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Forms and Functions of Houses As Spatial Settings in Select Novels by Ian Mcewan

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Forms and Functions of Houses As Spatial Settings in Select Novels by Ian Mcewan Forms and Functions of Houses as Spatial Settings in Select Novels by Ian McEwan Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz vorgelegt von Sonja SAURUGGER am Institut für Anglistik Begutachter: O.Univ.-Prof. Mag.art. Dr.phil. Werner Wolf Graz, 2014 Table of Contents 1. Introduction.....................................................................................................5 2. The Contemporary English Novel and Ian McEwan: A Synthesis of Tradition and Innovation .......................................................................................7 3. The Relevance of Space in Literature: The ‘Spatial Turn’...........................10 4.1. A Fruitful Interdependence: House and Literature........................................................ 13 4.2. Gaston Bachelard and the Poetics of Space: “The house […] is a ‘psychic state’”...... 14 4.2.1. The Vertical Perspective: The House and the Mind......................................... 15 4.2.2. The Horizontal Perspective: The House and its Surroundings ........................ 15 4.2.3. The house as refuge for the inner life............................................................... 17 5. The Great Good Place: The English House and its Garden .........................18 5.1. The Country House as a Literary Symbol..................................................................... 20 5.2. The Country House Overlooking the Garden ............................................................... 21 5.3. The Decay of the Country House.................................................................................. 22 6. The Gothic House and the Uncanny.............................................................23 7. Spatial Analysis ............................................................................................23 7.1. Lotman’s Spatial Reading: Space as an Ordering System ............................................ 23 7.2. The Relevant Elements of the House ............................................................................ 25 7.2.1. The Door: Protection and Secrecy.................................................................... 25 7.2.2. The Window: Border and Frame...................................................................... 26 7.2.3. Korrespondenz : Space as a Mirror ................................................................... 27 8. Form and function of the House in The Cement Garden (1978) ..................28 8.1. Children Running Wild: Tradition Revisited................................................................ 28 8.2. The Setting: A Family Home ........................................................................................ 31 8.2.1. A House of Decay ............................................................................................ 32 8.2.2. The Decaying Garden....................................................................................... 35 8.2.3. Lost in time....................................................................................................... 36 8.3. Transgressing Social Borders........................................................................................ 37 8.4. A Psychological Reading .............................................................................................. 39 8.5. Applying Lotman .......................................................................................................... 44 8.5.1. Inside vs. Outside............................................................................................. 44 8.5.2. Vacant roles...................................................................................................... 47 8.5.3. Order vs. Disorder............................................................................................ 48 2 8.5.4. Transgression by the heroine............................................................................ 49 8.6. Benefit for Interpretation............................................................................................... 50 9. The Form and Function of the House in Atonement (2001).........................52 9.1. The Setting: A Family Home ........................................................................................ 53 9.2. Reading the Rooms: Space as Mirror at Work.............................................................. 58 9.2.1. Briony’s Room: “a shrine of her controlling demon”...................................... 58 9.2.2. Cecilia’s and Emily’s Rooms: “What squalor and disorder”........................... 59 9.2.3. Robbie’s Room: “squashed under the apex”.................................................... 61 9.2.4. Turning the Postmodern Screw: Korrespondenz Revaluated .......................... 63 9.3. Applying Lotman .......................................................................................................... 64 9.3.1. Inside vs. Outside............................................................................................. 64 9.3.2. Aggressor and Transgressor: Some Difficulties............................................... 66 9.3.3. Imagination vs. Reality .................................................................................... 68 9.3.3.1. The Window Gaze: “Two Figures by a Fountain” .................................. 69 9.3.3.2. The Bridge as a Place of Transformation: “until something significant happened” .................................................................................................................. 71 9.3.3.3. The Library: Figures Projected onto Books ............................................ 72 9.3.3.4. Transgression by the Heroine .................................................................. 75 9.3.3.5. Inventing a Happy End: Transgression Reloaded ................................... 77 9.4. Benefit for Interpretation............................................................................................... 79 10. Form and Function of the House in Saturday (2005)...................................81 10.1. The Setting: A Family Home ...................................................................................... 83 10.2. Applying Lotman ........................................................................................................ 84 10.2.1. The Door: A “mundane embattlement”............................................................ 84 10.2.2. The Window: A Proleptic Glimpse.................................................................. 85 1.1.1. Inside vs. Outside............................................................................................. 87 10.2.2.1. Inside Spaces: Safe and Ordered ............................................................. 87 10.2.2.2. Outside Spaces: Threatening and Chaotic ............................................... 89 10.2.2.2.1. The Renegotiation of the City: A “brilliant invention”....................... 89 10.2.2.2.2. The Urban Idyll Destroyed: A “condition of the times” ..................... 91 10.2.3. Transgressions: Private vs. Public Realm ........................................................ 94 10.2.3.1. Media Interruptions: An “infection from the public domain” ................. 94 10.2.3.2. Hero and Anti-Hero ................................................................................. 96 10.2.3.3. First Confrontation: An Urban Drama .................................................... 98 10.2.3.4. Second Confrontation: A Domestic Drama ............................................. 99 10.2.4. The Restitution............................................................................................... 102 10.3. Benefit for interpretation........................................................................................... 104 11. Conclusion ..................................................................................................105 3 12. Bibliography ...............................................................................................107 12.1. Primary literature....................................................................................................... 107 12.2. Secondary literature................................................................................................... 107 12.3. Internet Resources ..................................................................................................... 112 13. Zusammenfassung in deutscher Sprache....................................................114 4 1. Introduction The relevance of space for literary analysis is a quite recent acknowledgment: with the ‘Spatial Turn’, which started in the late 1980’s with Edward Soja’s coinage of the term, spatial analysis has become a prospering approach in literary and cultural studies. As Cosgrove (quoted in Warf and Arias 2009: 1) describes, the “widely acknowledged spatial turn across arts and sciences corresponds to […] the concomitant recognition that position and context are centrally and inescapably implicated in all constructions of knowledge”. Furthermore, Michel Foucault (1984, online) declared the current era “the epoch of space” and consequently, spatial analysis can be considered one of the major preoccupations of literary studies. In a similar way as the engagement with space has become a leading topic in literary studies, English writer Ian McEwan is a dominating figure in contemporary literature and can be called with Peter Kemp (quoted in Childs 2006: 145) the “supreme
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