Private Prison Cells : The Dynamics and Variety of Ian McEwan’s Space Concepts of the Postmodern Gothic

Abstract

The paper will examine the dynamics of changes in the concepts of spaces in the selected novels written by the contemporary British author Ian McEwan. It will define the role of representational spaces in McEwan’s early novels (The Cement Garden, The Comfort of Strangers) and concentrate on the term of intense focalization in the author’s recent novel Nutshell. The main aim of the paper is to trace the presence of the uncanny in McEwan’s fictional spaces and explore the theme of space violation and disturbing human privacy within the closed space which points out to the genre of postmodern Gothic.