The Loss Of Masculinity And Pursuit For New Identities Of Men In Ian McEwan's The Child In Time

Ian Russell McEwan(1948-)is one of the most predominant writers of contemporary English literature who has produced over twenty literary works since the publication of his first short story collection First Love,Last Rites in 1975.The Child in Time,winner of the Whitbread Novel Award of 2005,is commonly regarded as the turning point of his literary career.By recording the psychological loss and regain of the male characters,McEwan's view of male is strongly demonstrated in the story.However,most studies concerning this novel are focalized on the theme and McEwan's postmodern narration.As studies on characterization are mainly centered on the progressive female characters,male characters and their masculinity issues in this novel are ignored.Therefore,this thesis endeavors to analyze the loss of hegemonic masculinity and pursuit for new identities of the male characters and seeks to explore McEwan's view of male reflected in the story.Employing Connell's three-fold model of the gender structure,this thesis presents the loss of hegemonic masculinity of the two male characters in three gender relations,namely the loss of control in power relations,the decline of the dominance in production relations and the collapse of mastery in cathexis.What is more,this thesis also analyzes two male characters' pursuit for new identities and tries to explore McEwan's view of male reflected in the story.The major findings of this thesis are summarized as the following aspects: firstly,there are internal and external factors leading to the loss of hegemonic masculinity of men.Internally,childhood trauma and Oedipus Complex repressed in the unconscious and the dramatic change in role identity contribute a lot to their loss.Externally,the society they live in also gives them masculine anxiety.Through “discipline”,men are trained to be docile by the symbolic Thatcherite government.With the awakening of modern women,men's dominance in gender relation is being mitigated as well.Secondly,it shows that the two male characters made different judgments on the pursuit for new identities after the masculine crisis.Based on the wrong judgment on person identity,Charles fails and commits suicide.Whereas Stephen manages to balance his male identity and build proper role and social identities accordingly.Thirdly,it is found that through the image of Stephen,McEwan is trying to reveal the fact that modern men are not oppressors of women but victims of patriarchal society and masculine idealism,and masculinity is in constant change.In addition,this view of male is found to be caused by his similar upbringing with Stephen,the influence of the Second Wave of Women's Liberation Movement and his discontent with Thatcherite policy.The innovation of this thesis lies in that it analyzes the loss of hegemonic masculinity and pursuit for new identities of male characters in The Child in Time.Firstly,male characters' loss of hegemonic masculinity is analyzed in power relations,production relations and cathexis;secondly,internal and external factors leading to their loss are analyzed as well;thirdly,men's pursuit for new identities including role identity,social identity and person identity is studied;fourthly,McEwan's view of male reflected in the novel is summarized.This thesis provides a new angle for studies on McEwan and the The Child in Time.Hopefully,it would shed some light on further studies.