Analysis On The Existential Plight In Ian McEwan’s Novels

Ian McEwan (1948-) is one of the predominant novelists in the contemporary British literature. Making a general survey of his fiction, it is not difficult to find that the content level always focus on the plight of his characters and explore the road of plight breakout to save themselves, full of humanistic care, no matter how changeable the style、theme. narrative of his works were. So, to reveal the survival predicament and breakout is one of the important contents in novels.This thesis studies the plight of characters in his fiction, based on intensive reading, combined with sociology, culture, psychology and so on, to give his novels an overall observation, to explore and grasp the inner changes and inheritance to deepen the understandings of the value and artistic charm. The body is mainly divided into four parts. The first part explains reasons of the plight of the characters, concretely from three aspects including the factors of the times and the society、life experiences and his creation ideology. The second and third parts analyze the survival plight of his characters, respectively from the following two aspects, which is the inner spiritual plight and the external survival plight. The spiritual dilemma is mainly for questions and exploring loneliness of people with living and lonely individual self-identity anxiety. External survival plight is mainly for people living circumstances facing the social and natural double troubles. The fourth part emphasizes the ways to overcome the plight to save themselves such as the return to nature and the reconstruction of love in fictions and points out that the writer try to give calm soul and spiritual comfort to the characters in the plight.Time flows in the plight and life sublimates in the ordeal. McEwan wrote down the cruelty、lost and confusion simultaneously the warmth、hope and comfort. In the long journey of life, difficulties and sufferings are inevitable. McEwan described complicated living situation of the characters with his extremely honest attitude in his fiction, to make readers see his thinkings and questions to life as a responsible writer.