Experiencing Sexuality: The Politics of Gender Identity in Ian McEwan’s Fiction
Experiencing Sexuality: The Politics of Gender Identity in Ian McEwan’s Fiction

Summary/Abstract: Mentalities and taboos concerning class, gender, and nation have always influenced the individual’s social behavior and led to identity issues. Both gender and sexuality are important to our understanding of identity. Gender, as an unstable category, has been a central concern of literary studies from the late 1960s onwards, as the rise of feminist theories precipitated a widespread critical debate around the representations of women and femininity in literature and their clashing relationship with patriarchal authority. In his fiction, Ian McEwan attempts to illustrate the way in which the chaotic state of the modern world acts as an obstacle for viable, life-affirming relationships, and how it destroys the individual (Jack Slay). McEwan illustrates traditional male and female gender roles and, by presenting extreme attitudes of control, domination and exploitation toward women, he criticizes the patriarchal ideologies which are created and encouraged by the contemporary society. Moreover, in McEwan’s fiction men and women re-evaluate their stereotypical roles: McEwan’s female characters break the societal barriers becoming the strength within their relationships. Thus, this paper aims to analyze the way in which McEwan’s fiction discusses gender roles, sexuality and identity within the politics of relationships and the impact of the historical and political constructs upon the private sexual life of the individual and private male-female relationships.

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