Self-Composing Women of John Fowles and Ian McEwan: Kenosis inThe Magus and Atonement

Abstract

This paper examines how postmodern literature employs the concept of kenosis to destabilize traditional literary and social norms alongside widely acknowledged concepts such as self-referentiality, polyphony, and the carnivalesque. Reframed from its theological meaning of self-emptying, kenosis is explored as an authorial strategy that relinquishes narrative control, enabling characters and readers to co-construct meaning. The study focuses on John Fowles’ The Magus and Ian McEwan’s Atonement, analysing how postmodern strategies such as fragmentation, intertextuality, and narrative ambiguity alongside kenosis reshape gender dynamics and expand representational possibilities. Fowles constructs a polyphonic text where letters, diaries, and performances coexist without privileging a single discourse, while McEwan employs shifting perspectives and an unreliable narrator to foreground the instability of truth. In both cases, the author withdraws, allowing diverse voices and interpretations to emerge. Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity also provides a critical framework in this context: female characters, Alison and Julie/Lily in The Magus; Cecilia and Briony in Atonement, initially constrained by patriarchal norms, ultimately subvert stereotypes and enact alternative femininities. By integrating postmodern concepts with Butlerian performativity, this paper argues that kenotic structures destabilize authority, amplify marginalized voices, and reimagine identity. Ultimately, The Magus and Atonement exemplify postmodern literature’s capacity to resist absolutes, critique cultural constructs, and envision literature as a collaborative site of meaning-making through a kenotic liberation of characters from the authorial imposition of the author.

Keywords

• John Fowles
• Ian McEwan
• postmodernism
• kenosis
• performativity
• authorship

John Fowles ve Ian McEwan’ın Kendini Kurgulayan Kadınları: The Magus ve Atonement Romanlarında Kenosis

Abstract

Bu makale, postmodern edebiyatın, özgönderimsellik, polifoni ve karnavalesk gibi yaygın biçimde kabul görmüş kavramlarla birlikte kenosis kavramını nasıl kullandığını ve bu kavram aracılığıyla geleneksel edebî ve toplumsal normları nasıl istikrarsızlaştırdığını incelemektedir. Teolojik bağlamdaki “kendini boşaltma” anlamından yeniden çerçevelendirilen kenosis, anlatısal denetimden feragat eden ve böylece anlamın karakterler ile okurlar tarafından birlikte inşa edilmesine imkân tanıyan bir yazın stratejisi olarak ele alınmaktadır. Çalışma, John Fowles’un The Magus ve Ian McEwan’ın Atonement adlı eserlerine odaklanarak kenosis kavramının yanı sıra parçalanma, metinlerarasılık ve anlatısal belirsizlik gibi postmodern stratejilerin toplumsal cinsiyet dinamiklerini nasıl yeniden şekillendirdiğini ve temsil olanaklarını nasıl genişlettiğini analiz etmektedir. Fowles, mektupların, günlüklerin ve performansların tek bir söylemi ayrıcalıklı kılmaksızın bir arada var olduğu polifonik bir metin inşa ederken; McEwan, değişen bakış açıları ve güvenilmez anlatıcı aracılığıyla hakikatin istikrarsızlığını görünür kılmaktadır. Her iki durumda da yazar geri çekilerek farklı seslerin ve yorumların ortaya çıkmasına olanak tanımaktadır. Judith Butler’ın toplumsal cinsiyet performativitesi kuramı da bu bağlamda eleştirel bir çerçeve sunmaktadır: The Magus’ta Alison ile Julie/Lily; Atonement’ta Cecilia ve Briony gibi kadın karakterler, başlangıçta ataerkil normlarla sınırlandırılmışken, nihayetinde stereotipleri tersyüz etmekte ve alternatif kadınlık biçimlerini icra etmektedir. Postmodern kavramların Butlercı performativite anlayışıyla bütünleştirilmesiyle bu makale, kenotik yapıların otoriteyi istikrarsızlaştırdığını, marjinalleştirilmiş sesleri çoğalttığını ve kimliği yeniden tahayyül ettiğini ileri sürmektedir. Sonuç olarak The Magus ve Atonement, postmodern edebiyatın mutlaklara direnen, kültürel kurguları eleştiren ve anlamın, yazarın dayatmasından kurtarılan karakterler aracılığıyla kenotik bir özgürleşme sürecinde müşterek olarak üretildiği bir alan olarak edebiyatı yeniden tasavvur eden potansiyelini örneklemektedir.

Keywords

• Postmodernizm
• Kenosis
• Performatiflik
• Yazarlık
• John Fowles
• Ian McEwan

References

1. Adams, J. (2000). Narcissism and creativity in the postmodern era: The case of Patrick Süskind’s Das Parfum. The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory, 75(4), 259-279.
2. Bakhtin, M. (1984). Rabelais and his world. Indiana University Press.
3. Ball, S. J. (1995). Intellectuals or technicians? The urgent role of theory in educational studies. British Journal of Educational Studies, 43(3), 255-271.
4. Bloom, H. (1997). The anxiety of influence: A theory of poetry. Oxford University Press.
5. Butler, J. (1991). Imitation and gender insubordination. In D. Fuss (Ed.), Inside/Out: Lesbian theories, gay theories (pp. 13-31). Routledge.
6. Butler, J. (2002). Gender trouble. Routledge.
7. Butler, J. (2004). Undoing gender. Routledge.
8. D’Angelo, K. (2009). “To make a novel”: The construction of a critical readership in Ian McEwan’s Atonement. Studies in the Novel, 41(1), 88-105.

9. Dekert, T. (2013). Freedom and kenosis: A reading of Nicolas Berdyaev’s philosophy of freedom. Forum Philosophicum, 18(2), 175-189.
10. Derrida, J. (1995). On the name. Stanford University Press.
11. Derrida, J. (2002). Faith and knowledge. In G. Anidjar (Ed.), Acts of religion (pp. 40-101). Routledge.
12. Dubilet, A. (2018). The self-emptying subject. Fordham University Press.
13. Falzon, C. (2015). “She would rewrite the past”: Briony as narrator-manipulator in Ian McEwan’s Atonement. Symposia Melitensia, 11, 57-82.
14. Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality: An introduction (Vol. 1, R. Hurley, Trans.). Vintage.
15. Foucault, M. (2016). Discipline and punish. In W. Longhofer & D. Winchester (Eds.), Social theory re-wired (pp. 319-329). Routledge.
16. Fowles, J. (1977). The Magus (Rev. ed.). Little, Brown.
17. Groes, S. (Ed.). (2009). Ian McEwan: Contemporary critical perspectives. Bloomsbury.
18. Harkin, P. (2005). The reception of reader-response theory. College Composition and Communication, 56(3), 410-425.
19. Izzo, D. (2008). Nothing personal: Women characters, gender ideology, and literary representation. In G. W. Zacharias (Ed.), A companion to Henry James (pp. 343-359). Blackwell.
20. Janzen, H. E. (2012). Bakhtinian concept of literature and the analysis of characters in modern foreign language textbooks. Bakhtiniana: Revista de Estudos do Discurso, 7, 107-124.
21. Koblížková, J. (2016). Nadvláda žen nad muži podle Iana McEwana (Unpublished bachelor’s thesis). Masaryk University, Faculty of Education. https://is.muni.cz/th/ehm0j
22. Lyotard, J. F. (1984). Jewish Oedipus. In R. McKeon (Ed.), Driftworks (pp. 93-107). Foreign Agents Series.
23. McEwan, I. (2005). Atonement. Vintage Classics.
24. McLeod, S. F. (2018). Aspects of voice in Ian McEwan’s fiction (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Western Australia). The University of Western Australia Research Repository. https://api.research-repository.uwa.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/26765160 /THESIS_DOCTOR_OF_PHILOSOPHY_MCLEOD_Sylvia_Faye_2018.pdf
25. Naian, R. A. (2012). Plerosis/kenosis: Poetic language and its energies. Peter Lang.
26. O’Hara, D. K. (2011). Briony’s being-for: Metafictional narrative ethics in Ian McEwan’s Atonement. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 52(1), 74-100.
27. Phelan, J. (2017). Narrative theory, 2006–2015: Some highlights with applications to Ian McEwan’s Atonement. Frontiers of Narrative Studies, 3(1), 179-201.
28. Romylos, S., & De Lange, A. (2015). The convergence of sacred and secular spaces in three selected contemporary novels. Journal of Literary Studies, 31(3), 30-48.
29. Rubenstein, R. (1975). Myth, mystery, and irony: John Fowles’ The Magus. Contemporary Literature, 16(3), 328-339.
30. Russell, C. (1980). Individual voice in the collective discourse: Literary innovation in postmodern American fiction. Substance, 9(2), 29-39.
31. Van Riessen, R. D. N. (2007). Man as a place of God. Springer.
32. Ward, W. E. (1971). The person of Christ: The kenotic theory. In C. F. H. Henry (Ed.), Basic Christian doctrines (pp. 131-138). Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
33. Yu, X. (2021). Construction of mutual gaze: A review of studies on male gaze, female gaze, and mutual gaze. In Proceedings of the 2021 3rd International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development [MG4.1] (ICLAHD 2021) (Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, 594, pp. 428-432). Atlantis Press.
34. Zerweck, B. (2001). Historicizing unreliable narration: Unreliability and cultural discourse in narrative fiction. Style, 35(1), 151-176.