Gender Relations In Ian McEwan's Novels

Ian McEwan is one of the most influential writers of the contemporary British.Initially,McEwan was known as "Ian Macabre" because of violence,death,abnormal condition in his novel.Though his writing style changed a lot later,Gender relation is still one of exploring themes of McEwan's novel.This paper is divided into three chapters:The first chapter explained the influence of the heterosexual parents on the process of individual growth,and explained the relationship between subject and their parents.Patriarchal tradition made the father take the center of discourse right,while mother was absent or stealth.This led to the loss of part of the self in the process of constructing the male subject.Consequently,rejecting their mother who have no right during the process of growing-up,men actively modelled themselves after their father,and were eager to become a man who has the the same characters with their father.While under the oppression of patriarchy,some women early accepted her object identity as her mother.As male's accessories,they either produced Electra complex,or suffered the sexual abuse to seek their own sense of presence.Under the influence of the patriarchy,different psychology took shape and became the barriers and limitations of their subsequent marital life,bounding the expression of the true self.Speech lost its meaning of communication,instead turned to a good tool to cover up the true self.Starting from the disharmonious gender relations in the novel,the second chapter analyzed the lack of communication and both sexes which were unable to transcend gender barriers.In their relations,they appeared in opposite directions,and then became more and more alienated and alienated.At first,McEwan thought that this opposition was unresolved,so his series of horrifying tragic stories just revealed this opposition and did not find a way to break the opposition.Taking "The Child in Time "as the research object,the third chapter discussed the gender relationship of reconciliation and rebuilding.In this novel,McEwan began to find ways to resolve the opposites.By writing that men struggled in the male hegemony and tried to seek their own identity,McEwan also let men go out of the narrow self centeredness under the call of maternity,making them dig the inner mind of themselves,face it honestly,and recognize the subjectivity and value of women.On the basis of recognition,the two sexes became able to communicate,and eliminated the opposite state,so that the relationship between the sexes changed towards balance and integration.