The Entanglement of the Human and Place as a “Storied Matter” in the Womb: Ian McEwan’s Nutshell

Year 2024, Volume: 41 Issue: 2, 597 - 609, 30.12.2024

Emine Akkülah Doğan

https://doi.org/10.32600/huefd.1420171

Abstract

Ian McEwan’s (1948- ) Nutshell (2016) has drawn the attention of academic spheres as a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet since its publication. That is why the novel has been mostly studied as a rewriting in which the existential questionings of Shakespeare’s Hamlet are attributed to a modern-day foetus. Employing a foetus as a narrator and protagonist in the novel, McEwan demonstrates the reflections of Hamlet’s existential crisis on a contemporary foetus who is oscillating between being human and nonhuman. As helpless as Hamlet for his modern-day problems, the foetus narrator talks about his consciousness, human side, morality and, most importantly, his role in this world which is devastating gradually due to various reasons such as environmental problems, climate crisis and wars. In that respect, it can be asserted that the novelist raises questions about human-nonhuman, ethics and morality through the story told by a foetus protagonist. Even though McEwan touches upon the environmental crisis through the foetus’s narration, Nutshell has never been studied from an ecocritical perspective. However, the foetus’s entanglement with the womb and the story originating from this bond are the instances of human-place entanglement. From the perspective of material ecocriticism, with the “narrative agency” given by the material environment, the foetus becomes the text that narrates his story of birth and becoming human. Accordingly, this study aims to analyse the foetus in Nutshell as a “storied matter” by emphasising the human-place entanglement in the womb.

Keywords

Ian McEwan, Nutshell, entanglement, material ecocriticism, “storied matter”

Ana Rahminde İnsan ve Mekân Dolanıklığı: Ian McEwan’ın Fındık Kabuğu Romanı

Abstract

Ian McEwan’ın Fındık Kabuğu (2016) isimli romanı yayımlandığı tarihten itibaren William Shakespeare’in Hamlet adlı eserinin modern bir uyarlaması olarak akademik çevrelerde dikkat çekmektedir. Bu nedenle roman daha çok, Shakespeare’in Hamlet karakterinin varoluşsal sorgulamalarının günümüz fetüsüne atfedildiği bir yeniden yazım olarak çalışılmıştır. Romanda anlatıcı ve ana karakter olarak bir fetüsü kullanan McEwan, Hamlet’in varoluşsal krizlerinin yansımalarını insan ve insan olmayan arasında gidip gelen çağdaş bir fetüste gösterir. Günümüz problemleri için Hamlet kadar çaresiz olan fetüs, kendi bilinci, insan tarafı, ahlak ve en önemlisi, çevre sorunları, iklim krizi ve savaşlar gibi çeşitli nedenlerden ötürü günden güne kötüye giden dünyada kendi rolü üzerine konuşur. Bu durumda, yazarın fetüsün anlattığı hikâye boyunca insan-insan olmayan, etik ve ahlak konularında sorular yönelttiği iddia edilebilir. McEwan fetüsün anlatımıyla çevre problemleri konusuna değinse de Fındık Kabuğu hiçbir zaman ekolojik açıdan çalışılmamıştır. Yine de fetüsün ana rahmi ile bağı ve bu bağdan ortaya çıkan hikâye bir insan-mekân düğümü örneğidir. Maddesel ekoeleştiri perspektifinden bakıldığında, içinde bulunduğu maddesel alan tarafından verilen “anlatım eyleyiciliği” ile fetüs, oluşum hikayesini anlatan metnin kendisi olmuştur. Maddenin bu durumu hikâye dolu madde anlamına gelen “hikayeci madde” olarak adlandırılmıştır. Bu doğrultuda bu çalışma, Fındık Kabuğu romanındaki fetüsü ana rahmindeki insan-mekân düğümüne vurgu yaparak bir “hikayeci madde” örneği olarak incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır.

Keywords

Ian McEwan, Fındık Kabuğu, dolanıklık, maddesel ekoeleştiri, “hikayeci madde”

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