Posthuman-ism In Ian McEwan’s Novels

China as well as the whole world are engaged with fundamental changes with the backdrop of the ever-changing political situations and up-surging science and technologies,which encourage more intimate relationships within humans and between the humans and the information.However,bright side does not come along,in that lots of challenges rush into the society,as well,including gender discrimination,pollution,climate change,and so on,urging all humans to reexamine the relationships inside and outside human groups as soon as possible.As the British “national writer” Ian McEwan writes about practical social issues as well as diversified power subjects,and intends to criticize the androcentrism,adultism and anthropocentrism,which inject his works a sense of post-humanistic spirit.Hence,his works can serve as good examples to cope with the present challenges.Ian McEwan’s works are mainly about three major themes and topics,exploring the power relations between males and females,adults and children,and humans and non-humans,respectively.Hence,a post-humanistic analysis of his three representative novels,including The Comfort of Strangers,The Child in Time and Machines Like Me could help to grasp Mc Ewan’s overall view on the way of coexistence between humans as well as between humans and other creatures.Apart from the introduction and conclusion,the thesis is constituted by three chapters.The first chapter points out the tamed and otherized female bodies represented by the female protagonist Caroline in The Comfort of Strangers under the male dominance before explaining Ian Mc Ewan’s intentions to deconstruct the androcentrism and advocate a diversified gender expression by considering Robert,the male abuser,is a victim of the patriarchal system,too,in that violence and extreme control are indispensable for him to maintain the discursive power in the field of family and gender relations so as to stabilize the rigid and broken masculinity prescribed by the value from his father and grandfather;and by proposing the performativity of gender through the feminine protagonist Colin.And then,the second chapter illustrates the notion of “child” in an absent sense and its status as the object deprived of discourse by adults in The Child in Time before unwrapping Ian Mc Ewan’s efforts to emphasize an equal dialogue between adults and children and to blur the boundary between adulthood and childhood through the contrast between the two protagonists’,Stephan and Charlie’s,pursuit for the children’s traits and through his manipulation of the unnatural temporalities in a narrative sense.And finally,the third chapter discusses the machines or nonhumans as the oppressed under the human’s control and their aphasia in the narrative sense before demonstrating Ian Mc Ewan’s advocacy to reconsider the anthropocentrism in Machines Like Me through an emphasis of the unity of “mind” and “body” as well as the interface between humans and machines by a description of the Cyborg body and the inclusive ethics.With the post-humanistic criticism and deconstruction of androcentrism,adultism and anthropocentrism,Ian Mc Ewan’s novels drive humans to reflect on the relationships between the males and females,adults and children,as well as humans and non-humans while at the same time call for the alert and elimination of binary power relationships,all kinds of centrism and discriminations in today’s world,highlighting a joint effort of all to establish a harmonious and diversified society within and outside human groups.This is also a practical try of the community of a shared future proposed by China in the field of literature.