From the Romantic Child to the Postmodern Child: Reconstruction of Childhood in Ian McEwan’s The Daydreamer

Abstract

Scholarship in children’s literature associates the rise of the genre with the development of the modern concept of childhood, and this connection makes it impossible to study children’s literature at any historical moment without considering and critically examining the prevailing image of the child. Literary representations of children have long centered on a single stereotype–the Romantic child–whose ideological foundations were laid in the Enlightenment, deepened in the Romantic period, and ultimately solidified within literary tradition. Nevertheless, this long-established figure–an emblem of idyll and essential innocence–can no longer offer an authentic account of childhood in a postmodern world characterized not only by uncertainty, instability, and fluidity but also by pervasive violence and abuse embedded in social structures, ranging from the most intimate family units to the mass media that children consume. This paper explores the consequent shift from the Romantic child to the postmodern child and analyzes Ian McEwan’s The Daydreamer (1994) to demonstrate how a new conception of childhood is reconstructed through the portrayal of a psychologically complex, profoundly ambiguous, and largely rebellious child protagonist, who innately uses daydreaming as a mode of liberation and a catalyst for self-directed awareness.

Keywords

• Ian McEwan
• The Daydreamer
• children’s literature
• the Romantic child
• the postmodern child
• childhood

Romantik Çocuktan Postmodern Çocuğa: Ian McEwan’ın The Daydreamer Adlı Eserinde Çocukluğun Yeniden Kurgulanması

Abstract

Çocuk edebiyatı alanındaki akademik çalışmalar, türün yükselişini modern çocukluk kavramının gelişimiyle ilişkilendirir. Bu bağlantı, herhangi bir tarihsel dönemde çocuk edebiyatını, o dönemin hâkim çocuk imgesini dikkate almadan ve eleştirel bir biçimde incelemeden çalışmayı imkânsız kılar. Çocukların edebi temsilleri uzun süre tek bir stereotip üzerine odaklanmıştır: Romantik çocuk. Bu stereotipin ideolojik temelleri Aydınlanma döneminde atılmış, Romantik dönemde derinleşmiş ve nihayetinde edebî gelenek içinde pekiştirilmiştir. Uzun süredir yerleşik olan bu figür idil ve temel saflığın bir sembolü olarak, artık postmodern dünyadaki çocukluğu özgün bir şekilde yansıtamaz. Postmodern dünya; belirsizlik, istikrarsızlık, akışkanlık ve en küçük aile birimlerinden çocukların tükettiği kitle iletişim araçlarına kadar uzanan sosyal yapılar içinde yerleşik şiddet ve istismar ile karakterizedir. Bu makale, Romantik çocuk anlayışından postmodern çocuk anlayışına olan bu değişimi inceler ve Ian McEwan’ın The Daydreamer adlı eserini, psikolojik olarak karmaşık, son derece muğlak ve büyük ölçüde asi bir çocuk karakter tasviri üzerinden çocukluk kavramının nasıl yeniden inşa edildiğini göstermek amacıyla analiz eder. Bu çocuk karakter, doğuştan gelen bir yetenek olarak hayal kurmayı bir özgürleşme yöntemi ve kendini fark etme sürecini tetikleyen bir araç olarak kullanır.

Keywords

• Ian McEwan
• The Daydreamer
• çocuk edebiyatı
• romantik çocuk
• postmodern çocuk
• çocukluk

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