Illness As Metaphor:De Clerambault’s Syndrome In Ian McEwan’s Endurins Love

Illness in literature is not a simple phenomenon. Its meanings are often beyond its medical category because metaphorical thinking about illness is deeply rooted in people’s mind. The focus of this thesis is the metaphorical meanings behind the illness named de Clerambault’s syndrome in Ian McEwan’s novel Enduring Love. It mainly presents the psychological meaning, sociocultural meaning and religious meaning attached to that syndrome. Referring to its psychological metaphor, de Clerambault’s syndrome is not only a common psychiatric illness, but also reveals some psychological problems. Those problems are caused by Jed’s depressing and lonely mood, which indicate people’s meaningless and depressing life. As time goes by, it causes serious alienation of people. As a result, people’s psychology is deformed, which causes something like Jed’s mysterious de Clerambault’s syndrome. In terms of its sociocultural meanings, like many other mental disease patients, the patient of de Clerambault’s syndrome is usually constructed as the "abnormal" marginal man because people don’t treat them as pure mental disordered patients. What’s worse, de Clerambault’s syndrome is special. Doctors cannot find its causes and treatment, which challenges the existing established order and knowledge system. Michel Foucault has said that any person who threatens the established central power will be marginalized. This is one of the cruxes of western countries’sociocultural problems. Hence, the cause of such stubborn illness also metaphorizes western countries’ stubborn cultural disease. Besides its stubbornness, another strange symptom of Jed’s disease is its profound religious color. It indicates that now people gradually abandon their religious faith. They are facing the crisis of faith. However, they need it to balance their wealthy material life and depressing spiritual life. Thus, they restart to believe in God to find the way to detach them from meaningless life. The last chapter concludes that the mysterious de Clerambault’s syndrome is "infectious" and harmful. It symbolizes the "illness of the age". And it becomes one of the ways for people to escape from this alienated world.