Bewilderment In Growing Up

Ian McEwan is one of prominent British writers active in contemporary literaryworld. His first novel The Cement Garden, has been popular and controversialbecause of superb narrative techniques and dark themes since its publication in1975.An adolescent named Jack narrates in a cool tone the experiences as he grows up withhis sisters and brother, including death, incest and cross-dressing. McEwan adoptsterrific narrative techniques to present the innocence, confusion, epiphany andregression when adolescents seek self-identity and values. Hence, the young needappropriate guidance and environment to become mature.The thesis analyzes the narrative techniques to interpret the adolescent problemsof the four protagonists. The thesis is composed of five chapters. The introduction, thefirst chapter, gives a brief introduction to the literary significance of McEwan, to TheCement Garden, and to the theory of narratology. Chapter Two focuses on focalization.Readers get into the inner world of characters to observe adolescent problems throughthe internal focalization adopted intentionally by McEwan in The Cement Garden.Chapter Three probes into narrative time. The thesis analyzes how the author createsterror and exposes problems from the perspective of order, duration and frequency.Chapter Four discusses unreliability. After concisely analyzing the implied author andnarrator, the unreliability of the narrator is closely comprehended to indicate theconfusion. Chapter Five is devoted to the thematic function of the narrative form afterthe discussion of narrative techniques. The analysis of devices is helpful to explorethe theme of the tragedy as four protagonists seek self-identity.The thesis makes a study of the narrative techniques in The Cement Garden,which achieves the unity of the form and content. It comes to a conclusion that thenarrative techniques employed by McEwan highlight the adolescent problems andmake it a masterpiece.