Family and Relationships in Ian McEwan's Fiction: Between Fantasy and Desire
The book provides a lucid analysis of all Ian McEwan fiction published to date, from his 1975 debut short stories up to the 2016 novel Nutshell, spanning forty years of his literary career. Apart from a general discussion of McEwan’s works, the study offers a uniform focal point: it concentrates on one of the key issues taken up by the writer – the aspect of relationships between partners and between family members. As the book demonstrates, the novelist employs interpersonal relations to establish a pertinent context in which he can dramatically portray the process of identity formation in his characters. Throughout his fiction, McEwan consistently uses references to psychoanalysis, either veiled or direct. The proposed book investigates the novelist’s oeuvre through the lens of the psychoanalytic theory developed by Jacques Lacan. The approach used makes the book useful both for readers well familiar with this apparatus, and for those who need introduction to Lacanian psychoanalysis and such of his concepts as “desire,” “fantasy,” “the symbolic order” or “ the Name-of-the-Father.”
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Family and Relationships in Ian McEwan's Fiction: Between Fantasy and Desire
The book provides a lucid analysis of all Ian McEwan fiction published to date, from his 1975 debut short stories up to the 2016 novel Nutshell, spanning forty years of his literary career. Apart from a general discussion of McEwan’s works, the study offers a uniform focal point: it concentrates on one of the key issues taken up by the writer – the aspect of relationships between partners and between family members. As the book demonstrates, the novelist employs interpersonal relations to establish a pertinent context in which he can dramatically portray the process of identity formation in his characters. Throughout his fiction, McEwan consistently uses references to psychoanalysis, either veiled or direct. The proposed book investigates the novelist’s oeuvre through the lens of the psychoanalytic theory developed by Jacques Lacan. The approach used makes the book useful both for readers well familiar with this apparatus, and for those who need introduction to Lacanian psychoanalysis and such of his concepts as “desire,” “fantasy,” “the symbolic order” or “ the Name-of-the-Father.”
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Family and Relationships in Ian McEwan's Fiction: Between Fantasy and Desire

Family and Relationships in Ian McEwan's Fiction: Between Fantasy and Desire

by Tomasz Dobrogoszcz
Family and Relationships in Ian McEwan's Fiction: Between Fantasy and Desire

Family and Relationships in Ian McEwan's Fiction: Between Fantasy and Desire

by Tomasz Dobrogoszcz

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Overview

The book provides a lucid analysis of all Ian McEwan fiction published to date, from his 1975 debut short stories up to the 2016 novel Nutshell, spanning forty years of his literary career. Apart from a general discussion of McEwan’s works, the study offers a uniform focal point: it concentrates on one of the key issues taken up by the writer – the aspect of relationships between partners and between family members. As the book demonstrates, the novelist employs interpersonal relations to establish a pertinent context in which he can dramatically portray the process of identity formation in his characters. Throughout his fiction, McEwan consistently uses references to psychoanalysis, either veiled or direct. The proposed book investigates the novelist’s oeuvre through the lens of the psychoanalytic theory developed by Jacques Lacan. The approach used makes the book useful both for readers well familiar with this apparatus, and for those who need introduction to Lacanian psychoanalysis and such of his concepts as “desire,” “fantasy,” “the symbolic order” or “ the Name-of-the-Father.”

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781498539876
Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication date: 02/23/2018
Pages: 264
Product dimensions: 6.29(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.01(d)

About the Author

Tomasz Dobrogoszcz is assistant professor of English at the University of Łódź

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part 1: Beginnings
Chapter 1: Disturbing Proximity and Grotesque ProportionsWhen It Comes to First Love, Last Rites and In Between the Sheets
Chapter 2: The Oedipal Siblingsin The Cement Garden of Eden
Chapter 3: Anchoring The Comfort Of Strangers in the Sadistic Paternal Superego
Part 2: Developments
Chapter 4: The Child in Time and the Child Within
Chapter 5: The Precariousness of The Innocent Childish Masculinity
Chapter 6: The Traumatic Encounter with Black Dogs and the Real
Chapter 7: Enduring Love, Childlessness, Unreliability, and the Enigma of the Other’s Desire
Part 3: Maturity
Chapter 8: The Path Toward Deathvia Amsterdam
Chapter 9: The Recognition of Otherness in the Fantasyof Atonement
Chapter 10: The Pacifying Saturday Fantasy of a Non-pacifist
Chapter 11: The Big Other Is Watching YouEven On Chesil Beach
Part 4: Recent Fiction
Chapter 12: Solar and the Unbearable Heaviness of Desire
Chapter 13: The Opalescent Sweet Tooth of Deceptive Manipulation
Chapter 14: How The Children Act toEffect the Split Between Psychological and Symbolic Identity
Chapter 15: Craving the Mother’s Desirein a Nutshell
Conclusion: Love Will Tear Us Apart?
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