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The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan

The Cement Garden
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan captures our attention to the children’s inner world. We begin to examine the given events from the perspective of Jack, the adolescent narrator. An exploration is made of how the individual interior world of each child correlates with one another and their family culture.
The novel opens with a sense of guilt and a feeling of unhappy self-containment, which introduces the atmosphere of The Cement Garden. Jack is a fifteen year old male adolescent. McEwan focuses on Jacks physical bodily functions and darker mental emotions, which are more grotesque and intense.
The first sentence in the book expresses Jacks feelings of guilt towards his father’s death. “ I did not kill my father, but sometimes think that I helped him on his way” (pg 9). McEwan draws us in by directing our attention to the tormented mental world of Jack. We then only see and observe the world of Jack and his siblings from his viewpoint. Everythi...

Posted by: Melissa T. Littlefield

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