The Beauty Of Tragedy In McEwan's Novels

Ian McEwan is one of the most distinguished contemporary novelists and one of the greatest living writers in Britain. His works are featured with complicated and diverse subjects. He is entitled "Ian Macabre" as his early works involved some sensitive subjects such as incest, violence and murder. However, his later works were evidently different from the early ones, which mainly demonstrated the soft sentiment, from describing the dark side of human nature to showing the extensive social life, from merely describing psychology to combining the psychology with the social reality. By integrating realism and modernism, McEwan shows the living status and mental state of modern people, from which readers can realize their own living status and have a reflection on their lives, which can account for the popularity of McEwan's works around the world.The theme of McEwan's writing has changed during different periods, but most of his novels end in tragedy, which are different from those in traditional sense. It is not because he is a pessimist, but because he wants readers to know the existence of tragedies in life and then face them bravely. In tragedy, readers are not simply amused, but moved, thrilled and uplifted. Besides, tragedy plunges deep into the heart and arouses emotions of people. It is exactly Zhu Guangqian's opinion in The Psychology of Tragedy. This paper will use the main theories in The Psychology of Tragedy to analyse the tragic ending of three of McEwan's novels---The Comfort of the Strangers, The Innocent and Solar, including the "psychical distance", reading a novel as a "participant" or a "contemplator" and the transformation of the tragic pain to the tragic pleasure. At the same time, the reason of the protagonists' tragic ending will be discussed, as well as the inspiration effect to the readers. The thesis tries to provide a new angle to analyze McEwan's novels.This thesis consists of three parts:introduction, body and conclusion.Chapter one is introduction. Ian McEwan and his works are simply introduced as well as the current study of him and his works at home and abroad. Besides, the major theories in The Psychology of Tragedy is introduced as well, which are "psychical distance", reading a novel as a "participant" or a "contemplator" and the transformation of the tragic pain to the tragic pleasure.The body part is divided into three chapters in the sequence of the major theories of The Psychology of Tragedy. Each chapter will analyze The Comfort of Strangers, The Innocent and Solar horizontally. Chapter two is about the "psychical distance" McEwan creates for his readers. The three novels will be further discussed from the aspects of the spatial and temporal remoteness, the exceptional nature of characters, situations and actions, objective and semi-humorous writing technique and supernatural atmosphere. Chapter three is about two different attitudes of reading McEwan's novels, as "participants" or "contemplaters". The subjective and objective reasons for Colin, Leonard and Beard's tragic endings will be discussed. McEwan wants to make the readers "contemplaters" to prevent personal feelings from affecting the appreciation of tragedies. Chapter four is about the transformation of tragic pain to tragic pleasure. After tragedies, Mary, Leonard and Beard could encourage themselves to step out and live on, which shows McEwan's purpose to bring vitality through tragic endings.Chapter five is the conclusion part which summarizes the "psychical distance" McEwan creates for readers and makes them "outsiders" when reading, as well as the transformation of tragic pain to tragic pleasure. It all shows McEwan's responsibility as a writer to make readers feel vitality by reading.