My diploma thesis Space in Contemporary British Fiction will focus on the concept of space in contemporary British novel; at first, three of leading English authors will be mentioned (Ian McEwan, Graham Swift, Martin Amis), and it will briefly characterize the literary period in which their novels were published. In the chosen novels, the thesis will notice the changes of McEwan´s work towards the globalization of space. The core of interpretational analyses will be the novels The Cement Garden, The Comfort of Strangers, Amsterdam, Saturday, Solar and Sweet Tooth. The comparison with Golding´s Lord of the Flies will be a part of the chapter concerning McEwan´s first novel, The Cement Garden.

The diploma thesis "From Child In Time to Atonement: The importance of crisis in Ian McEwan's works" aims to identify and subsequently analyse the issue of crisis in the selected works of Ian McEwan. The thesis focuses on six novels: The Child In Time, The Innocent, Black Dogs, Enduring Love, Amsterdam and Atonement. In the theoretical part, Ian McEwan is introduced in the context of British literature. Since Ian McEwan's work is on occasion influenced by postmodern thinking, the concept of postmodernism is characterized in brief. As Ian McEwan's later fiction is influenced immensely by his literary beginnings, his early fiction is introduced in order to provide a holistic view, a more complete picture. The following practical part examines the concept of crisis in Ian McEwan's work, using the author's selected works as references.

This Thesis is an experiment. Within its pages a number of stories will be told, the foci of which will apply a particular methodology—what I call ‘Ethnographic Criticism’—to the examination of a specific concept: modern Atheist identity. First, it will introduce Ethnographic Criticism as a new and significant style of literary analysis aimed at reading fictional texts in order to generate anthropological insights about how particular identities are formed. Second, it will use this new means of criticism to discuss and evaluate how Atheist identity might be perceived as being constructed within a dialectic between seemingly exclusive forms of Theism and Atheism. Ethnographic Criticism exists at the nexus between fiction and ethnography, and its genesis derives from three foundational pillars: ethnographic construction, Ethical Criticism, and discourse analysis. In the three Chapters of Part One, each of these pillars will be established, both exegetically and critically. This examination will play a key role in explicating how the ‘made-up’ qualities of fiction might be converted into the ‘made-from’ qualities of ethnography. Additionally, these Chapters will reveal the roots of Ethnographic Criticism through an analysis of discourses dealing with the ‘literary turn’ in the theory of anthropology, how Ethical Criticism associates fictional character development with identity construction, and the anthropological benefits of discourse analysis. As a case study, I will apply Ethnographic Criticism to an analysis of Atheist identity construction. Due to the combination of a relative absence of existing ethnographic sources on the subject, an ambiguous academic discourse on the definition of the term, and a paucity of cultural units or ‘tribes’ of Atheists in which to observe, my use of Ethnographic Criticism will attempt to fill a methodological lacuna concerning the study of Atheist identity. Thus, in Part Two, I will focus on two fictional texts by the contemporary English novelist Ian McEwan: Black Dogs (1992) and Enduring Love (1997). In this analysis, not only will McEwan’s fictional characters be treated as if they are ‘real,’ historical individuals, they will be evaluated through an anthropological lens in order to isolate within their interactional validations a means to understand how Atheists define themselves via dialectical communication. In this way, and in both explicating and reflecting upon this approach, my experimental analysis will identify a number of dynamic, yet no less precarious, outcomes that might surface from reading fictional texts as if they were authoritatively equal to ethnographic ones.

Numerous studies have pointed to the historiographic and metafictional aspects of Ian McEwan’s and Graham Swift’s fiction, although few have examined the connections between McEwan and Swift. This study develops from that work by proposing that McEwan’s and Swift’s fictions explore similar themes, beyond those of just history and metafiction. By situating McEwan and Swift as postmodern writers who are strikingly intertextual, in the sense initially coined by Julia Kristeva, this study will show that both authors are deeply concerned with the violence of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and the role that violence has played in the failure of metanarratives, as well as the resulting terror subjects face as they seek replacements for the personal authenticity, legitimacy, and meaning once provided by totalizing metanarratives. This study also illustrates that McEwan and Swift recognize the persistence of the metanarrative of science, as well as the psychic violence inherent in trying to replace metanarratives with received literary traditions. By developing on these ideas, this thesis argues that McEwan and Swift are actively engaged not only in exploring the anxiety subjects face as they realize there is nothing left upon which they can base their personal legitimacy, but also that the authors are suggesting there is no easy replacement for the lost, albeit fictitious, authenticity once situated in metanarratives and received genres. Finally, this paper will demonstrate that while these two contemporary novelists significantly problematize narrative and narrative frameworks, McEwan and Swift ultimately convey only one sure method to cope with the mourning and terror of the postmodern condition: continue writing.

Numerous studies have pointed to the historiographic and metafictional aspects of Ian McEwan’s and Graham Swift’s fiction, although few have examined the connections between McEwan and Swift. This study develops from that work by proposing that McEwan’s and Swift’s fictions explore similar themes, beyond those of just history and metafiction. By situating McEwan and Swift as postmodern writers who are strikingly intertextual, in the sense initially coined by Julia Kristeva, this study will show that both authors are deeply concerned with the violence of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and the role that violence has played in the failure of metanarratives, as well as the resulting terror subjects face as they seek replacements for the personal authenticity, legitimacy, and meaning once provided by totalizing metanarratives. This study also illustrates that McEwan and Swift recognize the persistence of the metanarrative of science, as well as the psychic violence inherent in trying to replace metanarratives with received literary traditions. By developing on these ideas, this thesis argues that McEwan and Swift are actively engaged not only in exploring the anxiety subjects face as they realize there is nothing left upon which they can base their personal legitimacy, but also that the authors are suggesting there is no easy replacement for the lost, albeit fictitious, authenticity once situated in metanarratives and received genres. Finally, this paper will demonstrate that while these two contemporary novelists significantly problematize narrative and narrative frameworks, McEwan and Swift ultimately convey only one sure method to cope with the mourning and terror of the postmodern condition: continue writing.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-59).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-59). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2006. / Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 98 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Numerous studies have pointed to the historiographic and metafictional aspects of Ian McEwan’s and Graham Swift’s fiction, although few have examined the connections between McEwan and Swift. This study develops from that work by proposing that McEwan’s and Swift’s fictions explore similar themes, beyond those of just history and metafiction. By situating McEwan and Swift as postmodern writers who are strikingly intertextual, in the sense initially coined by Julia Kristeva, this study will show that both authors are deeply concerned with the violence of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and the role that violence has played in the failure of metanarratives, as well as the resulting terror subjects face as they seek replacements for the personal authenticity, legitimacy, and meaning once provided by totalizing metanarratives. This study also illustrates that McEwan and Swift recognize the persistence of the metanarrative of science, as well as the psychic violence inherent in trying to replace metanarratives with received literary traditions. By developing on these ideas, this thesis argues that McEwan and Swift are actively engaged not only in exploring the anxiety subjects face as they realize there is nothing left upon which they can base their personal legitimacy, but also that the authors are suggesting there is no easy replacement for the lost, albeit fictitious, authenticity once situated in metanarratives and received genres. Finally, this paper will demonstrate that while these two contemporary novelists significantly problematize narrative and narrative frameworks, McEwan and Swift ultimately convey only one sure method to cope with the mourning and terror of the postmodern condition: continue writing. / Graduate Studies, College of (Okanagan) / Graduate

(in English): The focus of this diploma thesis is disillusion in the works of the contemporary novelist Ian McEwan, particularly in his twenty-first century novels. The thesis analyses the disillusionment of the reader based on McEwan's work with traditional narratives and the reader's expectations, which is achieved through the employment of the unreliable narrator in Atonement (2001) and Sweet Tooth (2012), depiction of self-deception in Saturday (2005) and Solar (2010), and the misunderstanding on the interpersonal and intrapersonal level in On Chesil Beach (2007) and The Children Act (2014). The analysis uses the method of close reading and critical evaluation through the hermeneutic process in combination with Iser's theory about the reader, Foucault's definition of discourse and some generally accepted ideas based on psychology. The analysis reveals that Ian McEwan uses disillusion in his novels as a device through which he tries to encourage the reader to critically evaluate the reader's preconceptions about the world, the conventional narratives, and the roles the reader ascribes to him/herself and to the society around him/herself. By allowing the reader to build his/her expectations of the story's denouement and then crushing them, McEwan points out the reader's routine regarding a given...