The Child in Time, Hemtenta

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DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES, MARGRT GUNNARSDOTTIR CHAMPION

Take-home exam Text &

CultureDiscussions about The Child in Time and TheBluest Eye

Emelie Klemming, 9203091849

2012-05-11


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Masculinity and femininity in The Child in Time

In the novel The Child in Time Ian McEwan discusses many subjects, one of which concerns

how the loss of a child affects the parents, which I would like to discuss in more detail. I think

the interpretation of the grieving process that McEwan makes is a rather interesting take on

the gender perspective of the situation.

In the beginning of the book, Stephen and his wife Julie is at odds with their different

reactions to the event of their daughter's abduction, as there is a clear divide between the

masculine and feminine reaction. As the story unfolds however, Stephen's understanding of

his grief has to turn from that typical masculine reaction to a more feminine approach for

them to find a way back to each other again.

Initially after the abduction, Stephen is desperately searching for Kate for weeks, never

standing still long enough to fully realize the extent of what has happened. He sets a goal;

to find his daughterand murder her abductor (23). Meanwhile, Julie closes herself in in the

apartment, rarely leaving her armchair. Stephen suspects that "*+ she took his efforts to be

a typically masculine evasion, an attempt to mask feelings behind displays of competence

and organization and physical effort", which he do not deny is exactly what he is doing, and

later, "it came to the point where Stephen could not bring himself to look at Julie. *+ the

collapse of will, the near ecstatic suffering *+ disgusted him and threatened to undermine

his efforts" (22-23).

Their reactions are natural; studies show exactly these gender differences in the grieving


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process. One such study of bereaved parents showed that the mother was more likely to

express her grief actively through depression, sadness, preoccupation and eventually finding

resolution, than the father. This would explain Julie's seemingly passive apathy. The father

tended to express himself through specific anger instead, much like Stephen's aggressive

search for his daughter. The conclusion of the study was that the denial could, in part, be

explained by gender stereotypes that call to men to be strong and unemotional, thus

preventing the father from actively coping with his loss (Stinson & Lasker 1992).

They agree on separating for the time being after which Stephen becomes depressed and

while not wanting to acknowledge this weak state of mind, he blames Julie. He still does not

understand her, but feels that Julie is moving ahead of him;

*+ Julie could set about transforming herself, purposefully evolve some different

understanding of life and her place within it. She would have been on long walks, reassessing

her past, their past, shuffling priorities, making arrangements for a new future *]. Before he

could unearth his own feelings, and without his being a witness to the process, she could

metamorphose into a complete stranger, someone he would not know how to talk to. He did

not want to get left behind, he did not want to lose his place in her story. (58)

It is not until Thelma explains to him the intricacies of Charles conflicting personality

traits (after Charles suicide) that Stephen begins to see, with Thelmas help, what he can do

not to lose his place in Julies life. In fact, Thelma all but thrusts a change upon him, when

she challenges him to think back over the last year and all your unhappiness *+ when right

in front of you was *+ Julie. (242) It seems to me that Stephens stereotypical masculine

reactions has not helped him, whereas Thelmas and Julies feminine approach to

encompass change and finally come to terms, is what actually works. What is more, to show

this femininity more clearly, the book contains nine chapters following the course of Julies


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pregnancy; beginning with the supposed death of one daughter and ending with the birth of

their new child; a new beginning.

Works cited:

The book:

McEwan, Ian. The Child in Time. First Anchor Books Edition, November 1999. Copyright 1987

by Ian McEwan.

A scientific study:

Stinson, K. M., & Lasker, J. N. (1992). Parents grief following pregnancy loss:

A comparison of mothers and fathers. Family Relations, 41, 218-224.

The source was found in the scientific paper "The Attitudes of Men and Women

Concerning Gender Differences in Grief" by Versaille, Alexis, MA, LPA, (Margaret R.

Pardee Memorial Hospital) and McDowell, Eugene E., Ph.D. (Western Carolina University)

OMEGA, Vol. 50(1) 53-67, 2004-2005. Copyright 2005, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.

Access online: .

Date of access: May 10, 2012.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~jennyy/PDFs/16009547.pdfhttp://www.ualberta.ca/~jennyy/PDFs/16009547.pdfhttp://www.ualberta.ca/~jennyy/PDFs/16009547.pdfhttp://www.ualberta.ca/~jennyy/PDFs/16009547.pdf


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Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder

In Toni Morrisons first novel The Bluest Eye (1969) three young, black girls grow up faced

with the racist norm that only the pink-skinned, yellow-haired and blue-eyed Shirley

Temples of the world can be pretty. Coming from poor black families, being female and

children at that, all make them invisible to society. To put emphasis on their situation as

outside the norm, Morrison uses the Dick-and-Jane-story in the beginning of the novel to

show what the norm amounts to the perfect white, middle-class family. These kinds of

stories were common in the school books of the time (1940- ), and as Ruth Rosenberg

explains in her book on the subject of black girlhood in The Bluest Eye, black girls did not

exist as far as the publishers of school anthologies were concerned. (435)

After having read The Bluest Eye the first time, the question I spontaneously thought of

was; IsPecola really that physically ugly? The Breedloves ugliness is described as a mantle

they take in their hands and throw over themselves, a deep conviction of it as truth (38-39).

The answer to my question is that it does not matter if she really is physically ugly; one of

the points Morrison wants to make is that if society says it is true, then it is the truth. Beauty

is in the eye of the beholder, they say, but ugliness is too. Pecola Breedlove became a

scapegoat, which Claudia realized as an adult at the end of the book; All of our waste which

we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and

which she gave to us. All of us all who knew her felt so wholesome after we cleaned

ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. (205)


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Pecola could have been any little innocent black girl; she could in fact have handled the

ideals of society as well as Claudia did; questioning it, dissecting it but deciding against it. Yet

she did not, because she did not have what Claudia had a somewhat functioning family. It

seems to me that Pecola was doomed to be ugly from the start, as if ingrained in her by

her disillusioned parents. After all, one of the first things Pauline Breedlove thought of her

daughter was *+ I knowed she was ugly. Head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly

(126).

Why is it then, that this self-hatred and low self-esteem can take hold? The white

community does not play as big a role in the novel as the black community does, however it

still holds power over how the characters treat each other. Pauline escapes to watch

Hollywood movies when her life does not turn out the way she thought it would, and was

never again able to look at a face and not assign it some category in the scale of absolute

beauty (122). Her own face and the faces ofher family, of course, scores low on that scale.

Then the Fisher family she starts working for has all of that she has dreamed of, and the

differences between her two worlds become even greater. The Breedloves are at the

extreme opposite of the Dick-and-Jane norm and are not only black and poor but a

dysfunctional family and nearly enough homeless. They are invisible to the white society,

and looked down on by their peers. For Pecola, who is born into the situation and

defenseless against it, this is fatal. When the rest of the community further denies her the

right to be loved by pointing to circumstances she cannot change wishing, however

maniacally, to have blue eyes and be pretty is her best defense.


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Works cited:

Book:

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. Published by Plume, Penguin Group, September 1994.

An article in a periodical:

Rosenberg, Ruth. "Seeds in Hard Ground: Black Girlhood in The Bluest Eye". Black American

Literature Forum, vol. 21, No 4 (Winter 1987). Copyright Indiana State University.

Access online:

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/stable/2904114?seq=1&Search=yes&searchText=blu

est&searchText=beauty&searchText=eye&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch

%3FQuery%3Dbeauty%2Bthe%2Bbluest%2Beye%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&i

tem=2&ttl=269&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=null, Date of

access: May 9, 2012
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/stable/2904114?seq=1&Search=yes&searchText=bluest&searchText=beauty&searchText=eye&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbeauty%2Bthe%2Bbluest%2Beye%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=269&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=nullhttp://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/stable/2904114?seq=1&Search=yes&searchText=bluest&searchText=beauty&searchText=eye&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbeauty%2Bthe%2Bbluest%2Beye%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=269&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=nullhttp://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/stable/2904114?seq=1&Search=yes&searchText=bluest&searchText=beauty&searchText=eye&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbeauty%2Bthe%2Bbluest%2Beye%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=269&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=nullhttp://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/stable/2904114?seq=1&Search=yes&searchText=bluest&searchText=beauty&searchText=eye&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbeauty%2Bthe%2Bbluest%2Beye%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=269&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=nullhttp://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/stable/2904114?seq=1&Search=yes&searchText=bluest&searchText=beauty&searchText=eye&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbeauty%2Bthe%2Bbluest%2Beye%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=269&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=nullhttp://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/stable/2904114?seq=1&Search=yes&searchText=bluest&searchText=beauty&searchText=eye&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbeauty%2Bthe%2Bbluest%2Beye%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=269&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=nullhttp://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/stable/2904114?seq=1&Search=yes&searchText=bluest&searchText=beauty&searchText=eye&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbeauty%2Bthe%2Bbluest%2Beye%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=269&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=nullhttp://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/stable/2904114?seq=1&Search=yes&searchText=bluest&searchText=beauty&searchText=eye&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbeauty%2Bthe%2Bbluest%2Beye%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=269&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=nullhttp://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/stable/2904114?seq=1&Search=yes&searchText=bluest&searchText=beauty&searchText=eye&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbeauty%2Bthe%2Bbluest%2Beye%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=269&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=null

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The Child in Time, Hemtenta