Ian McEwan’s Aesthetic Stakes in Adaptation as Political Rewriting: A Study of Nutshell (2016) and The Cockroach (2019)
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Ian Tan
Abstract
This essay will examine two of Ian McEwan’s recent novellas as political rewritings of William Shakespeare and Franz Kafka. McEwan’s Nutshell (2016) repositions the avenger figure in Hamlet as an unborn child whose melancholic awareness of the condition of modern existence allows him a mode of ironic commentary about the possibilities of moral and political choices in a world soon to be destroyed by climate change and nuclear apocalypse. The Cockroach (2019) turns Kafkaesque absurdity into political satire as the protagonist-turned-insect first encountered in The Metamorphosis (1915) is arrogated a position of absolute power in a fictional dystopia eerily resonant of Britain on the verge of Brexit. I argue that McEwan’s re-scripting of these two works of canonical literature imbues his narratives with political resonance, as the formulations and distortions of the physical body in his two novellas map onto the articulations of political belief. In effect, McEwan posits the Foucaultian notion that the body is determined by symbolic systems of power. However, he succeeds in turning the gaze back onto the political by instantiating the radical dimension of a subject whose coming into being is already a political act and event. In other words, McEwan’s artistic intervention in rewriting the narratives of Hamlet and Gregor Samsa explodes the hermeticism of the family drama in the originals by relocating the theatre of subjectivity within the sphere of the political.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Tennessee Williams’s Misunderstood ‘memory play’: Re-Imagining Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie
- Old Age as Horror Vision or Comfort Zone in the Late Fiction of Contemporary British Novelists
- The First (and Second) Coming of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest
- “All business as usual”: Richard Powers’ Gain and the Complicities of (Re-)Incorporation
- Ian McEwan’s Aesthetic Stakes in Adaptation as Political Rewriting: A Study of Nutshell (2016) and The Cockroach (2019)
- Reviews
- Lilo Moessner. 2020. The History of the Present English Subjunctive: A Corpus-Based Study of Mood and Modality. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, xx + 271 pp., 123 tables, 8 figures, £ 85.00.
- Dustin M. Frazier Wood. 2020. Anglo-Saxonism and the Idea of Englishness in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Medievalism 18. Woodbridge: Boydell. xv + 237 pp., 22 illustr., £ 60.00.
- Emily Kesling. 2020. Medical Texts in Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture. Anglo-Saxon Studies 38. Cambridge: Brewer, xii + 233 pp., 3 tables, £ 60.00/$ 99.00.
- Scott DeGregorio and Paul Kershaw (eds.). 2020. Cities, Saints, and Communities in Early Medieval Europe: Essays in Honour of Alan Thacker. Studies in the Early Middle Ages 46. Turnhout: Brepols, 408 pp., 8 figures, 9 tables, 1 map, € 100.00.
- Andrew Kraebel. 2020. Biblical Commentary and Translation in Later Medieval England: Experiments in Interpretation. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xiv + 322 pp., 17 figures, £ 75.00.
- Edurne Garrido-Anes (ed.). 2020. A Middle English Version of the Circa Instans. Edited from Cambridge, CUL, MS Ee.1.13. Middle English Texts 59. Heidelberg: Winter, lvi + 212 pp., 2 illustr., € 70.00.
- Wieland Schwanebeck. 2020. Literary Twinship from Shakespeare to the Age of Cloning. Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory. New York/London: Routledge, xiv + 245 pp., 23 figures, £ 120.00.
- Michael A. Chaney (ed.). 2018. Where Is All My Relation? The Poetics of Dave the Potter. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 236 pp., 28 illustr., £ 53.00/$ 78.00.
- Rebecca Brückmann. 2021. Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood: White Women, Class, and Segregation. Politics and Culture in the Twentieth-Century South. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, x + 271 pp., 6 figures, $ 114.95.
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Tennessee Williams’s Misunderstood ‘memory play’: Re-Imagining Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie
- Old Age as Horror Vision or Comfort Zone in the Late Fiction of Contemporary British Novelists
- The First (and Second) Coming of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest
- “All business as usual”: Richard Powers’ Gain and the Complicities of (Re-)Incorporation
- Ian McEwan’s Aesthetic Stakes in Adaptation as Political Rewriting: A Study of Nutshell (2016) and The Cockroach (2019)
- Reviews
- Lilo Moessner. 2020. The History of the Present English Subjunctive: A Corpus-Based Study of Mood and Modality. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, xx + 271 pp., 123 tables, 8 figures, £ 85.00.
- Dustin M. Frazier Wood. 2020. Anglo-Saxonism and the Idea of Englishness in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Medievalism 18. Woodbridge: Boydell. xv + 237 pp., 22 illustr., £ 60.00.
- Emily Kesling. 2020. Medical Texts in Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture. Anglo-Saxon Studies 38. Cambridge: Brewer, xii + 233 pp., 3 tables, £ 60.00/$ 99.00.
- Scott DeGregorio and Paul Kershaw (eds.). 2020. Cities, Saints, and Communities in Early Medieval Europe: Essays in Honour of Alan Thacker. Studies in the Early Middle Ages 46. Turnhout: Brepols, 408 pp., 8 figures, 9 tables, 1 map, € 100.00.
- Andrew Kraebel. 2020. Biblical Commentary and Translation in Later Medieval England: Experiments in Interpretation. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xiv + 322 pp., 17 figures, £ 75.00.
- Edurne Garrido-Anes (ed.). 2020. A Middle English Version of the Circa Instans. Edited from Cambridge, CUL, MS Ee.1.13. Middle English Texts 59. Heidelberg: Winter, lvi + 212 pp., 2 illustr., € 70.00.
- Wieland Schwanebeck. 2020. Literary Twinship from Shakespeare to the Age of Cloning. Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory. New York/London: Routledge, xiv + 245 pp., 23 figures, £ 120.00.
- Michael A. Chaney (ed.). 2018. Where Is All My Relation? The Poetics of Dave the Potter. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 236 pp., 28 illustr., £ 53.00/$ 78.00.
- Rebecca Brückmann. 2021. Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood: White Women, Class, and Segregation. Politics and Culture in the Twentieth-Century South. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, x + 271 pp., 6 figures, $ 114.95.
