An Ecofeminist Interpretation Of Mcewan’s The Child In Time

Ian McEwan is acknowledged as one of the foremost cartographers of his time. Being written during McEwan’s transitional period from "Macabre" to a writer more concerned about social and political issues and awarded the Whitbread Novel Award, The Child in Time is of great importance in McEwan’s literary world. Since its publication, The Child in Time has aroused many discussions in the public and among the critics. The chief critical research has focused on the issues of the child, time and the relation between them. This thesis is devoted to the investigation into the anti-anthropocentrism and anti-patriarchy features of the novel. It attempts to identify the subversion of anthropocentrism and patriarchy in the text, to probe into McEwan’s ecofeminist concern and thematic ideology, and on this basis to provide a relatively new and penetrating way to interpret the novel.The thesis falls into three chapters. Chapter One considers how nature is used to rebel against human/nature dualistic hierarchy in the novel. McEwan treats nature as equal to humans, voicing out its own needs for respect and displaying humans’love for nature, as well as their holistic feelings in nature. In this way, the readers implicitly perceive McEwan’s reversion of anthropocentrism. Chapter Two analyzes such self-dependent women characters as Julie, Thelma and Claire and men’s needs in women for initiation in the novel as a specific way to subvert patriarchal subordination. By depicting several women characters with self-dependent careers or minds and Stephen’s needs in Julie and Thelma for an orderly social life and spiritual growth, McEwan indicates his defense of women and his denial of patriarchy. Chapter Three examines male characters and masculinity outside patriarchal framework in the novel. It maintains that the weakened and animalized men characters of The Child in Time indicate McEwan’s resistance to male superiority. Furthermore, McEwan disadvantages masculinity and propels holism by portraying Charles’s death in masculinity and Stephen’s rebirth in androgyny, which enables McEwan to announce his challenge to the core of patriarchy before the readers.Ecofeminists have primarily put their efforts to the study of the relationship between nature and women. To study a work from the angles of nature, women and men is still relatively more comprehensive than that. Though not theoretical in the systematic sense, this study draws on elements of ecofeminism theory to clarify and enliven the readers’understanding of McEwan’s The Child in Time, thus shedding light on the understanding of McEwan’s ideology, aesthetic ideas and his world outlook implied in this fiction.