One of the main ideas explored in both The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini, and Atonement, a film directed by Joe Wright, is the everlasting presence of the past in the lives of the protagonists, both of whom make a mistake in their...

What does Ian McEwan’s novel Saturday and the Matthew Arnold poem “Dover Beach” have in common, one may ask? Well, besides that arguably the most memorable scene in the novel revolves around the recitation of Arnold’s poem, the two works seem to...

In Ian McEwan's Saturday, the protagonist Henry Perowne is given the task of representing the trials of being a contemporary man. However, he seems to be more than just an average contemporary man. McEwan gives Henry the characteristics of a...

The events of 9/11 were a shock for not only the United States but also for the whole world. Suddenly, the country that was often perceived as impenetrable and unbeatable had to deal with the repercussions of a terrorist attack, shattering its...

In Atonement, McEwan reveals in the final section, ‘London, 1999,’ that the previous narrative had been a novel written by the character Briony, creating a metafictional lens and calling into question all the previous events the reader had assumed...

The Cement Garden depicts an isolated family, and the narrator is the oldest son in the family, named Jack. As a fifteen-year-old adolescent, it is time for Jack to build sex and gender consciousness. However, after the death of his father and...

Ian McEwan’s controversial, macabre bildungsroman, ‘The Cement Garden’, and Arthur Miller’s Ibsen-inspired domestic tragedy, “All My Sons”, both profoundly explore societal and familial demands and expectations laid upon men in these epochs-1946...

A little girl gets kidnapped from her father’s side in a busy supermarket and this sudden loss causes an unbearable burden in the parents’ souls which they are forced to carry until the day of forgiveness. This one statement is able to summarize...