Ian Mcewan S Short Story First Love Last Rites As A Story Of Initiation And Adolescence

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Trier (Anglistik), course: British Short Stories, language: English, abstract: “A young boy, determined to cleanse himself of the embarrassing stigma of his virginity, seduces and beds his 10-year-old sister. A husband, who treasures a nineteenth-century criminal’s penis in a jar, “disappears” his wife into a surfaceless plane. A man revenges himself by pouring a pan of boiling oil into the lap of an antagonizing co-worker. An Aunt forces her nephew to don dress and blonde wig before coming down to dinner. Welcome to the world of Ian McEwan” (Slay 9). Ian Russell McEwan was born on the 21st of June in 1948 in Aldershot, England, as the only son of David and Rose McEwan. He spent most his childhood in military outposts such as Singapore and Libya because his father was a soldier of the British army. After having attended a boarding school in Suffolk, he enters the University of Sussex in 1966 where he began writing fiction and also achieved his BA degree in English literature in 1970. One year later he obtained his MA degree at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. In 1975 he published his first short story collection, First Love, Last Rites, which was his Master thesis in the subject ‘creative writing’. The shocking stories that are arranged in First Love, Last Rites brought him immediate critical compliments and he won the Somerset Maugham Award for their intelligent skills and originality. Most of these stories deal with abnormal sexuality, disorganized family life or claustrophobic tales. In his Short Stories, McEwan wrote at the beginning of his career, the protagonists are mostly children or young persons who tell the stories as first person narrators. Wolfgang G. Müller says in his interpretation of the Short story First Love, Last Rites that “the attention is drawn to the developmental stage of adolescence with its psychological problems that are especially linked to the first sexual experiences and to the search of gender identity” (translated from Müller 266). Ian McEwan became well known for his “new way of dealing with the topic of initiation where he places special emphasis on transgress and perverse sexual behaviour and also on criminal aspects” (translated from Müller 266). In this term paper the title story First Love, Last Rites will be analysed in the context of initiation and adolescence. Hereby, I will firstly introduce some important terms so that I can go on with explaining what an initiation story is. The last part then will be about the short story itself where I will summarize and analyse FLLR

Taut, brooding and densely atmospheric, these stories show us the ways in which murder can arise out of boredom, perversity can result from adolescent curiosity, and sheer evil might be the solution to unbearable loneliness.

Somerset Maugham Award winner: Dark early fiction by the author of Nutshell—“A splendid magician of fear” (The Village Voice Literary Supplement). Taut, brooding, and densely atmospheric, the stories here show us how murder can arise out of boredom, perversity from adolescent curiosity—and how sheer evil can become the solution to unbearable loneliness. These short fiction pieces from the early career of the New York Times–bestselling and Man Booker Prize–winning author of Atonement and On Chesil Beach are claustrophobic tales of childhood, twisted psychology, and disjointed family life as terrifying as anything by Stephen King—and finely crafted with a lyricism and an intensity that compels us to confront our secret kinship with what repels us. “A powerful talent that is both weird and wonderful.” —The Boston Sunday Globe “Ian McEwan’s fictional world combin[es] the bleak, dreamlike quality of de Chirico’s city-scapes with the strange eroticism of canvases by Balthus. Menace lies crouched between the lines of his neat, angular prose, and weird, grisly things occur in his books with nearly casual aplomb.” —The New York Times

Critically-acclaimed contemporary British writer Ian McEwan's novels and short stories often involve tales of aberrance and obsession. In this guide for students and the interested general reader, Malcolm (English, U. of Gdansk, Poland) discusses themes such as incest, espionage, sexual fixation, and political dysfunction in McEwan's writing. He also analyzes McEwan's portrayal of women; his concern with rationalism; his moral perspective; and the impact of feminism on his fiction. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A comprehensive reference to short fiction from Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Commonwealth. With approximately 450 entries, this A-to-Z guide explores the literary contributions of such writers as Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, D H Lawrence, Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde, Katherine Mansfield, Martin Amis, and others.

Ian McEwan is one of Britain's most established, and controversial, writers. This book introduces students to a range of critical approaches to McEwan's fiction. Criticism is drawn from selections in academic essays and articles, and reviews in newspapers, journals, magazines and websites, with editorial comment providing context, drawing attention to key points and identifying differences in critical perspectives. The book features selections from published interviews with Ian McEwan and covers all of the writer's novels to date, including his latest novel Saturday.