An Interpretation Of Ethical Transmutation In Ian Mcewan's Nutshell From The Perspective Of Unnatural Narrative

As one of the most significant writers,Ian McEwan who is well-known in contemporary British literary world is named as the “national writer”.His early works focus on murder,violence and incest and late works with a broader perspective pay much more attention to international politics and social issues.His latest novel Nutshell(2016),combining his early focuses and recent concerns,is a murder story narrated by a fetus and a parody of Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet in plot.This novel has not received much attention from scholars and there are rare academic studies on it because of its short publication time.Therefore,with the support of theories of unnatural narrative and ethical literary criticism,this thesis is dedicated to interpreting the “unnaturalness” both in form and content in Nutshell to explore the ethical issues and the phenomenon of lost human nature which are hidden behind the unnatural form so as to arouse people's attention to the problem of ethics and humanity and provide solutions to regain the lost ethics and human nature.This paper is composed of five chapters.Chapter One consists of a brief introduction to McEwan and his work Nutshell,a literature review on the studies of this novel both home and abroad,a presentation about the theoretical framework of this thesis,the feasibility of this study and a thesis statement.Chapter Two interprets the displaced ethical relationships among the fetus narrator,Trudy,John and Claude,revealing that the fetus loses his ethical identity because of the disordered ethical relationships.Chapter Three investigates the fetus' s “to be or not to be” ethical dilemmas governed by his unnatural emotions in the misplaced ethical relationships,pointing out that ethical dilemmas are what McEwan always concerns about.Chapter Four explores the fetus' s ethical selections in his unnatural spaces with a conclusion that ethical selection is a valid way to get out of ethical dilemmas and salvage the lost human nature.Chapter Five concludes the main arguments of this thesis and discloses the lost ethics and human nature in contemporary society;meanwhile,it provides hope and feasible way to deal with them,that is,making accurate ethical selections.