adulthood. Child and adult worlds mingle in most of the novels. The child protagonists often long to become adults or they make an effort to behave like adults (The Cement Garden, Atonement). The endeavour to return into childhood is at the opposite pole of this dichotomy (Charles in The Child in Time). The Child in Time is preoccupied with the theme of childhood from the beginning to the end. The loss of Stephens daughter, Stephens memories and flashbacks into his own childhood, political positions on the issue of childcare, the birth of Stepen and Julies second child. Other novels treat the theme of childhood in a less direct way (the influence of Roberts childhood experience on his later life in The Comfort of Strangers, Joe and Clarissas childless marriage in Enduring Love). An interest in history, so much typical of the end-of-century British fiction, is by no means excluded from McEwans novels. Those directly echoing past events and public or social issues involve The Child in Time, Amsterdam and Atonement. The Child in Time, with its setting in an indefinite but near future, is full of

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references to the social and political situation in Britain resulting from so called Thatcherism and the Conservative government policy. Atonement provides a partial picture of British society of the 30s and provides a look into the harsh realities of the World War II. Although the themes listed above fit the concept of postmodernism, there are several elements in McEwans work which do not match its ideas. According to

Klages postmodernism is the critique of grand narratives. She refers to Lyotards argument that all aspects of modern societies, including science as the primary form of knowledge, depend on these grand narratives (Klages 2006: 169). McEwan, however, celebrates science and his work is full of praise of rationality (the conflict between science and religion and between art and science in Enduring Love, scientific theories of time in The Child in Time). There are also many descriptive passages in the novels and the elaborate psychological portraits of many characters are in contradiction to the flatness typical of postmodernist figures. The uniqueness of McEwans storytelling makes it difficult to include his novels in a particular literary movement. The language is always sophisticated with rich vocabulary and well-turnded phrases. Thus it seems to attract attention to itself and confirms the postmodernist emphasis of self-consciousness in the creative process. Moreover, the author also draws attention to himself by stepping into the text and commenting on the events from his detached and omniscient point of view. The author widely relies on chance in the writing process. He considers the novel a dynamic form over which the author should not have complete control. It has life of its own, it develops and the authors original intentions are frequently undermined during the creative process. McEwan commented on the development of his novel The Comfort of Strangers (1981):

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These things are not entirely within ones control, and I dont think they should be. I am aware of the danger that in trying to write more politically, in the broadest sense . . . I could take up moral positions that might pre-empt or exclude that rather mysterious and unreflective element that is so important in fiction. (qtd. in Morrison 2003: 68)

The rejection of totalitarian concepts mentioned earlier in this chapter is closely linked to fragmentariness of the novel. Jason Cowley (1998) considers McEwans novels to be narratives of moments: a series of imaginative set pieces which seldom coalguate into a fully realized work (qtd. in Malcolm 2002: 17). The novels do not constitute a strictly linear narrative. They are made up of separate scenes or episodes of the characters lives that often seem to have a meaning of their own. Not until the reader reaches the end of the novel is he able to understand their implications for the story. The Child in Time, for instance, involves shifts between different times, it even starts about two years after the abduction of the protagonists daughter, which is the central motif of the book. The best example of fragmentariness is probably Atonement. Last but not least, McEwan employs pastiche in some of his novels 33. The Cement Garden and The Comfort of Strangers bear signs of the Gothic. The descriptions of the settings (the gloomy house in The Cement Garden and the old, hostile city in The Comfort of Strangers), the atmosphere of suspense and growing tension, ominous portents and overt descriptions of nightmarish scenes (mother
33

McEwan, however, does not use deliberate mixture of genres to such an extent as some other postmodern authors. Malcolm points to the comparison with some of his contemporaries known for the wildly eclectic standards such as Swift, Ackroyd, Carter and Winterson Malcolm (2002: 9).

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burial in the cellar, slitting Colins artery with a razor) all belong to the heritage of the Gothic style, horror and crime fiction. The other genres involved are psychological fiction, spy novel and social or political satire. The narrative technique of McEwans novels features voice polyphony. Several characters are usually enabled to express their point of view but there is always one unifying voice. This method is inherited from modernism as well as the psychological exploration of the characters and the stream-of-conciousness which McEwan uses very often. The descriptive passages and the use of symbols also belong to the heritage of earlier literary movements. All the findings made after analysing the six novels by Ian McEwan lead to the conclusion that the hypothesis formulated at the beginning of this thesis can be confirmed. McEwans style is derived both from the literary tradition and from the

purely postmodernist trends and hence he actually maintains the tradition and continuity of the British novel.

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Resum
Diplomov prce Ian McEwans Status as a Postmodernist zkoum ptomnost postmodernch rys v dle jednoho z nejvznamnjch autor souasn britsk beletrie. Poskytuje srovnn mezi obecnmi charakteristikami postmodern przy a McEwanovm literrnm stylem.

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V vodn kapitole je formulovna hypotza o tom, do jak mry lze Iana McEwana povaovat za pedstavitele postmodernismu. Druh kapitola definuje nkolik oblast zahrnujcch typick rysy postmodern literatury. Nsledujc kapitoly jsou zameny na rozbor esti romn Iana McEwana, jmenovit Betonov zahrada, Cizinci ve mst, Dt v prav as, Nezniiteln lska, Amsterodam a Pokn. Posledn kapitola poskytuje syntzu zskanch zvr a usiluje o srozumitelnou charakteristiku McEwanova literrnho dla. Dospv k zvru, e McEwanova dlo nelze povaovat za ist postmodern, m potvrzuje hypotzu vytvoenou v prvn kapitole. Diplomov prce nabz analytick pohled na tematickou na stylistickou rovinu McEwanova dla. Lze ji tedy doporuit tm, kte jsou ji obeznmeni s djovou zpletkou uvedench romn jako nmt k zamylen nad tm, jak msto zaujm Ian McEwan v kontextu souasn Britsk beletrie.

Summary
The diploma thesis Ian McEwans Status as a Postmodernist examines the presence of postmodernist features in the work of one of the most significant writers of contemporary British fiction. It provides a comparison between the general characteristics of postmodernist prose and McEwans literary style.

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The introductory chapter formulates a hypothesis about the extent to which Ian McEwan can be considered a representative of postmodernism. The second chapter defines several areas which involve the typical features of postmodernist literature. The following chapters focus on the analysis of six novels by Ian McEwan, namely The Cement Garden, The Comfort of Strangers, The Child in Time, Enduring Love, Amsterdam, and Atonement. The final chapter provides a synthesis of the findings and aims at a comprehensible characterisation of McEwans literary work. It concludes that Ian McEwans work cannot be regarded as purely postmodernist thus confirming the hypothesis created in the first chapter. The thesis offers an analytical insight into the thematic and stylistic levels of McEwans work. Therefore it might be recommended to those already acquainted with the plots of the novels as a subject for debate about McEwans place in contemporary British fiction.

References
Books by Ian McEwan

McEwan, Ian. Amsterdam. London: Jonathan Cape, 1998.

McEwan, Ian. Atonement. London: Vintage, 2002.

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McEwan, Ian. Enduring Love. London: Vintage, 2004.

McEwan, Ian. The Cement Garden. London: Vintage, 1997.

McEwan, Ian. The Child in Time. New York: Anchor Books, 1999.

McEwan, Ian. The Comfort of Strangers. London: Pan Books, 1982.

Other Books, Book Sections, Articles

Bentley, Nick, ed. British Fiction of the 1990s. Abingdon: Routledge, 2005.

Chalupsk, Petr. Atonement Continuity and Change in Ian McEwans Works. In Bubkov, ., Roebuck, O. Pardubice: Univerzita Pardubice, 2006, s. 1 10.

Hilsk, Martin. Souasn britsk romn. Praha: Nakladatelstv H & H ve spoluprci s filosofickou fakultou Univerzity Karlovy, 1992.

Klages, Mary. Literary Theory: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum, 2006.

Malcolm, David. Understanding Ian McEwan. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002.

Morrison, Jago. Contemporary Fiction. London: Routledge, 2003.

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Nesson, Nicholas. Are the Catastrophes of Life Tragic, or Only Horrible? The Boston Globe, 8 February 1998, G2.

Reynolds, Margaret, and Noakes, Jonathan. Ian McEwan: The Essential Guide. London: Random House, 2002.

Rennison, Nick. Contemporary British Novelists. Abingdon: Routledge, 2005.

Online Resources

Chetrinescu, Dana. Rethinking Spatiality: The Degraded Body in Ian McEwans Amsterdam. Ian McEwan Website. 12 December 2007. IanMcEwan.com. Accessed 12 December 2007. <http://www.ian.mcewan.com/bib/articles/chetrinescu.html>

Dyer, Geoff. Whos Afraid of Influence? The Guardian. 22 September 2001. Guardian.co.uk. Accessed 22 July 2008. <http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,6121,555614,00.html>

Koval, Ramona. An Interview with Ian McEwan. Erudition,4 April 2004. Erudition Online. Accessed 29 July 2007. <http://www.eruditiononline.com/04.04/ian_mcewan.htm>

Lezard, Nicholas. Morality Bites. Guardian.co.uk. 24 April 1999. Accessed 28 August 2008. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/1999/apr/24/fiction.ianmcewan>

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Lye, John. Some Attributes of Post-Modernist Literature. Department of English Language and Literature. Brock University. 4 December 2002. Accessed 29 July 2007. <http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/2F55/post-mod-attrib.html>

Mars-Jones, Adam. I think Im Right, Therefore I am. The Observer. 7 September 1999. Guardian Unlimited. Accessed 14 August 2007. <http://www.books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,6121,98968,00.html/>

Meyer, Nick. Amsterdam. New York Magazine. 11 January 1999. New York Media LLC. Accessed 25 October 2008. <http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/books/reviews/1065/>

Miller, Laura. Ian McEwan Fools British Shrinks, Salon.com, 21 September 1999. Accessed 14 July 2007. <http://www.salon.com/books/log/1999/09/21/mcewan>

Morrison, Jago. Narration and Unease in Ian McEwans Later Fiction. CRITIQUE: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 22 March 2001. Accessed 24 October 2008. <http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-74011930.html>

Nagy, Ladislav. McEwan, Ian: Amsterodam, recenze. iLiteratura. 9 April 2003. Accessed 7 July 2007. <http://www.iliteratura.cz/clanek.asp?polozkaID=9927>

Sajjadi, Seyed Mahdi. Explanation and Critique of the Principles of Postmodern Moral Education. Educational Research and Review. Vol 2 (6), pp. 134 140. June

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2007. Accessed 2 November 2008. <www.academicjournals.org/err/PDF/pdf%202007/Jun/Sajjadi.pdf>

Shoeck, Eric. An Interview with Ian McEwan. Capitola Book Caf/KUSP (NPR). 16 February 1998. Accessed 11 July 2008. <http://www.capitolabookcafe.com/andrea/mcewan/html>

Waters, Juliet. The Little Chill, Montreal Mirror, 3 December 1998. Accessed 25 October 2008. <http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/1998/120398/book.html>

Williams, Christopher. Ian McEwans The Cement Garden and the Tradition of the Child/Adolescent as I-Narrator. Biblioteca Della Ricera, Schena Editore, 1993. Accessed 10 July 2008. <http://www.ianmcewan.com/bib/articles/williams.pdf>

Amsterdam. ReadingGroupGuides. Discussion Questions. Accessed 10 September 2008. <http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_A/amsterdam1.asp

Bell. Buddhist Symbols. 14 June 2008. Accessed 31 August 2008. <http://buddhistsymbols.info/bell/>

Clarissa Harlowe. The Nuttall Encyclopaedia of General Knowledge. Ed. Rev. James Wood. 1907. Accessed 4 October 2008. <http://www.fromoldbooks.org/WoodNuttallEncyclopaedia/c/clarissaharlowe.html>

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Enduring Love. ReadingGroupGuides. Critical Praise. Accessed 10 September 2008. <http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_E/enduring_love1.asp#critic>

Epistolary novel. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Ed. Margaret Drabble. Oxford University Press, 2000. eNotes.com. 2006. Accessed 28 September, 2008. <http://www.enotes.com/oce-encyclopedia/epistolary-novel>

Existentialism and Human Emotions. Encyclopedia. NationMaster.com. Accessed 21 September 2008. <http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Existentialismand-Human-Emotions#Overview>

Vajra. Khandro.Net. Accessed 31 August 2008. <http://www.khandro.net/ritual_vajra.htm>

"Thatcherism." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 6 August 2008. Accessed 19 August 2008. <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? title=Thatcherism&oldid=230227807>