Sunday, October 13, 2019
Childhood, Politics, and Satire in The Child in Time Essay -- The Chil
Childhood, Politics, and Satire in The Child in Time  For most children there is a strong desire never to grow up. This ‘Peter Pan’ complex has a large impact on most children and therefore very many adults later in life. Many of the images in The Child in Time are related to this desire, and the title is possibly directly related to the concept.            Kate is the first example of this eternal youth. She is not killed by any significant event - she does not succumb to a disease nor is she struck my an unfortunate accident - instead, during what would be a completely standard and banal trip to the supermarket she is abducted. There is not really a feeling that she has been lost for a reason; she disappears without notice or any provocation. Kate achieves this dream - the desire to be a child always, and it is as she, where others had not been so fortunate, had managed to wish hard enough to allow childhood to surrounded her so completely that she could not be touched by the exterior world. Kate becomes a child forever, as the title suggests, she exists as much, or more, as a ‘child in time’ as an actual person, living and growing. To Stephen she will always be the child she was when he last saw her, and her only growth can be achieved by superimposing on her personality a ste reotyped caricature of what a child her age would be - a child hoping for a walkie-talkie set for her birthday - without her own eccentricities, or personal characteristics.            When Stephen tries to recapture Kate, in the scene in the primary school, he too is overwhelmed by childhood. Without thinking he is drawn into a lesson and becomes a stereotyped student until he is able to break out of this strange reality and return to ... ...f Nuclear apocalypse without moving, except for another drink. He does seem actively very eager not to address his unhappiness at Kate’s abduction, even to the lengths that he takes up Arabic and Tennis. Both Tennis and Arabic, however, seem associated with youth - tennis as a game played whilst still young, and active - though Stephen finds he is not really active enough to play; and Arabic, which he views as to be learnt in a very scholastic manner - he calls his tutor be his surname, and does not speak to him about anything but the lesson at hand.            McEwan portrays childhood as a very powerful and important force, and The Child In Time focuses on someone for whom this is especially potent. He seems to try to highlight different views of childhood, through time and between political theories, using The Child In Time as a reasonable successful satire.
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