Author(s)

Rongying Zheng ¹, Zichen Wen ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Department of Foreign Language, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 100096, China

Corresponding Author

Rongying Zheng

ABSTRACT

The Cement Garden is one of McEwan's most famous works during the "Ian Macabre" period. This novel can not only be analysed from the perspective of narratology while simultaneously evoking a sense of ethical disquiet and shock among its readers. From the standpoint of literary ethics criticism, this paper focuses on analysing and revealing the imbalances of the Sphinx factor during the process of the four characters losing their parents. Due to the changes in the family and social environment, the four siblings gradually show the complex of animal factors surpassing human factors to varying degrees. The balance between immature rationality and unregulated animal nature eventually leads to abnormal ethical consciousness, resulting in cognitive disorders in the four siblings, which eventually leads to the tragic action of incest. 

KEYWORDS

Sphinx Factor, The Cement Garden, Ethical Selection, Ian McEwan

CITE THIS PAPER

Rongying Zheng, Zichen Wen, Unbalanced Sphinx Factor in The Cement Garden. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2023) Vol. 6: 92-97. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2023.061614.

REFERENCES

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