Time is a major theme in Ian McEwan's 'The Child In Time'.

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English coursework – The Child In Time

“Time….is always susceptible to human interpretation. And though time is partly a human fabrication, it is also that from which no parent or child is immune.”

        Time is a major theme in Ian McEwan’s ‘The Child In Time’. He treats the subject irreverently, ‘debunking chronology by the nonlinearity of his narrative.’ – Michael Byrne. McEwan uses the setting of Stephen’s dull committee as the backdrop for his daydreaming. Even Stephen’s thoughts are not choronological, and his daydreams constantly flit between different times, although this could be to emphasise the overall flexibility of time.

At first sight, it seems that the loss of Kate will be the central event, but McEwan strays through a wide spectrum of events, including the central one, Stephen’s encounter at ‘The Bell’, to try and explain his feelings. The scene at The Bell also refers to a vivid dream McEwan had, where he walked towards a pub knowing he would find the meaning of his life, knowing he would be terrified, but also needing to go on. This is the most important event in the book, and the most difficult to interpret in terms of the behaviour of time.

        

The book does not even begin with the loss of Kate, as you would expect, but Stephen on a normal morning. He relates everything he sees to time, the passing of which is even more important to him than anything else. After all, ‘the heartless accumulation of days, after the loss of Kate, has driven Stephen to deep depression, and endless thought. In his depression, he lives for Kate, the only purpose of his existence. This is how he knows he is alive, how he counts the days.

‘Kate’s growing up had become the essence of time itself…without the fantasy of her continued existence he was lost, time would stop.’ Stephen obsessively thinks about what might have happened the morning he lost her at the supermarket, and the way time behaved that day.

‘But time…monomaniacally forbids second chances.’ No-one can ever manipulate time, it is not an ‘independent entity.’- Rebecca Goldstein. It is not something to use, but something to work around, a part of life.

Stephen also describes part of his depression as ‘empty time’ probably because there is noting to fill it but his daydreams.

        On his way to Julie’s cottage, just before his encounter at The Bell, he crosses a wheat field. His own ‘weak and particular understanding’ of time is once again distorted. The landscape is constantly the same, with Stephen making the same movements, so ‘all sense of progress, and therefore all sense of time disappeared.’ Stephen once again interprets time as being something different. The image conveyed suggests time is measured by progress, not the other way around. It suggests that if everything stayed the same, or was on a constant loop, would time exist?

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As he continues to walk, his mind goes blank. He cannot concentrate consciously, however everything else appears crystal clear. He is trapped in a time of ‘mental white noise.’

As Stephen makes his way towards The Bell, he begins to realise this will be a momentous event in his life. It is something deeper than he can reach; it is not a memory, and it not something he has imagined.

‘But it was not just a place he was being offered, it was a particular day, this day…this particular location had its origins outside his own existence.’

He realises he ...

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