Deconstructive Strategies In Ian Mcewan’s Enduring Love

Enduring Love is the sixth novel of British writer Ian Mc Ewan’s early writings.Unlike the past macabre style,this novel focuses on the reciprocal effect on science,literature and religion.Enduring Love is a delicate story full of conflicts and oppositions.Based on Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive thinking,this thesis analyzes how Ian Mc Ewan creates a complete story and how he dismantles some conventional concepts in the meantime.The author of the thesis finds that subversion and blurring can be used to deconstruct the mentioned binary oppositions in Enduring Love.This thesis mainly explicates the three groups of specific oppositions in this novel: the dissolving of reason and belief,subversion to masculinity and femininity,and blurring of the centrality and marginality of characters.Joe Rose’s different attitudes toward science,literature,and religion convey Ian Mc Ewan’s expectation of the good conversation among these three life creeds.Taking Joe as an example,excessive reason possibly is the excuse for people’s destructive behaviors.The belief can be fruitful under the restraint of reason through Jed Parry’s piety to God.Then this thesis presents the absence of masculinity and the presence of femininity in this novel,and Ian Mc Ewan calls for a breakthrough in the stereotypes of males and females.Men and women can gain more freedom to be themselves.The next part discusses the changing social position of the main characters over time and place.Jed Parry endeavors to enter the central zone while Joe Rose refuses to be a marginal person.Clarissa Mellon has many doubts of her position in society.Mc Ewan blurs the boundary between the center and margin in the characters’ social position.It not only reminds people to show more concern for the marginal people but also encourages people to have more confidence in themselves.Finally,this thesis finds that the analysis on Enduring Love from the deconstructive perspective both enriches readers’ understanding and inspires the masses to re-think the identity crisis of modern people.