SavedAdd your journal

Journals / Litera: Dil Edebiyat ve Kültür Araştırmaları Dergisi / 2022 / Cilt: 32 - Sayı: 1

Traumatized Perception of the Self and Time in Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden and The Child in Time

Nilay ERDEM AYYILDIZ
Pages
21–40
Publication Date
2022-05-23
DOI
—
🏛️Bibliographic metadata and full text access for this article are provided via DergiPark.
DergiPark Record ↗
✨

AI Summary & Key Takeaways

AI Insight
⚡ TL;DR(Too Long; Didn't Read)

The critical approach to the characters’ response to their traumas concludes that trauma disrupts people’s perception of time and the self, leading either to tragedy when they lose the balance between their defense mechanisms and the trauma reality, or to awakening to their renewed life when they reconcile with their trauma reality.

📌 3 Key Takeaways

🎯
Objective & Hypothesis:The purpose of this study is to decipher the relationship between trauma and the differentiating perception of the self and time by discussing varying post-traumatic responses of the traumatized characters in Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden (1978) and The Child in Time (1987).
📊
Key Findings & Data:To this end, the study applies trauma theory to examine the traumatized characters’ altered perception of temporality and the self, and to discuss to what extent the characters in the novels can overcome the impacts of the traumatic experiences they have.
💡
Conclusion & Impact:The critical approach to the characters’ response to their traumas concludes that trauma disrupts people’s perception of time and the self, leading either to tragedy when they lose the balance between their defense mechanisms and the trauma reality, or to awakening to their renewed life when they reconcile with their trauma reality.
🔬Design:Research Article
📍Scope:Comprehensive Sample
⚙️Variables:Trauma · Ian McEwan · The Cement Garden

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to decipher the relationship between trauma and the differentiating perception of the self and time by discussing varying post-traumatic responses of the traumatized characters in Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden (1978) and The Child in Time (1987). To this end, the study applies trauma theory to examine the traumatized characters’ altered perception of temporality and the self, and to discuss to what extent the characters in the novels can overcome the impacts of the traumatic experiences they have. The two novels revolve around traumatized victims that lose the conscious perception of the self and temporality in reality after the traumatic experience. The Cement Garden depicts the post-traumatic challenges of four siblings, called Jack, Julie, Tom and Sue after their mother’s death. The Child in Time unveils Stephen and Julie’s process of working through their ordeal after the disappearance of their little daughter, Kate in parallel to Stephen’s friend Charles’s acting out his traumatic childhood by regressing to his boyhood. The critical approach to the characters’ response to their traumas concludes that trauma disrupts people’s perception of time and the self, leading either to tragedy when they lose the balance between their defense mechanisms and the trauma reality, or to awakening to their renewed life when they reconcile with their trauma reality.

🔖

Cite This Article

AYYILDIZ, N. E. (2022). Traumatized Perception of the Self and Time in Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden and The Child in Time. Litera: Dil Edebiyat ve Kültür Araştırmaları Dergisi, Cilt: 32 - Sayı: 1, 21–40. https://ajindex.com/articles/788797

📄 Full Text PDF Viewer

📄

PDF görüntüleyici hazırlanıyor...

References (2)

  1. Balkaya, M. A. (2014). Reading ‘A Little Cloud’ again: A psychoanalytic perspective. The Journal of International Social Research, 7(30), 55-60. google scholar Baxter, J. (2013). Surrealist encounters in Ian McEwan’s early work. In S. Gross (Ed.), Ian McEwan: Contemporary critical perspectives (pp. 13-26). New York: Bloomsbury. google scholar Begley, A. (2010). The art of fiction CLXXIII: Ian McEwan. In R. Roberts (Ed.), Conversations with Ian McEwan (pp. 89-107). Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. google scholar Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed experience: trauma, narrative and history. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. google scholar Caruth, C. (1995). Introduction. In C. Caruth (Ed.), Trauma: Explorations in memory (pp. 3-13). Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. google scholar Chalupsky, P. (2006). Atonement - continuity and change in lan McEwan’s works. In S. Bubı'kova & O. Roebuck (Eds.), Continuity and change in culture and literature (pp. 1-10). Pardubice: Univerzita Pardubice. google scholar Courtney, H. (2013). Narrative temporality and slowed scene: The interaction of event and thought representation in Ian McEwan’s fiction, Narrative 21(2), 180-197. google scholar Ehlers, A., & Clark, D. M. (2000). A cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 38, 319-345. google scholar Etkind, A. (2015). Post-Stalinist Russia: Memory and mourning. In S. Kattago (Ed.), The Ashgate research companion to memory studies (pp. 251-265). England and Burlington: Ashgate. google scholar Felman, S., & Laub, D. (1992). Testimony: Crises of witnessing in literature, psychoanalysis, and history. New York: Routledge. google scholar Figley, C. (Ed.). (1985).
  2. Trauma and its wake. Vol I, Bristol: Brunner & Maxil. google scholar Freud, S. (1959). Beyond the pleasure principle. J. Strachey (Trans. and Ed). New York: Bantam Books. google scholar Freud, S. (1917). Mourning and melancholia. In J. Strachey (Trans.). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916): On the history of the psycho-analytic movement, papers on metapsychology and other works (pp. 243-258). London: The Hogarth Press. google scholar Freud, S. (2001). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (24 vols). J. Strachey, A. Freud, A. Strachey & A. Tyson (Eds. and Trans.). London: Vintage. google scholar Freud, S., & Breuer, J. (2001). On the psychical mechanis