Psychological trauma in Ian McEwan's novels (Saturday, on Chesil Beach)

Abstract

© 2020 Tomsk State University. All rights reserved. The article discusses the situation of trauma and the ways of its representation in modern literature. The material of the investigation are Ian McEwan's novels Saturday (2005) and On Chesil Beach (2007). Since the end of the twentieth century, the trauma situation in the literature has been viewed mainly in the context of the problem of memory, for example, in the novels by Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, and many others. In McEwan's novels written at the beginning of the twenty-first century (Saturday, On Chesil Beach), memory problems are of secondary importance as psychological issues prevail. In these novels, the aspect of physicality is advanced because it is the body that becomes the "language" by means of which the author speaks of traumatic situations in the characters' life. So the method of the investigation is to study the trauma in the novels as it is reflected in the body, based on the works of D. LaCapra, S. Felman, and D. Laub. In both novels, the traumatic situation does not occur in the past, but in the present. The significance of this situation is emphasized through a detailed, almost minutely image of what is happening. Furthermore, in both novels, the focus is on the situations related to the peculiarities of bodily experiences. In Saturday, medical discourse associated with the profession of the protagonist, a 48-year-old neurosurgeon Henry Perowne, assumes special importance. The crime situation receives a completely different aspect due to the detailed medical description of the symptoms of Baxter's disease (Perowne's antagonist and patient). The parallel with the story of one day of the hero's life is a reference to the political situation in the world (the background of the novel is a demonstration against the war in Iraq). The fragility of the well-being of an individual is linked to the fragility of the world order. There is a perspective and a retrospective in On Chesil Beach. The heroes' inability to interact with their body ends in failure during the first wedding night and consequently affects their whole future life, destroys personal happiness. The author describes the life of the last generation before the sexual revolution, which still exists according to the Victorian rules in terms of sexuality. The detailed description of the natural physiological reactions of the young people shows their inability to communicate physically, which causes the destruction of true love. The lack of the ability to express bodily sensations through language leads two young, educated people to personal defeat. The conclusion is that the means of expression of the traumatic experience is the body plot in the first novel while it is the body language in the second one.