Reflections upon Childhood and Adolescence

Wilczewska, Anna

Reflections upon Childhood and Adolescence

Intertextual Dialogue in The Cement Garden

by Anna Wilczewska (Author)

English Language and Literature Studies - Literature

Summary

The thesis is devoted to the intertextual analysis of The Cement Garden, the first novel of a famous postmodern British novelist Ian McEwan. In the following chapters I shall prove that the novel exhibits both intertextual relations with particular works of fiction and also enters into a discourse with the generic archetypes. The first chapter refers to the intertextual relation ‘text-text’ and concentrates on the profound interconnectivity between McEwan’s The Cement Garden and Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The focus is also placed upon depiction of childhood and, in a more general sense, human nature by both authors in relation to the literary tradition. The chapter traces various techniques employed by McEwan in the novel, in order to refresh the “already read” and provide a modern vision of childhood and adolescence. The second and the third chapters are devoted to the intertextual discourse with the generic literary tradition, namely Gothic fiction and psychological novel of development. Both chapters depict the ways generic conventions are used in The Cement Garden, but also portray the author’s deliberate departure and inversion of particular attributes of the genres. The author either provides the parody and inversion of the generic conventions, or employs particular generic aspects in order to effectively express and emphasize certain issues brought about in the novel. Thanks to the skillful use of the genres and their conventions, McEwan achieves an extraordinary effect and invites the reader to explore a complex network of literary allusions.

Excerpt

components may assume new forms and acquire transformed, enriched meaning

(Glowiski). Various allusions, strong references to another text or generally to the

literary tradition semantically enrich the work and its reception. Due to the intertextual

discourse, a text acquires new meaning and gains new dimension. (Glowiski)

Intertextuality in its broad sense involves a variety of relationships occurring

among various literary texts. Intertextual studies mainly concentrate on the

interconnectivity and mutual influences among the literary texts. Apart form a wide

range of literary themes, motifs and symbols, genres constitute an essential part of a

literary text. Due to the presence of numerous conventions, a work of literature acquires

features of a particular genre. Each and every text follows a certain set of conventions

determining its final form. There are no texts which do not belong to any genre,

therefore, each literary text is generically marked (Nycz: 1995, 68-70).

Such a generic distinction of a text may also be considered an intertextual

attribute. We may assume that there is a particular group of texts (intertexts),

considered "already written" archetexts, which share particular set of generic qualities,

both structural and semantic, with a given text. These intertexts constitute a basis for the

generic classification of a given text. Moreover, the intertextual discourse can be

perceived not merely as a dialogue with one particular work of fiction, which complies

with the generic set of conventions, but with a whole group of intertexts sharing similar

conventions with respect to the genre (Nycz: 1995, 69). What belongs to the familiar

category of the "already written", "already read" constitutes a frame of reference to the

generic categorization of a text (Nycz: 1995, 69-70). Playing with the generic

conventions the authors establish a fascinating discourse with the tradition.

***

The thesis is devoted to the intertextual analysis of The Cement Garden, the first

novel of a famous postmodern British novelist Ian McEwan. In the following chapters I

shall prove that the novel exhibits both intertextual relations with particular works of

fiction and also enters into a discourse with the generic archetypes.

The first chapter refers to the intertextual relation "text-text" and concentrates on

the profound interconnectivity between McEwan's The Cement Garden and Golding's

Lord of the Flies. The focus is also placed upon depiction of childhood and, in a more

general sense, human nature by both authors in relation to the literary tradition. The

chapter traces various techniques employed by McEwan in the novel, in order to refresh

the "already read" and provide a modern vision of childhood and adolescence.

The second and the third chapters are devoted to the intertextual discourse with

the generic literary tradition, namely Gothic fiction and psychological novel of

development. Both chapters depict the ways generic conventions are used in The

Cement Garden, but also portray the author's deliberate departure and inversion of

particular attributes of the genres. The author either provides the parody and inversion

of the generic conventions, or employs particular generic aspects in order to effectively

express and emphasize certain issues brought about in the novel. Thanks to the skillful

use of the genres and their conventions, McEwan achieves an extraordinary effect and

invites the reader to explore a complex network of literary allusions.

CHAPTER 1: Modern

Castaways

Intertextuality has gained an enormous popularity in recent years, therefore

various literary critics employ this modern literary theory in a variety of ways. One

approach differs from another to a greater or lesser extent; however, what constitutes a

steady and unchangeable foundation of the theory, is its primary focus on the discourse

in which the analyzed text enters with both other literary texts intertexts, and the

complex literary tradition.

Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden is one of the postmodern novels which

evidently enters an intertextual dialogue with the literary tradition. The Cement Garden

distinctly establishes connections with the tradition of, so called, island novels

(Volkman, 2003, 311)

, such as Treasure Island (1883) , Swallows and Amazons

(1930), The Coral Island (1857), and in particular William Golding's masterpiece Lord

of the Flies (1954) which serves as a vital intertext to McEwan's novel (Slay: 1996, 36).

The Cement Garden continues the tradition of abandoned children who,

separated from any kind of authority or guidance, find themselves in highly unfavorable

circumstances which force them to fend for themselves in order to survive. What

constitutes a vital foundation of that particular type of literature, is a still a relevant

question of human nature. What is the real nature of a man? Are human beings naturally

good or do we come to the world infested with "the germs of evil" (Pifer: 2000, 22)?

Volkmann refers to a generic distinction observed by Jack Slay in the work entitled Ian McEwan

(1996, 36-37)

This question also seems to constitute an essential background to

McEwan's novel. By

establishing connections with the literary tradition and, in particular, drawing

extensively on the Lord of the Flies the author enters into a complex discourse with the

"already-written" and "already-read" (Barthes in Allen: 2000, 6) and daringly rewrites

the previous literary models of human nature and childhood.

***

Throughout the centuries a whole variety of various concepts and images

concerning human nature and childhood have appeared. Christianity has introduced a

dogma of Original Sin according to which each new born child is affected by sin due to

Adam's Fall. Augustine (354-430) assumed that even children are endowed with a

corrupt nature and they can only regain their divine innocence through baptism.

As Augustine introduced the idea of a corrupt nature of man from birth,

Rousseau (1712-1778) came up with a completely different approach. Instead of

Original Sin he proposed an idea of Original Innocence. Rousseau claimed that people

coming to the world are good by nature, however, with the passing of time this

impeccable nature is gradually being spoiled by society and civilization. "There is no

original perversity in human heart" (Rousseau in: Beiner: 2010, 210), but becoming a

part of a society a man is exposed to all kinds of moral evils which unavoidably affect

him.

Romantics shared Rousseau's views and were also deeply convinced of the

innocent, almost divine nature of children. They believed that children belong to "a

transcendent realm" (Pifer: 2000, 20) and it is a realm which adults no longer have

access to (Pifer: 2000, 20-21). Children's innocence and purity stands in contrast with

adults' corruption. Therefore the process of growing up implies a loss of this

immaculate condition (Sky: 2002, 372).

Nineteenth century literature further developed this sentimental view of

childhood. Literature of that time often expressed adults' longing for the passing

childhood (Williams: 1993, 211-214). Famous Dickens's children serve as a foil to the

adult society and become "vehicles through which the question of man's fallen state is

discussed [...]" (Pattison: 2008, 93).

In the twentieth century, Freud's psychoanalytic approach shed new light on the

matter of this constant battle about the question of the true human nature. His theory of

infant sexuality brought a blow to the Romantic concept of children's innocence and

purity. Freud introduced a theory that already children "bring germs of sexual activity

with them into world" (Pifer: 2000, 22). He claimed that children are dominated by id

and adolescents are "slaves to powerful, indomitable sexual urges which can only be

`disguised' as civilized behaviour" (Violato, Wiley: 1990, 253).

Over the years all these theories and conceptions found its reflection in various

literary texts, as literature has always been offering the most profound and versatile

analysis of human nature. Literary tradition placed special interest on children as they

are close to nature and the least affected by the social influence:

As human beings partially formed half dressed, if you will by culture they hold out

the tantalizing if illusory promise of exposing human nature in its nakedness (Piffer:

2000, 19).

The works of literature in which children find themselves free from the constraints of

civilization and governed by their instincts, have to fend for themselves, have often

appeared in literature. Already mentioned R. M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island (1857)

sets a good example

of this type of fiction. The novel describes adventures of three

English adolescent castaways who successfully manage to establish rules and order on

the island.

The twentieth century brought another prominent novel,

namely William

Golding's Lord of the Flies,

which follows the familiar plot line and offers an in-depth

analysis of human nature. McEwan openly admits his fascination with Golding's novel:

What was so attractively subversive and feasible about Golding was his apparent

assumption that in a child-dominated world things went wrong in a most horrible and

interesting way (McEwan in: Slay: 1996, 37).

In this amazing novel a bunch of English boys suddenly finds themselves on an exotic

island. Far from civilization, they face the challenge to take care of themselves in order

to survive; thus, all sorts of instincts are revealed in these extraordinary circumstances.

Golding presents the reader a completely different story in contrast with R.M.

Ballantyne's The Coral Island. Here, a paradise turns into a nightmare. Far from social

rules and constraints the boys show their real, animal-like nature. They join in a

competition for power which echoes Darwin's famous theory of survival of the fittest.

The seemingly civilized boys, coming from best British families, are overcome by

extreme brutality and savagery. The children serve Golding as perfect examples to show

that beneath the cover of modern civilization and humanity, there lurks violence,

beastliness, greed and the most primitive savagery. Golding strips human nature of all

humanity, and portrays man's closeness to barbarism (Head: 2007, 47; Malcolm: 2002,

53; Slay: 1996, 37).

McEwan emphasizes that Golding's masterpiece became a cornerstone for his

first novel The Cement Garden. The author seems to be, to a great extent, influenced by

the image of adolescence and human nature Golding provided in Lord of the Flies. Just

like Golding uses "the long established literary method of examining human nature and

human polity in microcosm [...]" (Boyd, 2008, 30), McEwan chooses four orphaned

children as the main characters of the story, and follows the same pattern by placing the

children in an extreme situation which becomes a testing ground for the characters. The

children, in the similar way as in Golding's novel become, in fact, completely separated

from the authority and try to adjust to the new parentless reality. After the death of both

parents children are left totally alone. Nobody visits them, they have no friends, no

relatives or neighbours. Even though they live in a modern city, it seems they are

abandoned on an urban island. Minimizing the social influence on children enables the

author to examine the children's reactions and their development as if through a

magnifying glass. Again, put into special circumstances, human nature is given an

occasion to manifest itself. (Muzina in: Granofsky: 1990, 50)

However, McEwan does not strictly follow the convention and endows the story

with a surprising dimension. The author introduces the familiar plot line into a modern,

domesticated setting. Unlike Lord of the Flies the action of The Cement Garden is not

confined to an exotic island, but takes place in a modern city amidst the population

(Slay: 1996, 37-38;Volkmann: 2003, 311; Malcolm: 2002, 53). There is neither

exoticism nor extraordinariness. The novel provides the reader with a plain, grey,

concrete reality surrounded by decaying ruins:

Now it [the house] stood on empty land where stinging nettles were growing round and

torn corrugated in. The other houses were knocked down for a motorway they had never

built (CG, 21).

The Cement Garden abandons exoticism with its paradise-like islands. Although the

characters neither have to strive for food nor shelter in the jungle, they still have to fight

for survival in this seemingly ordinary environment. The action is placed in the more or

less recognizable urban setting, however, we cannot precisely define the place which

would endow the novel with more universal dimension. What the author seems to

convey is the idea that the exotic landscape and especially the dark jungle are no longer

necessary to raise the most basic drives. Placing the action on an urban island

surrounded by modern waste land, McEwan successfully shows the essence of human

nature, which proves to be equally shocking as the one depicted by Golding. Ordinary,

mundane setting can sufficiently provide frightening overtones. The horror of Jack's

family does not take place on a distant continent, on the contrary, it may happen next to

us. As Malcolm suggests: "[...] the heart of darkness is fully here and now [...]"

(Malcolm: 2002, 53).

***

Just like The Lord of the Flies, the atmosphere of The Cement Garden begins

with a sense of freedom and adventure which seizes the children in the absence of

grown-ups. After the death of their mother Jack, who is the narrator, reflects:

When Mother died, beneath my strongest feelings was a sense of adventure and freedom

which I hardly dared admit to myself and which was derived from the memory of that

day five years ago (CG, 64-65)

Jack experiences an excitement which strongly resembles that of Golding's children,

who start playing "a wonderful game under perfect conditions in perfect surroundings

[...] which can go on all day with no interference form grown-ups" (Kinkead-Weekers

and Gregor: 1967, 21-22 ). Jack remembers a similar sense of adventure when their

parents left them alone in the house for the first time. The kids were freely playing for a

few hours and in their happiness totally forgot about the passing time. As Jack recollects

"this time seemed to occupy a whole stretch of my childhood" (CG, 64). The absence of

parents seems to give Jack an opportunity to enter careless game of living free from all

sorts of obligations and constraints.

Both authors tend to observe in children certain patterns of behaviour: some

naturally emerging feelings which at first are closely connected with fun and sense of

adventure, but then, quite suddenly, are replaced by other, much more alarming

emotions. In both novels the sense of excitement turns out to be temporary and

unexpectedly fades away. Golding's joyous adventure yields to an overwhelming fear of

the beast which pushes the boys to perform acts of primitive savagery and blind cruelty.

The Cement Garden presents the reader a different scenario. The characters are not

going to be affected by an oppressive hostility and growing beastliness, but by a sort of

lethargy. After a brief moment of freedom Jack observes: "But there was no excitement

now. The days were too long, it was too hot, the house seemed to have fallen

asleep."(CG, 65). Strange sense of sleepiness penetrates the house and infects the

children. All four of the children fall into a sort of apathy. Jack spends all days on

masturbation, sleeping and scrutinizing his body:

I masturbated each morning and afternoon, and drifted through the house, from one

room to another, sometimes surprised to find myself in my bedroom, lying on my back

staring at the ceiling, when I had intended to go out into the garden [...] I could not bear

to remain on the bed, and yet any activity I thought of disgusted me in advance.

(emphasis mine) (CG, 67-68).

Jack gradually loses energy and willingness to do anything. Masturbation becomes a

mundane habit and no impulse can force him to take any action. Similarly Sue locks

herself in her bedroom and reads books or writes a diary. Tom either plays with his

friend or comfortably sinks into babyhood, whereas Julie takes over a role of a head of

the family and spends her time with her boyfriend Derek. Nothing happens, nobody

comes to visit them. All of them abandoned school. It is a hot summer and everything

seems to be paralyzed, covered with black dust. Time, as if, slowed down and the

children lost control over it:

I said, 'Except for the times I go down into the cellar I feel like I'm asleep. Whole weeks

go by without me noticing, and if you asked me what happened three days ago I

wouldn't be able to tell you.' (CG, 123)

The children cannot even tell one day from another. They lead a monotonous existence

as every day is similar to the previous one. Julie notices:

'It's funny, 'Julie said, 'I've lost all sense of time. It feels like it's always been like this. I

can't really remember how it used to be when Mum was alive and I can't really imagine

anything changing. Everything seems still and fixed and it makes me feel that I'm not

frightened of anything. (CG, 123)

Julie has an impression that nothing has changed. She does not even remember how

their life looked like when the mother was alive. The children have fallen into a state of

a light doze and lost their sense of the passing time. Instead of adventure the children

discover stagnation and gradually, along with the surrounding decay, fall into

deterioration.

The excitement Jack experiences at first is just a façade behind which

completely different emotions are hidden. The Cement Garden establishes a clear

discourse with both Golding's novel and the model proposed by e.g. Balantyne's in The

Coral Island. After being free from all social constraints they neither become little,

wildly screaming brutes with painted faces overwhelmed by blood thirst, nor continue

to maintain and cultivate social norms and values. Jack's family experiences boredom,

stagnation, slow deterioration and gradual distortion. As Slay suggests, "where other

writers find savagery and violence beneath the trappings of civilization McEwan

discovers a vast and aching nothingness" (Slay: 1996, 37). McEwan seems to provide a

vital modification and a fresh insight into familiar models of human nature and

adolescence. Famous visions of a childhood idyll seem to be fake. The original

innocence and human natural goodness promoted by Romantics, or sentimental pictures

of children so popular in the nineteenth century prove to be no longer valid and rather

inadequate in the modern world.

***

The Cement Garden provides a thoroughly shocking picture of the children who

create their own claustrophobic world. They strive to maintain the, so called, family unit

and continue their everyday existence. McEwan's story seems to structurally follow its

intertex - Golding's novel. The two novels depict similar patterns of children's

behaviour. The characters inhabiting the desert island at first try to establish some rules,

such as maintaining the fire on the mountaintop, gathering food and building shelters,

yet without any guidance the children start to lose all sense of order and control:

"The rules!" shouted Ralph, "You're breaking the rules!"

`"Who cares?"

`Ralph summoned his wits.

`"Because the rules are the only thing we've got!"

`But Jack was shouting against him.

`"Bollocks to the rules! We're strong we hunt! If there's a beast we'll hunt it down.

We'll close in and beat and beat--"

`He gave a wild whoop and leapt down to the pale sand. At once the platform was full

of noise and excitement, scramblings, screams and laughter. The assembly shredded

away..." (Lord of the Flies, 100 )

The children seem to "exchange one kind of `play' for another" (Kinkead-Weekers and

Gregor: 1967, 36) but the scene already acquires some very frightening overtones.

Jack's "beat and beat" foreshadows the future, the terrible turn of events.

In a relatively

short time the children's world changes into a nightmare dominated by fear and chaos.

The children start to play a game of hunters which dangerously becomes the reality

(Kinkead-Weekers and Gregor: 1967, 49). Golding provides the reader with one of the

most powerful and, at the same time, terrifying scenes in which a pretended ritual

dance of killing a pig leads to a savage murder of one of the boys. The boys gradually

fall in sort of a trance and lose themselves in the experience. When Simon enters the

stage the boys are engrossed in the ritual to such an extent that they recognize him as a

Beast and, in a sort of amok, kill him. The ritual dance of killing the pig transgresses the

borders of pretence and becomes tragically real. The boys are not even aware that they

are losing themselves in the game. Suddenly "their standards have fallen [...] and they

accept this situation as normal" (Kinkead-Weekers and Gregor: 1967, 39-40). What at

first seems to be a play turns into a real horror.

McEwan's children try to adjust to the situation the best they can. Though they

are separated from the society and are generally isolated from the outside influences,

they still attempt to follow once learnt social rules and roles in order to maintain the

family unit. In this new situation they subconsciously try to establish familiar patterns

which will help them survive. However, without any support and guidance from the

outside world, the situation slips out of control. Julie answers to the role of a mother and

tries to be the head of the family. At the end of the novel Jack joins her and becomes a

`daddy'. Tom's game of mummies and daddies now becomes real and is not a game

anymore. Their game in establishing new relationships and role playing ends in incest.

Again, a border between a game, pretence is blurred and the outcome is as horrifying as

in Golding's novel

Employing similar laws that start to govern the children, McEwan follows the

model provided in Lord of the Flies. At first, the characters subconsciously treat their

new situation as an undisturbed fun. Gradually they start to apply some sort of rules

copied from the world of adults. However, both authors; though in different ways;

distinctly illustrate that in the world governed solely by inexperienced children things

are doomed to fail. In both cases children devoid of standards and values are practically

unable to pass from childhood to maturity in a healthy, normal way.

***

Children's failure is also strengthened by a distinct depiction of the setting.

Illustration of the natural environment by both authors may again constitute an

interesting intertextual aspect which binds the two novels. Though, at first glance the

two may seem entirely different; as Golding places the action on an exotic island,

whereas the plot of The Cement Garden takes place amidst the urban sprawl; what

brings the two authors closer is their rejection of certain traditional patterns of

presenting nature and their endowment of landscapes with rich, metaphorical

connotations.

Golding, in his novel, provides an extensive, rich in details description of the

exotic island and its vivid nature. The natural surroundings serve Golding both as a

perfect location for an experiment, which is based on the children's adaptation to the

reality without adults, and, at the same time, constitutes a vital background for the

events that are to follow. Along with the development of the action nature gradually

acquires certain symbolic connotations and parallels the boys' state of mind (Dickson:

1990, 14).

As it has already been mentioned, at the outset of the Golding's novel the

children find themselves in the situation which they consider the beginning of a great

adventure. Glorious nature seems to confirm their assumptions. The image that is

provided in the early chapters presents the island as a real paradise. The island with its

tropical weather, surrounded by blue lagoon and sandy beach abounds in animals and

fresh fruit. However, as the boys rejoice in the morning bright sun, with the fall of night

this idyllic scenery turns "into a nightmare landscape of imaginary horrors" (Dickson

1990: 14): "when the sun sank, darkness dropped on the island like an extinguisher and

soon the shelters were full of restlessness, under the remote stars" (Lord of the Flies,

130). Fun is quickly `extinguished' and fear easily sneaks up and enwraps the children.

The first image of an island as a perfect habitat proves to be deceptive. The

island at night becomes unfamiliar and scary to the children. Close to the Rousseau's

ideals, return to the state of nature, which implies lack of toilet facilities and wholesome

food makes the littluns "filthily dirty" and affected by a "sort of chronic diarrhea"

(Boyd: 2008, 32). Eden like space shifts to the nightmarish environment predominated

by darkness and savagery. As one of the critics suggests:

The tropical island of Golding's novel, which seems to the boys a paradisal in its

unspoiled wildness, proves to be an inferno, a sort of pressure-cooker heated by a

vertical sun which aims blow at the boys heads in its violent intensity, which fires

`down invisible arrows' like an angry malevolent god. (Huxley in Boyd: 2008, 31)

In the course of the novel nature gradually becomes more and more threatening. The

jungle, which occupies the major part of the island, acquires sinister qualities. It is a

place filled with an overwhelming "darkness of the forest proper" (Lord of the Flies, 10)

and suffocation: "the forest [...] was thick a woven like a bird's nest" (Lord of the Flies,

128) (Redpath: 1986, 79). Unspeakable darkness arises fear and instills an idea of a

beast hidden in the jungle. "The boys attitude of childish abandon and romantic

adventure changes to a much sober one when the possibility of a beast is introduced"

(Dickson 1990, 14). Along with the development of events the island becomes a centre

of fear and death. The boy "with a mark", presumably the first dead corpse, goes

missing after he was last seen entering the forest. The island quickly turns into an

ominous place, where one cannot feel safe:

`If you're hunting sometimes you catch yourself feeling as if `He flushed suddenly.'

`There is nothing in it of course. Just a feeling. But you can feel as if you're not hunting,

but being hunted, as if something's behind you all the time in the jungle" (Lord of the

Flies, 57).

The boys are increasingly overwhelmed by fear which inspires in them the most basic

instincts they become a part of the island's darkness: "darkness poured out,

submerging the ways between the tress till they were dim and strange as the bottom of

the sea" (Lord of the Flies, 62). Darkness that flows out of the jungle symbolically

alludes to the evil, which eventually spreads to almost every boy on the island. The

jungle becomes an "area of physical conflict, of hunting, darkness and pigs" (Redpath:

1986, 79). The boys transform the island into an arena of a bloody hunting and life-

threatening jeopardy. The blissful images form the beginning of the novel are replaced

by those presenting a hostile, "full of claws, and full of the awful unknown and menace"

(Lord of the Flies, 108) island, which tellingly reflects evil that is present in human

hearts and their natural inclination to "savagery, bestiality and destruction" (Dickson:

1990, 15):

Within the diamond haze of the beach something dark was fumbling along. Ralph saw it

first, and watched until the intentness of his gaze drew all eyes that way. Then the

creature stopped from mirage onto clear sand, and they saw that the darkness was not all

shadow but mostly clothing. The creature was a party of boys [...] (Lord of the Flies,

20-21).

This passage offers one of the numerous images which present the boys as animal-like,

wild creatures. The boys from a choir resemble black, dark animal-like creatures which

symbolically implies their cruel and violent nature. As the plot develops, animal

metaphors start to dominate the text, which significantly indicates the boys' gradual

regression and dehumanization.

Lord of the Flies provides the reader simultaneous images of a heaven like

island, a place which children dream to find themselves in, and a devilish and

thoroughly terrifying place. The former images of the scenery are quickly replaced by

the latter: "The description of the pleasant Coral Island fantasy world quickly dissolves

into the images of darkness, hostility and danger" (Dickson: 1990, 14). In a blink the

`civilized boys' are able to turn a pristine island into a hellish nightmare. Golding

rejects the idealized image of nature which dominated in the previous literary epochs.

He mocks Romantic views of nature which assumed that, since nature is pure, innocent

and uncorrupted by civilization, it should be considered children's natural habitat

(Boyd: 2008, 31). Natural surroundings serve the author as a neat device to expose true

human nature. The setting, which seems to be rather neutral at the beginning, filtered

through the boys' emotions and experiences acquires very clear, symbolic connotations.

The image of the island closely corresponds with the boys' state of mind and their

actions

The impenetrable jungle becomes a vital background for the boys savage

conduct and their loss of innocence. It is due to the boys descent into primitivism, their

bestial behaviour marked by blood thirst resulting in Simon's and Piggy's death, that

the island is transformed into a home of fear, destruction, evil and death. The scenery, at

the end of the novel, becomes a key metaphor for the boys' true nature and the potential

for evil present in the society. Finally, the horrifying reality the boys created on the

island, represents the outside, war ridden adult world in miniature.

As Golding endows his nature with the symbolic connotations, McEwan's also

skillfully uses the scenery to convey his message. Imagery of landscape, especially of

the family garden, bears important metaphorical meaning in the novel.

Similarly to Lord of the Flies, the nature in The Cement Garden, to a great

extent, parallels the characters' situation. The first image presented in the novel is a

garden, however, this garden is far from being a traditional one. In literature or, in a

broader sense, in the western culture a garden frequently functions as an oasis, fertile

place full of life. A garden is usually associated with a paradise, Eden an ideal habitat

for human beings who peacefully live surrounded by pure nature. As it has already been

mentioned, nature has often been identified with purity and harmony and, consequently,

it has also frequently been connected with children. Especially in the Romantic period

garden always constituted a paradise "quasi-magical place" (Neubauer 1992, 64) for

children. In literature one of the most outstanding examples of a novel which places

garden in the central position is The Secret Garden by M.H. Burnett. Burnett used the

traditional symbolism of a garden, and built the whole plot of the novel around this

place. She endowed the garden with healing powers which had an ability to transform

the characters. The secret garden serves as a means to restore the family life (Gunther:

1994, 161).

What the readers witness in The Cement Garden is a completely reversed

situation. Though the novel also uses garden as one of its central themes, the traditional

meaning of the symbol is completely reversed. The cement garden is far from being a

paradise. On the contrary, it rather resembles a wasteland. At first the garden is a

realization of the plan of a psychotic father who "chose flowers for their neatness and

symmetry" (CG, 14) and detested everything that tangled. The whole area surrounding

the house is supposed to be in a perfect order and symmetry. A single weed would

violate the impeccable image. The father treats the garden as his own creation and a

small masterpiece. He does not allow Tom to play because he did not intend this garden

to be a playground. He scolds Tom when the child tries to use a stone-path as a flight of

stairs. This garden does not serve as an Arcadia for the children. In fact, the children are

preferred to keep off the garden as they might spoil the perfect design. This garden is an

artificial creation which does not resemble in any way lush, fertile nature. It is rather a

fabricated system of neat paths and elaborate flowerbeds.

After the first heart attack, unable to keep up the garden the father, decides to

cover it with cement:

Shortly after the cement came the sand. A pale yellow pile filled one corner of the

front garden. It became apparent, probably though my mother, that the plan was to

surround the hose, front and back, with an even plane of concrete. My father confirmed

this one evening. "It will be tidier", he said. "I won't be able to keep up the garden

now"

He was so convinced of the sanity of his ideas that through embarrassment, rather than

fear, no one spoke against the plan. In fact, a great expanse of concrete round the house

appealed to me. It would be a place to play football. I saw a helicopter landed there.

Above all, mixing concrete and spreading it over a leveled garden was a fascinating

violation. (emphasis mine) (CG, 16)

As he could no longer take care of the garden and wanted to somehow maintain the

order, the father decided to cover the whole area with cement. As the garden had never

represented the place of unconstrained, full of life nature, now it was supposed to

become a total desert. As Jack notices, covering the garden with cement seemed to be a

"fascinating violation" (CG, 16).

Right at the start McEwan sets the cement garden as a foundation of the whole

novel. What we can see at the very beginning metaphorically reveals the whole content

of the novel. The act of spreading cement all over the garden besides annihilating nature

bears a further, metaphorical meaning. The garden does not only indicate the father's

psychological disorder, which is in fact concealed under the illusory order, but it also

represents a gradual distortion of a family life. The cement garden expressively

illustrates lack of communication among the members of the family, estrangement of

the father towards the children, isolation of the family from the outside world, and

finally, it serves as a bad omen of what will happen to the family in the course of the

novel.

Cementing the garden becomes an essential, foreshadowing metaphor of the

children's future situation (Head: 2007, 49). Just like the cement smothers life in the

garden, the children's new, parentless life "begins to stifle the children" (Slay: 1996,

40). From now on the children's existence will be completely dominated by monotony,

boredom, and aimless drifting (Slay: 1996, 40).

Covering the garden with cement is not the only metaphor present in the text.

After a relatively short time, the slabs of concrete begin to fall apart and the weeds

make their way through the cracks. As Volkmann suggests "nature [...] reclaims its lost

territory" (Volkmann: 2003, 314). This powerful process of the expansion of nature

strikingly resembles the children's uncontrolled development. Without parental control

and guidance the children unrestrictedly grow, indifferent to morality and ethics. Just

like nature "marked by inherent drive [...] to evolve and preserve its species indifferent

to human morality" (Volkmann: 2003, 313), the children's growing instincts break

through all the previous limitations.

The setting McEwan draws in the novel, as much as Golding's island, is far from

being children's paradise in which they can develop into fruitful adults. Both novelists

visualize the natural environment as the one which is far form the Romantic ideal state

of nature, where children play and enjoy their state of innocence. Both authors depict

the setting in a highly negative way. The scenery of Lord of the Flies overflows with

darkness, threat and death, whereas McEwan's nature is thoroughly distorted, stripped

of innocence and overwhelmingly lifeless. It is a modern wasteland in which a normal,

healthy family cannot exist.

What is more, both Golding and McEwan endow their natural environments

with metaphorical meanings, which significantly underlines a negative aspect of human

nature both authors tend to promote. In the two novels the state of nature reflects the

state of the children. The use of explicit metaphors enables both Golding and McEwan

to present a shocking vision of children's regression. The destruction of Golding's

exotic island reveals human potential for destruction, savagery, violence and evil.

Similarly The Cement Garden shows how the degradation of the landscape/ cityscape

and cementing the garden resembles the children's catatonic, meaningless existence.

However, it is worth mentioning that though the two authors operate with the setting in

a similar way McEwan introduces a very specific modification. The Cement Garden

seems to engage in polemics with Golding's novel, clearly implying that foreign, exotic

Details

Pages
Type of Edition: Erstauflage
Year: 2014
ISBN (eBook): 9783954897759
ISBN (Softcover): 9783954892754
File size: 393 KB
Language: English
Publication date: 2014 (July)

Author

Anna Wilczewska (Author)

Reflections upon Childhood and Adolescence

Summary

Excerpt

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Details

Author

Anna Wilczewska (Author)