Sex, Violence, and Complicity: Martin Amis and Ian McEwan

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Sex, Violence, and ComplicityMartin Amis and
Ian McEwan

• Jennifer Arbach, Valerian Bowie, Ryan Scovell,
  Brooke Spake,
• Ben Suen, and Rachel Taylor

2
Introduction

• This article serves as a tool to help understand
  the importance of controversial topics in Amis
  and McEwans works.
• It explains how debatable topics can influence
  the authors reputation.
• Kiernan Ryans article is not a rehash of the
  articles presented before.

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Purpose of this Criticism

• The purpose of this criticism is to draw a link
  between Martin Amis works and those of Ian
  McEwan.
• Kiernan Ryans goal of the article is to show the
  emphasis placed on sex, violence, and complicity
  in the works of both authors.
• A secondary purpose it to explain readers
  reactions to the novels written by Amis and
  McEwan.

4
Communication

• The author does clearly communicate the issue.
• Ryan gives facts and produces quotes from the
  texts to support his argument.
• His use of language, however, does try to impress
  the audience.

5
Literary Focus

• Focuses on the unique writing styles of the two
  authors.
• There is major emphasis on negative and offensive
  topics.
• His narratives habitually revolve around
  insufferable egotists and moronic dupes,
  heartless bastards and their helpless prey,
  tangled up in lethal webs of mutual manipulation
  and psychological torment (203).

6
Authors Argument

• Ryan does not build on unfounded assumptions.
• Ryan does not base his opinions on the works of
  other critics.
• The article is built on the ideas and works of
  the books written by Amis and McEwan.
• He does use previous interviews to support
  claims, but does not give any background
  information about them. (Audience cannot be sure
  that statements were not taken out of context.)

7
Method of Persuasion

• The dominant method of persuasion is usage of
  repetitive themes from the authors works.
• Ryan uses proof from the texts to justify his
  argument.
• The individual works are then analyzed to make
  his argument understandable for the readers.

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Thesis Statement

• Two-part thesis.
• The chief factor that guarantees such intense
  scrutiny is the reputation for outrageousness
  that both writers acquired early on, a reputation
  which has barnacled their books ever since,
  whether they have merited the melodramatic
  epithets attached to them or not (203).
• Whether taunting or flouting the acceptable
  moral response, McEwan and Amis refuse to enlist
  the stock responses and routine pieties, and the
  consequences for the reader can be perplexing,
  especially when our noses are being thrust into
  what actually motivates and gratifies us, as
  distinct from what we would prefer to think makes
  us tick (204).

9
Argument Organization

• The lengthy article alternates between McEwans
  and Amis novels.
• The novels are grouped by common topics and
  themes.
• The article transitions easily from one idea to
  the next. Everything is connected based on
  relativity.

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Sub-points of Argument

• Introduction of comparative writing styles Martin
  Amis and Ian McEwan.
• Both novelists set out to vex and disturb. They
  repeatedly run the risk of antagonizing or
  offending their readers, and of attracting the
  charge of compliance with everything in which
  they should recoil (204).
• The risk worth taking
• Interviews with both writers.

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Sub-points (Continued)

• Writers Moral Responsibility (or lack there of)
• Makes readers aware of own involvement and what
  helps in realization of true feelings.
• Épater les bien-pensants
• (Outraging the righteous, appalling the
  politically correct)
• The delinquent, the demented, the vain, the
  lecherous and the vile are authorized in a manner
  that confers normality upon them and compels us
  to wonder whether they may not be the rule rather
  than the exception (207).

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Sub-points (Continued)

• Violence
• -Holocaust (Times Arrow)
• -Entropy, apocalypse, and Judgement Day
• ? Using violence and time to warp
• perceptions of life.
• Sex
• -Violence is eroticized and leads to more
• sex. Pornographic actions more mainstream.
• Both habits are corrosive and compulsive.

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More Sub-points

• Complicity- Having share in guilt.
• -It is the preoccupation with complicity,
  however, that gives Amis and McEwans fiction
  its most distinctive twists complicity not
  merely as a theme, but as a condition of writing
  and a consequence of reading (212).
• -Idea that complicity is not innate, but
  acquired.
• ?Voice and narration- Most all are first-person.
• -intimacy and secrets own admission of guilt.

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Times Arrow

• Withdrawal
• Regression
• Redemptive Defamiliarization
• Domestic Violence
• More recent scenes of commonplace male brutality
  are rewound too, sharpening our awareness of what
  these acts entail, the appeal for affection they
  betray and the fragile trust they violate (216).

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Main Argument

• The Author argues that Amis (and McEwan) writes
  his stories in a linked sort of pattern. Elements
  of ruthlessness, selfishness, greed and lechery,
  addiction and abuse, beat out the deep recurrent
  rhythms of his fiction (203). The same elements
  show up in all of his novels.
• These patterns help audiences connect with the
  texts.
• All of his novels intend to offend the good and
  politically correct. Ryan argues that Amis does
  not write to make people happy. He writes what is
  really happening and does not care to offend.

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Reactions

• Because we are not familiar with Amis other
  novels, we were all surprised to know that Amis
  uses the same elements in his books. It is very
  shocking to know why Amis writes the way that he
  does, but it also helps to explain those elements
  in Times Arrow.
• The intended reaction is meant for those who have
  read and are familiar with the other novels.
  However, the group still got the intended
  reaction of realizing the connections and
  patterns between the texts.
• Being that this article is very informative, the
  author does achieve the goal of helping the group
  understand Amis writing manner and the recurring
  elements.

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• Thank You