The Literary Reflections Of London In Ian Mce Wan’s Novels And Short Stories

Ian McEwan is a much influential novelist in contemporary British literarycircles. The British critic, Sebastian Groes, states in Ian McEwan: ContemporaryCritical Perspectives that “Ian McEwan is one of the foremost explorers of ourexperience of the modern city, and London in particular has played a central role inthis project”(2009:99). Viewed from the perspective of urban semiotics, McEwan’sLondon is a signification space, for it possesses both the signifier and the signified. Itis in itself a specific physical space, and is a metaphorical space with richsocio-cultural connotations. In essence, McEwan’s London is a crucial ingredient inmoulding the psychic schema of subjects, a significant field that reflects the mentalityand values of the British in a period of social transformation, a prism that refracts theproblems confronting the everyday life of city dwellers in the global context, and anindispensable medium through which the tension between civilization and instinct canbe surveyed. Up to now, critics have noticed that London stands out as a unique focusof delineation concerning McEwan’s literary creation, but by and large, the relevantstudy is not systematic enough. On this account, this dissertation attempts to makesome explorations in this field. Focusing on the key concepts of entropy, space, andspectacle, I intend to analyze the literary reflections of London in three pieces ofMcEwan’s works, to unfold the dismal panorama of the city, to reveal the socialmaladies of contemporary London, and to investigate McEwan’s meditation on thedark side of the city.The term “reflection” is bound up with the theory of mimesis in ancient Greekphilosophy. Plato underlines that art should imitate nature, while Aristotle highlightsthe creativity the poet should possess in the process of imitation. Thus, the term“reflection” stresses that artistic creation involves the fusion of facts and fiction. Asregards McEwan’s London narratives, it is directed both at reality and the novelist’srepresentation of this city. Reflections, in truth, are inclusive of multifariousphenomena, images, and impressions. By bringing into the analytic scope McEwan’s first collection of short stories named First Love, Last Rites (1975), his firstrepresentative novel named The Child in Time (1987), and the novel Saturday (2005)written in the relatively later period of his literary creation, this dissertation attemptsto unveil the panorama of London portrayed by McEwan. The three reflections of theentropic, wasteland-like, and spectacular London altogether bring to light the city’sblight on human body and subjectivity, hence the sombre panorama of contemporaryLondon.The reflection of London in First Love, Last Rites is an entropic one.“Entropy”refers to the loss of energy in a closed system. According to Richard Lehan, the rootof human life is nowhere else but in the earth, while the city exhausts everything inthe country and declares its bankruptcy in the end, this in turn cripples the city itself.As a consequence, human instinct and intuition give way to rationality andintellectualism, and the city becomes an entropic system that will go from chaos todestruction. In the text, the city’s entropic state finds expression in various urbanimages such as the canal, the tunnel, the basement, the cellar, and the prison. Most ofthese images are associated with the subterranean part of the city, and are connectedwith some traumatic experiences invited by sex, violence and death. Thus, it hints atthe city’s being in want of vigour and vitality. In some measure, urban entropyrevealed in these short stories can be analyzed in the context of the counterculturemovement of the1960s and1970s that swept much of the Western world. Yet, withoutrespect to the specific cultural background, urban entropy will make its presence aswell, for London’s entropic state is essentially invited by the lopsidedness between theid ingrained in human psyche and the superego tied up with urban civilization. In thecollection of short stories, the teenage characters, seized by primitive forces, posethreat on the city’s order in a vehement way. Much as urban civilization is bound upwith the superego, human instinct of love and that of death cannot be totallysuppressed. When the city lacks effective psychological adjustment mechanism, therebellious youngsters, as the returned suppressers, unscrupulously mock the fragilityof urban civilization. The presence of urban entropy is suggestive of its absence ofnegative entropy that refers to the free flow of energy. Interpersonal communication as a means of information supplement is scarce in the city due to the grotesquecharacters’ sequestering themselves from the outer world to get a sense of security.The enclosed spaces are symbolic of the womb, indicating that the characters hankerfor returning to the womb to overcome the sense of absurdity issuing from theseparation between a person and environment. Nevertheless, intrapersonalcommunication hinders the supplement of energy, and gives rise to the increase ofLondon’s entropy. In fine, the entropic state of London reflects the inherentcontradiction between urban civilization and the primitive id.In The Child in Time, McEwan portrays a wasteland-like London. By vehicle ofcity-writing, McEwan reviews the social conditions of the1980s Britain when MrsThatcher was in power. McEwan’s London much resembles the waste land depictedby T.S. Eliot: As regards its physical space, the contaminated London is just like awasteland. Under the influence of the government’s anthropocentric view of nature,instrumental rationality reigns and de-constructs human’s intuitive wisdom. In thevery context, Heidegger’s “Geviert”, or the oneness of the fourfold—sky and earth,mortals and divinities—is nowhere to be found again. In the text, London is plaguedby atrocious weather and traffic congestion, contrasting starkly with the countryside.The bleak physical space makes for the novelist’s construction of the dismal London.As regards its social space, the turbid London is just like a moral wasteland. McEwan,via writing the city, satirizes the social crisis courted by the Thatcher government’sright-wing conservative policies. The disintegration of the welfare state, theever-increasing gap between the rich and the poor, the prevalence ofultra-individualism, and the moral corruption of the political circles can all serve astelling evidence of the severity of the crisis. Thus, the city’s squalid social spacemakes for the novelist’s construction of the dismal London as well. Furthermore,McEwan delves into the protagonist’s poetic spiritual space, whose connection withthe innocent and exuberant childhood contracts sharply with London’s ecological andsocial barrenness. Despite his hankering for reviving his boyhood, the protagonistsimultaneously finds it hard to detach himself from the vanity fair of London. Caughtin the dilemma of whether to embrace London or escape from it, he commits suicide. The urban tragedy indicates that London is a city without the innocence of the child. Itis a cultural wasteland, saturated with corruption and complexity. The reflection of thewasteland of London accentuates the relationship between the city and the country.London, being at the core of Britain in terms of its economic, cultural, and societalsignificance, is the country in miniature. The social somberness of London bespeaksthe fate of the country.In Saturday, McEwan depicts London as a society of the spectacle.“Spectacle”,as an urbanological term, attaches ontological significance to itself by signifying thesubstitution of the apparent for the substantial. In the novel, the spectacle’s intangiblesuppression of human body and subjectivity is indicative of the cultural morbidity ofthe early-twenty-first-century London. First, the spectacle of architecture conceals thesocial idiosyncrasies of bureaucratization and commercialization: The carnival milieucreated by the city square disguises the authorities’ suppression of those on themargins of society. The spatial compactness of office buildings seemingly highlightsthe vitality and efficiency of capital production, but it overlooks the innermostfeelings of individuals. Old people’s homes seem to afford cozy dwellings for the old,but the homogeneous layout cannot invoke a feeling of being at home. Thus, thespectacle of architecture makes prominent London’s prosperity and orderliness, but itmerely carries out a false redemption of human body and subjectivity. Second, thespectacle of commodities substitutes choice images for the real world. In theconsumer society of contemporary London depicted by McEwan, commodities havebecome an aesthetic symbol which provides aesthetic solace and spiritual nourishmentfor beholders of commodities. In the novel, the protagonist’s being enslaved bycommodity fetishism reflects the tragic fact that the mode of the production of imagesin late capitalism confounds subjects’ consciousness of cultural introspection. Third,the spectacle of media processes information in line with the official discourse. Whenthe protagonist attempts to gain access to social authenticity through the privilege ofhis absent presence granted by media, the media logos, nevertheless, has prescribedhis being under supervision via its authoritarian policy. Humans fall victim tospectacles. In fine, the spectacles of architecture, commodities, and media, bear the brands of power and capital, disguise social authenticity by vehicle of visual images,and eventually deprive the perceptual being of his free will via visual surveillance.The spectacular London reflects McEwan’s profound meditation on the juxtapositionof the cosmopolitan city’s plurality and monotony, of its openness and oppressiveness.McEwan’s literary reflections of the entropic London, wasteland-like, andspectacular London all display the city’s morbidity despite their respective focuses.To McEwan, human beings are the measure of everything while judging a city’smerits and demerits. McEwan’s literary reflections of London all focus on urbanmaladies in post-industrial era, and the unfolding process is actually irreversible.From the chaotic, entropic London, to the transitional cityscape of the wasteland-likeLondon, and then to the seemingly impeccable, spectacular London, the urbanites’physical and spiritual crises become increasingly hard to detect, while the severity ofthe crises is ever-deepening. In the entropic London, characters directly rebel againstthe city in an extreme way when driven by the instinct of sex and that of aggression.In the wasteland of London, characters indirectly react against it through questing forone’s spiritual paradise. While in the spectacular London, characters are more oftenthan not too indulged in the kaleidoscopic city life to make a revolt. In the process ofurban development, the city’s discipline and suppression imposed on its dwellersseem to be more and more rigorous, but it fails to give prominence to the innermostfeelings of these dwellers. In some degree, they are perceived as “the other” by thecity, and this ultimately gives rise to the collapse of their inner order. The threereflections of London construct an overall picture: The city attempts to establish someorder, but it has to face a state of disorder. It is seemingly an invulnerable entity, but itis actually much too fragile. McEwan observes the city comprehensively: He lamentsover city dwellers’ traumatic urban experiences. He meditates on the physical andspiritual crises undergone by urbanites. He investigates the ecological andsocio-cultural conditions of contemporary London and other metropolises. And heinquires into the relationship between human instinct and the city, plus the boundarybetween barbarism and civilization.