The Intensity of the Event The Impact of Ian McEwan's Distended Moments in Atonement, Saturday and On Chesil Beach Hannah Courtney A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts (Research) University of New South Wales 2010 Abstract Ian McEwan has been a prolific and highly successful author – both critically and in the popular market – since the 1970s. Over that time his work has not remained stagnant – his style morphing as he explored different literary concepts and techniques. McEwan’s early works gave him a ‘shock horror’ label – those who read his early short stories and novels came to expect the repugnant base elements of humanity (such as murder and incest) that filled his pages. However, McEwan’s style has indeed altered with time, and this thesis argues for a ‘late’ McEwan style – that found within his early twenty-first century novels. These novels – Atonement, Saturday and On Chesil Beach – marked McEwan’s entry into the mainstream, and with this came a new signature technique. This thesis closely examines these three works, exploring the advent of the ‘McEwan distended moment’. Each novel contains (at least) one pinnacle scene in the telling of which McEwan expands the moment, swelling the narrative time duration and acutely focusing readerly attention on the mind of the focalised character in their moment of personal crisis or import. Utilising an in-depth structuralist approach to technical textual analysis, combined with theories of narrative exploration of character consciousness, and narrative time theories (specifically the work of Gerard Genette), the nature of these distended moments is closely examined. This thesis argues that McEwan engages elements of traditional novelistic, modernist and postmodernist techniques in order to produce a new (perhaps unique) combination during these pinnacle scenes. Specifically, it is revealed that in these distended moments, the realisation of slowed scene aids the 1 in-depth exploration of character consciousness (an expansion of the modernist ‘flow of consciousness’) within the moving moment of personal consequence. 2 Originality Statement ‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgment is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’ Signed .............................................................................. Date .............................................................................. 3 Copyright Statement ‘I hereby grant to the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the abstract of my thesis in Dissertations Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only). I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my thesis or I have obtained permission to use copyright material; where permission has not been granted I have applied/will apply for a partial restriction of the digital copy of my thesis or dissertation.’ Signed .............................................................................. Date .............................................................................. 4 Authenticity Statement ‘I certify that the Library deposit digital copy is a direct equivalent of the final officially approved version of my thesis. No emendation of content has occurred and if there are any minor variations in formatting, they are the result of the conversion to digital format.’ Signed .............................................................................. Date .............................................................................. 5 Acknowledgements First and foremost I wish to thank my wonderful family – thank you for your loving emotional support and your financial assistance over the years. To Joel, thanks for the tech support! To my parents, thank you for instilling a love of literature in your black sheep of a daughter, and more recently for being excellent sounding boards for my complicated theoretical ideas; to dad for being an on-hand thesaurus and to mum for tirelessly listening to my enthusiastic brainstorming and for reading some of my final drafts. I love you very much. Heartfelt thanks go to my supervisor, Julian Murphet, who has tirelessly guided two years of my advanced education with humour, encouragement and tremendous knowledge. To Paul Dawson, my co-supervisor, thank you for so enthusiastically encouraging my postgraduate studies, and for going out of your way to help me get here – I feel tremendous gratitude for the helping hand you offered. Thanks also for your efforts in the role of Postgraduate Coordinator. Many thanks to UNSW for being my second home over the past seven and a half years – specifically to the School of English (now EMPA) and its lecturers who have moulded my tertiary education. I wish to single out a few academics who have encouraged and pushed me over my years of study – Roslyn Jolly, Bill Walker, Richard Madelaine, Elizabeth McMahon and Sue Kossew. Thank you all for your insights and inspiration – 6 you have helped shape the academic I am becoming. Thanks also to the current Postgraduate Coordinator, Michelle Langford, for your dedication. I wish to acknowledge the lively and enthusiastic session on the subject of Ian McEwan in which I took part at the 2010 AAL conference. Thanks to my fellow panellists Suzy McDonald and Susan Green, and to the particularly vocal audience members and supporters, including Jacinta Kelly and Judith Seaboyer (thanks, Judith, for your encouraging words). This session was inspiring, and really got me thinking about other viewpoints and angles – everyone has an opinion on McEwan! Warm, loving hugs go to my friends who have amazed me with their sincere interest in my research. Particularly to Bec, for keeping up my morale via email and for reminding and reassuring me (against the wave of outside negativity) that this is a real and worthwhile activity in a real and worthwhile field. Finally, to Ben – my partner, my love, my best friend. I love that you gently nudge, but never push. Thank you for being the strong, loving arms into which I can fall. 7 Contents Abstract 1 Originality Statement 3 Copyright Statement 4 Authenticity Statement 5 Acknowledgements 6 Contents 8 A Note on Referencing 10 Introduction 11 Modernism, Postmodernism and the Traditional Novel 25 Swelled Moments and Character Consciousness 29 Thought Reporting 31 Time Theories 35 Other Authors 41 McEwan Critics 48 Methodology 53 Atonement 61 A Bid for the Mainstream 61 The Pivotal Scene 67 Modernism and Woolf in the Fountain Scene 74 Slowed Scene in the Distended Moment 79 8 Inclusion and Omission of a Lifetime 83 The Final Reveal 88 Saturday 100 Time and Place – Terrorism, Paranoia and Irony 100 Modernism and Mrs Dalloway 113 Three Distended Moments 118 Determinism versus Choice 130 On Chesil Beach 143 The Bedroom Scene as Distended Moment 144 Character Consciousness in the Distended Moment 147 Historical Irony 153 Feminism and Florence 166 Afterword: Solar and Beyond 181 Bibliography 185 9 A Note on Referencing The first reference for each of the three main works studied in this thesis – Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Saturday and On Chesil Beach – will be footnoted as per all other references. Following this, all further references to these three works will occur in text rather than as footnotes. Page numbers will be bracketed, and will be preceded by the initial(s) of the appropriate text as follows: A = Atonement Example of use: “quote” (A16) S = Saturday Example of use: “quote” (S16) CB = On Chesil Beach Example of use: “quote” (CB16) 10 Introduction With his first collection of short stories published in 1975, Ian McEwan has been writing for over thirty-five years and in that time his style has not remained stagnant. Over the course of these years McEwan has written and published many works, including six screenplays, scripts or librettos for film, television or the stage, two children’s books, two collections of short stories and eleven novels. This regular writing allows us to map the changes over his career thus far, and such an analysis reveals a pattern of change and growth in McEwan’s personal style. In order to eliminate as many of the variables as possible, I have chosen to limit my study to a single literary genre – McEwan’s novels (all but the most recent of which (Solar) were published before my final writing stages) – in order to isolate the changes in his adult fiction literary style. I believe McEwan’s novelistic style can be broadly