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A Critical Guide to The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

Synopsis
Through following the main character, Stephens, attempts to come to
terms with the loss of his daughter, Kate, and the break up of his marriage
to Julie, The Child in Time is a subtle dystopia that deals with love, loss,
childhood, adulthood, political control and the nature of time.
Themes
The nature of time: going back in time, the past, the future, the
redemptive power of time.
Children: childcare, the search for the childhood self, conception
and birth, the loss of childhood
Parents: authority and responsibility
Memory
Illusion
Politics (it is a subtle dystopia. Look at the way society has changed.
Consider Thatcherism too.)
Loss of hope/ grief/ healing/

Other Readers Interpretations (A03)

To fulfil assessment objective A03, readers need to show an awareness of


other readers opinions. Contemporary critical theory can provide a useful
framework for this and the following approaches are alternative ways in
to the text.
A Freudian Interpretation
McEwan does not consciously use psychoanalytical theories and then
make a narrative shelter to display these ideas but it is evident that a
Freudian interpretation is possible when considering The Child in Time.
We are able to recognise references to the Oedipal Complex (the childs
wish to destroy the father and join with the mother) and there is an
obvious focus on the internalised child or the id. We can chart the
regression to the id in Stephens story and this is conveyed more explicitly
in Charles breakdown.
The Child in Time was written when McEwan was about to become a
father and this could account for the heavy emphasis on paternity and
childhood in the novel. In the incident when Stephen witnesses his
parents discussion at The Bell we witness Stephen entering a womblike
state:
His eyes grew large and round and lidless with desperate,
protesting innocence, his knees rose under him and touched his
chin(Pg. 56)
It is as if he has regressed beyond Charles Darkes schoolboy phase and
becomes the foetus that is demanding to be born. By communicating with
his mother he metaphorically insists on his right to life and by securing his
birth he is essentially obliterating the role of the father and fathering
himself. This Oedipal fantasy is expressed as essential to an understanding
of the subsequent events when he enjoys a brief reunion with Julie:
What would happen as a consequence of now, was not separate
form what he had experienced earlier that day. Obscurely, he
sensed a line of argument that was being continued the two
moments were undeniably bound, they held in common the
innocent longing they provoked, the desire to belong. (Pg. 60)
This passage illustrates the interconnected nature of the two events, as it
is from this encounter that his second child is conceived. It is possible that
the fulfilment of the Oedipal fantasy allows him to father his second child.
The birth of this child, however, is also presented in a disturbingly Freudian
manner. Stephens ejaculation seems to prompt the birth of the new baby
and this seems to suggest that he is usurping the mothers role, violently
removing her from the birth process. An ironic parody of this episode
occurs when Stephen pulls the lorry driver from the wreckage as this too is
presented with natal imagery, suggesting that Stephen is ripping a child
from the womb:
There was a head at Stephens feet. It protruded from a vertical
gash in the steel. There was a bare arm too, wedged under the

head, pressing tight into the face and obscuring the mouth.
Stephen knelt down. (Pg. 94)
The emphasis on paternity throughout the novel highlights Stephens
Oedipal anxieties, which he overcomes by usurping the role of parent and
consolidating his position as both father and son.
A Feminist Interpretation
McEwan is often described as a feminist writer despite the macabre and
often sordid nature of his earlier works. There is an emerging maturity in
his novels and a growing awareness of the feminist cause, which may be
partly due to the influence of his wife, Penny Allen. McEwan writes:
After writing The Imitation Game- having escaped the label of
being the chronicler of adolescence- I was then suddenly the male
feminist, which really made me shrinkI didnt want to be used as
a spokesman for womens affairs. I didnt want to be a man
appropriating womens voices. (NI 176)
However, many feminists have accused McEwan of exactly that complaint,
appropriating womens voices. Some claim that he even goes so far as
to try and usurp the womans role. This is linked to the Freudian
interpretation where critics read the delivery of the lorry driver and
Stephens role as mid-wife and instigator of his childs birth as an attempt
to take on the power of the woman and supplant her. They attribute this to
misogyny and insecurity.
Other critics are more willing to accept that the road out of patriarchy is a
long one and that The Child in Time seeks to be honest about the envy
of men for womens power and that the message of the story is clearly
that of a journey not yet completed. There is hope at the end of the novel
when the babys sex is not yet conferred but as the moon (which
represents the feminine) declines and the closeted family is made to open
up its doors to society (in the form of the midwife) the limiting boundaries
of gender and the expectations of the outside world are about to become
imposed so that this utopian moment will not last.
Thelma too recognises that patriarchy has had its day and her views on
quantum mechanics as a feminising principle to make science softer, less
arrogantly detached, more receptive in participating in the world it wanted
to describe(Pg. 39) seem to suggest that there is hope for the future,
although some critics may object to her portrayal as an earth mother who
is trying to instil gentler manners and a sweeter disposition on Science
as an unhelpful stereotype.
A Marxist Interpretation
My prose tended to remain private. I always wanted to broaden it,
find the fruitful ground where private and political [could exist]
together (Ian McEwan)

A Marxist Interpretation of a text is one that focuses on the political


aspects and particularly presents the class struggles and power
imbalances that are inherent in the novel. This quotation reveals how
McEwan wishes the novel to reflect private concerns within a political
framework. The Child in Time can be read as a dystopian fiction set in
the middle of the 1990s that charts the logical extension of Thatcherism
and Right Wing Ideology of the 80s. (A dystopian fiction is one that
employs a nightmarish vision of the future to demonstrate the perils of the
chaotic present.) To understand the doctrine that McEwan is criticising it is
useful to consider that political commentators have referred to the
twentieth century as The Century of the Self pointing to a consumer
based society that functions as a provider for the individuals subconscious
needs and desires. To refer back to the Freudian analysis we can see that
government is no longer a moralising parent but a manipulator of the id. In
practice this means that politicians gain power by promising to fulfil
individual needs and do not rely on an appeal for the common good.
Thatcherism is the most extreme example of this: individualism was
fostered with a focus on lower taxes and private industry and a reduced
emphasis on government responsibility for the community as a whole and
the weak, in particular. This is seen by McEwan as a Darwinian culture that
is morally corrupt. We could read the gender ambiguous Prime Minister as
a parody of Margaret Thatcher, who is ironically addressed as the
upholder of family values.(Pg. 188) The vast social and economic
divisions seen by Stephen in the supermarket, The people who used the
supermarket divided into two groups, as distinct as tribes or nations give
us an early indication of the effect of Tory policy. The dissolution of the
Welfare State is illustrated by the detailed accounts of the licensed
beggars. The move to private industry rather than state control is
highlighted by the selling- off of schools and ambulances; a sinister
projection of the denationalisation of major industries that occurred
throughout the 1980s. McEwans view that the pretence of improving law
and order was really just a move to a Police State is shown in the arming
of the police. The effect of Conservative extremism is summarised by
Stephens father in chapter seven:
The filth on the streets, the dirty messages on the walls, the
poverty, son, its all changed in ten years. Thats the last time I
visited Pauline, ten years ago. Its a new country. More like the Far
East at its worst. I havent got the strength for it, or the stomach.
(Pg. 178)
On a global scale we can see the prognosis of the Tory governments
shortsighted attitude to environmental and global affairs. The incident with
the Olympic Sprinters and the Prime Ministers need to be near the nuclear
hotline at all times represents the very real fear of nuclear meltdown that
was prevalent in the 80s. The constant references to the changeable and
unnatural weather clearly points to a failure in environmental policy that
has led to global warming.
The presence of the Prime Minister and Charles Darke in the novel signifies
the importance of politics in this dystopian world. The characters are used
as tools to convey McEwans political viewpoint. Charles Darke is the
opportunist right wing politician who is able to use the political jargon of

business speak to appeal to the individualist and morally dubious


aspirations of the voters:
Tens of millions have been saved in social security payments, and a
large number of men, women and children have been introduced to
the pitfalls and strenuous satisfactions of self-sufficiency long
familiar to the business community in this country. (Pg. 35)
His eventual descent into the petulant child who commits suicide as an act
of revenge against the mother is, therefore, a fitting emblem for The
Century of the Self as it reverts into a self-destructive and self-centred
adolescent.

A Scientific Approach
Despite McEwans assertion that the achievements of science and
scientific researchers rank with the work of Shakespeare and the painting
of the Sistine Chapel many critics have shied away from using scientific
theory as a way of approaching the themes of the novel. Thelmas lecture
on quantum physics can be read as an explanation of McEwans views on
Time, Consciousness and the seemingly random nature of the Universe.
We are told by Thelma that,
Time is variable. We know it from Einstein who is still our bedrock
here. In relativity theory time is dependent on the speed of the
observer. What are simultaneous events to one person can appear
in sequence to another. Theres no absolute, generally recognised
now. (Pg. 116)
Thus before Einstein people considered time to be the same for everyone
and thought it was meaningful to talk about two spatially separate events
happening at the same time. Einsteins Theory of Relativity shows us that
our conception of linear time is flawed and that the perspective of the
observer is fundamental. This, coupled with Thelmas explanation of the
backward movement of time provides an interpretation of Stephens
experience at The Bell and his near death experience on the motorway
as something more than mere fantasy sci-fi. McEwan is instead attempting
the literary equivalent of Thelmas scientific utopia of, finding a
[mathematical] language for the indivisibility of the entire universe
In order to understand the significance of quantum physics to the novel
some of the basic concepts should be explored. Thelma describes to
Stephen how,
Something could be a wave and a particle at the same time; how
particles seemed to be aware of each other and seemed in
theory at least- to communicate this awareness instantaneously
over immense distances
Newton assumed that light was made of particles but in the 19 th Century
Young realised from observing interference fringes that light was in fact a

wave. However, further research revealed that in fact light was made up of
single particles (photons) that despite showing no evidence of any cooperation with each other performed like waves due to entirely
probabilistic behaviour. One explanation of this is called the Many Worlds
Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and is explained by Thelma as:
The world dividing every infinitesimal fraction of a second into an
infinite number of possible versions, constantly branching and
proliferating, with consciousness neatly picking its way through to
create the illusion of a stable reality (Pg. 115)
This too provides a scientific explanation of Stephens hallucination but is
also a poignant metaphor for Kate, the eponymous Child in Time.
Stephen keeps her alive in an alternative reality where she continues to
grow and Without the fantasy of her continued existence he was lost,
time would stop. He was the father of an invisible child.(Pg. 2) Thus the
essentially probabilistic universe described by quantum physics robs him
of Kate and he is forced to inhabit the alternate universe where she exists
until he is able to reconcile himself with reality.
The issue of consciousness can be explained by Heisenbergs Uncertainty
Principle and the puzzle of Schroedingers Cat. Both examples reveal how
the act of measurement fixes an object into a single point, this then
influences its essential nature. In the experiment of Schroedingers Cat a
cat is placed in a box and attached to a piece of scientific apparatus. The
apparatus in the box connects an instrument for measuring an electrons
spin to a lethal injection device. The experiment supposes that the
apparatus will kill the cat if the electrons spin is up. But according to
quantum mechanics the state of an electron is neither up nor down until
someone observes it. Therefore the cat is neither alive nor dead until
someone opens the cabinet. Thus quantum theory relies upon the
conscious action of the observer to fix a state and this provides a quasiscientific framework for the narrative action of the novel. The Child in
Time could therefore be seen to be Stephen as he is seemingly able to
move through time, to slow it down and speed it up and exist in alternate
realities merely by the conscious act of will. Through Kates kidnapping he
has been forced to recognise the undivided whole of [which] matter,
space, time, even consciousness itself but this has prevented him from
existing in the reality we understand. The ending suggests, however,
that this was merely a temporary state. The birth of the their second child
forces him to renounce his God-like state and embrace reality. Julies final
question is an acknowledgement of the world they were about to rejoin.
KJW

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