Rationalism and Irrationalism in Selected Novels of Ian Mcewan

Sense and Sensibility: Rationalism and Irrationalism in selected novels of Ian McEwan Submitted by Candice de Canha to the University of The Witwatersrand as a dissertation for the degree of Master of Arts in English Literature, May 2013. Word count: 50 000 words I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Date……………………Signature………...……. 1 Abstract Critics have widely assumed that Ian McEwan, being a New-Humanist, advocates rationalism in his novels. In this study I interrogate this assumption by analysing the interplay between “sense” and “sensibility” in his fiction. My dissertation focuses on the themes, language, point of view, narrative structures and symbolism in McEwan’s novels. It has taken the form of a comparative textual analysis and close reading of four of McEwan’s texts which I believe highlight the debate around “sense and sensibility” most explicitly: Enduring Love (1997); Amsterdam (1998); Atonement (2001) and Saturday (2005). The fact that the characters who represent rationalism are always male brings into question the role of gender within McEwan’s novels. Whether McEwan is a realist, modernist or postmodern writer, is another debate that emerges, when studying rationalism in his works. My project therefore addresses the conundrum of whether an author can be both a humanist and a postmodern writer, despite these ideologies seeming irreconcilable. This study examines the ways in which McEwan passes through these seemingly contradictory novelistic discourses, and ultimately rejects the moral indeterminacy of postmodern poetics, proving him to be a polygot writer. Finally, I conclude by arguing that McEwan does not promote “sense over sensibility” but rather suggests a balance between the two. This research stimulates debate around morality, gender and the challenges of ‘defining’ a postmodern novel. 2 Table of Contents Abstract ..2 Table of Contents ..3 Acknowledgements ..4 Introduction: McEwan and the Rational Man ..5 1 Self-Deception and Rationality in Enduring Love ..15 2 Masculinity, Professionalism and Self-Deception in McEwan’s Amsterdam ..36 3 Sense and Sensibility: Realism, Modernism and Postmodernism in McEwan’s Atonement ..69 4 McEwan’s Humanism of the Other: Morality in Saturday ..102 Conclusion: Sense and Sensibility: Striking a Balance ..137 Bibliography ..149 3 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my kind, patient and supportive supervisor, Dr Michelle Adler, for her guidance and incisive criticisms. The Department of English at the University of the Witwatersrand provided both financial assistance and a deep well of advice and encouragement. I am also indebted to Dr John Masterson, for his comments on work in progress. My Gran and Mom, Maureen Deacon and Diana de Canha, provided vital support, which I hope to one day repay. I am indebted to my brother Daniel de Canha for inspiring the art versus science debate, and Graeme Stewart for his unwavering support and patience. 4 Introduction: McEwan and the Rational Man In Enduring Love (1997) , Joe Rose is a scientific rationalist and materialist science writer; Clarissa is an English lecturer specialising in Romanticism and John Keats; Jed Perry is a madman with strongly defined religious feelings. All three of these characters are lovers in different forms. Similar characters – the scientific rationalist, the obsessive religious madman, and the literary scholar – are often brought together in McEwan’s novels. Henry Perowne, in Saturday (2005) , is a rationalist and neurosurgeon; his daughter Daisy is a literary poet; and Baxter is a criminal who faces the loss of consciousness from the dreaded Huntington’s disease. Much of the novels’ action is motivated by the clash of the different worldviews of the rationalist and religious or literary characters. “Sense” and “sensibility” are thus juxtaposed in McEwan’s novels. Amsterdam (1998) similarly epitomizes the central concerns of McEwan’s oeuvre. Like Enduring Love and Saturday, it is a study of extremely disturbed psychological states. Clive and Vernon’s “self-deception” and total immersion in their professions echo the pathological psychologies of the characters in McEwan’s other novels – Jed’s obsession with Joe (Enduring Love ), deep psychological trauma (Baxter’s taking hostage of the Perowne family in Saturday ), and the influence of the past on the present (Briony’s attempt to atone for her “crime” in Atonement ). McEwan depicts how a happy, stable environment can be disrupted by an external force or event, or by losing sight of reality. Joe in Enduring Love goes from being a happy character, on a picnic with his beautiful partner, to being stalked and harassed by a madman. Similarly, in Saturday, Henry Perowne turns down the wrong street and his car collides with the thug Baxter who terrorises his family. Although McEwan illustrates the fragility of love, in Enduring Love , with Jed’s advances driving Joe and Clarissa apart, he argues for the redeeming power of love. Ian McEwan, a self-proclaimed New Humanist 1, endorses a rationalist perspective of life, and critics have assumed that ‘rationalism’ is promoted in many of his texts. McEwan’s critique of irrational reasoning has been noted, in particular where the biological, emotional, 1 Humanism is “[t]he worldview founded on the belief in the irreducible dignity of humans, a belief in the efficacy and worth of human freedom and hence also of human responsibility” (Quine, 1987, p. 60). This form of humanism has its roots in the Enlightenment, in Kant's defense of the moral law. "New Humanism" is self- consciously "new," like New Labour; it has its own journal, the New Humanist , and its own sages, the most prominent of whom is Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene and vice-president of the British Humanist Association, of which McEwan is a member. The new humanism spends little time exalting man as an ideal. It says little about faith, hope, and charity; is scathing about patriotism and dismissive of rearguard actions in defense of family, public spirit, and sexual restraint. Instead of idealizing man, the new humanism attacks belief in God as a human weakness, and thus advocates rationalism (Brockman, 2006). 5 volitional, the unconscious or the existential is favoured at the expense of the rational. By contrast, the central aim of this study is to show that McEwan portrays the value of “sense” and “sensibility”, although he shows that when characters base their beliefs on their emotions and intuition, they are “deceiving” themselves, as Jean-Paul Sartre would say (Sartre, 2003, p. 50). The reference to Sense and Sensibility in the title refers to debates around epistemology or different types of knowledge: “sense” has been used to refer to rationalism, and to the ability to think through things with a practical wisdom or common sense this is juxtaposed with the term “sensibility” which here has been used to refer to the capacity to “feel,” or to a person’s emotions, which is often associated with the “irrational.” “Sense” and “Sensibility” are also used to represent the apparent juxtaposition of the sciences and the arts. I have examine this binary in Western thought, in order to illuminate the key characters in McEwan’s fiction, who often represent or struggle with the “sense” versus “sensibility” dichotomy. The title of the dissertation is clearly derived from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (1811). In Atonement (2001) the attitudes and actions of Briony – like Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility – are determined by ‘sensibility’ rather than ‘sense’. McEwan clearly represents this as morally dubious and leading to disaster, much as it does with Marianne. Marianne’s ‘sensibility’ constrasts sharply with Elinor’s sceptical or pessimistic view of man’s nature. Similarly, in Atonement (2001) the character Robbie represents rationalism and Briony irrationalism. “Sense over sensibility” would appear to describe the characters of Joe Rose, Henry Perowne and Robbie Turner, all of whom represent good sense, are able to distinguish between the “real” and fantasy, so that they can do the morally right thing in each situation, much like Elinor in Sense and Sensibility . It could thus be argued that McEwan’s fiction – like Austen’s – endorses sense or good reason over sensibility. This is the central assumption that my study sets out to interrogate. Is is useful at this stage to provide an overview of critical responses to McEwan’s fiction. David Malcolm (2002) explores the rational, as a function of knowledge, in Enduring Love and shows that McEwan illustrates that reason can only work with its own perspective on events, using available evidence to test its conclusions. He also suggests that the main message of the novel is that, “…knowledge is an uncertain thing, difficult to achieve, subject to revision, but is attainable, and the best way to it is through …rationalism, materialism and traditional science” (Malcolm, 2002, p. 178-179). I agree that objective disinterested truth is elusive, and I have argued that McEwan suggests that it does not make it less admirable to try. 6 Peter Childs points out an irony here, in that McEwan’s endorsement of rationalism challenges the novel’s ability to make sense of the world, as an art form rooted in the imagination. Advocacy of rationalism also contrasts with Clarissa’s research interest in the Romantic poet John Keats. Significantly, Keats’ famous dictum was ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’ from ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ (1820). While rationalism is praised in his novels, McEwan shows a deep interest in the stories that people tell in order to make sense of the world (Childs, 2006, p. 110). Thus the metafictional structure of McEwan’s novels continues his concern with epistemological questions in the content of the novels.

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