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CAROLINE BENNETT
Liverpool Hope University
Abstract
The male protagonists in Ian McEwan’s novels
Enduring Love and
Saturday
try to live according to a self-imposed philosophy of
rationalism. Crises arise in their lives revealing the
limitations of this decision, and in order to maintain their
rationality they are forced to engage in various strategies of
control. These efforts are thwarted by the necessarily
pathological nature that those strategies require for
implementation, and also by the contingency of life in modern
times. This essay examines these rational strategies of control
which include the imposition of routine and order, isolation,
the denial of art, inscription in the work ethic, scientific
thinking and extreme self-assessment. The novels suggest that
rationality alone is insufficient and must be tempered with
other forms of thinking and understanding the world, including
the postmodern notion of the instability of the self.
Keywords:
Ian McEwan, Saturday,
Enduring Love,
pathological rationality, fiction, control, instability
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