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.

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

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2012-08-06Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:39:20Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 sbrissa_fs_me_sjrp.pdf: 797233 bytes, checksum: 5bce352079a39193380ab347ca430734 (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Este trabalho tem como objetivo discutir a noção de adaptação cinematográfica como independente do texto fonte, a partir de considerações a respeito do dialogismo e da intertextualidade, baseando-se principalmente em teóricos como Robert Stam (2000; 2004; 2008), Linda Hutcheon (2006), Christine Geraghty (2008) e Thomas Leitch (2008a; 2008b). Após um panorama das teorias da área, a dissertação analisa dois filmes baseados em dois romances do escritor inglês Ian McEwan, Amor Obsessivo (2004) e Desejo e Reparação (2007), para demonstrar como o critério de fidelidade não é determinante para a qualidade e/ou sucesso da adaptação cinematográfica / The objective of this study is to discuss the notion of cinematographic adaptation as being independent of its source text, beginning with considerations concerning dialogism and intertextuality, based mainly on theoreticians like Robert Stam (2000; 2004; 2008), Linda Hutcheon (2006), Christine Geraghty (2008) and Thomas Leitch (2008a; 2008b). After an overview of the theories of the area, the dissertation analyses two films based on two novels written by the English writer Ian McEwan, Enduring Love (2004) and Atonement (2007), in order to show how the criterion of fidelity is not a determining factor in the quality and/or success of the cinematographic adaptation

(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...

<p>Utgångspunkten för uppsatsen är att studera relationen mellan vissa aspekter av form och innehåll i tre kortare prosatexter. Dessa aspekter är framförallt berättarinstans, berättelsens uppbyggnad, och det i två av texterna utryckliga temat förändring. De valda texterna är kortromanen <em>På Chesil Beach </em>av Ian McEwan (2007), novellen ”Döden i Damaskus” av Anna-Karin Palm (2001) och kortromanen <em>Berömmelse</em> av Daniel Kehlmann (2010).</p><p>Litteraturvetenskapliga perspektiv och analysredskap är valda med tanke på att en av texterna påstår något om berättarens funktion, och att en av de andra texterna resonerar kring vad en berättelse är. De narratologiska verktygen faller sig därför naturliga. Den hermeneutiska metoden används i begränsad utsträckning för tolkningen av texterna. Resultatet av studien visar att texternas uppbyggnad<strong> </strong>i två av fallen tydligt medverkar till att gestalta texternas teman. Den vid första anblicken postmoderna texten <em>Berömmelse</em> – <em>Roman i nio historier</em> (2010) visar sig ha en mer sammanhängande struktur än som kanske märks vid en första snabb genomläsning. I samtliga tre texter är karaktärerna bärare av temat.</p>

Approaching the idea of the library as a polyvocal, self-contradictory and even paradoxical dream, this thesis examines five select texts to examine how this dream emerges across vastly different representations in fiction. Discussed texts include Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Library of Babel” and “The Book of Sand,” Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, Ian McEwan’s Atonement, and Thomas Wharton’s Salamander. Special attention is given to the archetypal opposition between daytime’s clarity and night’s disorder, as well as to Alberto Manguel’s two hypothesized library foundational myths, the Tower of Babel and the Library of Alexandria. Although it attempts to remain conscious of social realities surrounding and producing historical libraries, this thesis is primarily concerned with the textual irruption of libraries in fictional narratives, and while its argument articulates the problematic dimension of libraries, it also endeavours to show how libraries are healthy, necessary, and even inevitable human creations. / A survey of library representations in select literary texts.

This dissertation examines the trope of filiation in novels by three contemporary British writers: John Banville, Ian McEwan, and Kazuo Ishiguro. The trope of filiation and the related theme of inheritance has long been central to the concerns of the British novel, but it took on a new significance in the twentieth century, as the novel responded both thematically and formally to the aftermath of the two world wars. This study demonstrates the ways in which Banville, McEwan, and Ishiguro each situate their work in relation to this legacy, by means of an analogy between the inheritance structures figured within their novels and the inheritance performed by their engagement with the genre itself. This study relies on an instructive analogy to similar treatments of the larger problem of cultural filiation by the theorists Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. Levinas exposes in his work the ethical and political problems of modernist temporality by critiquing modernity’s rejection of filiation, a rejection modeled also in the lost children, and barren and celibate men and women of modernist novels. Derrida meanwhile provides a way forward with his representation and performance of inheritance as a critical and transformative act, which is characterised on one hand by an ethical injunction, and on the other, by a filtering or a differentiation which changes the tradition even as it reaffirms it.

This dissertation examines the trope of filiation in novels by three contemporary British writers: John Banville, Ian McEwan, and Kazuo Ishiguro. The trope of filiation and the related theme of inheritance has long been central to the concerns of the British novel, but it took on a new significance in the twentieth century, as the novel responded both thematically and formally to the aftermath of the two world wars. This study demonstrates the ways in which Banville, McEwan, and Ishiguro each situate their work in relation to this legacy, by means of an analogy between the inheritance structures figured within their novels and the inheritance performed by their engagement with the genre itself. This study relies on an instructive analogy to similar treatments of the larger problem of cultural filiation by the theorists Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. Levinas exposes in his work the ethical and political problems of modernist temporality by critiquing modernity’s rejection of filiation, a rejection modeled also in the lost children, and barren and celibate men and women of modernist novels. Derrida meanwhile provides a way forward with his representation and performance of inheritance as a critical and transformative act, which is characterised on one hand by an ethical injunction, and on the other, by a filtering or a differentiation which changes the tradition even as it reaffirms it.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Akron, Dept. of English, 2007. / "May, 2007." Title from electronic thesis title page (viewed 4/26/2009) Advisor, Sheryl Stevenson; Faculty Reader, Bob Pope; Department Chair, Diana Reep; Dean of the College, Ronald F. Levant; Dean of the Graduate School, George R. Newkome. Includes bibliographical references.