Current Volume 9
Abstract
This article examines the construction of gender dissonance and the architecture of emotional systems in Ian McEwan's Atonement (2001) and The Innocent (1990). Drawing on feminist literary theory, affect theory, and psychoanalytic criticism, the study argues that McEwan systematically deploys misaligned gender performances—situations in which characters fail to inhabit the emotional scripts culturally prescribed for their sex—as a structural engine of narrative irony, moral catastrophe, and psychological violence. In Atonement, gender dissonance is encoded in the asymmetry between Briony Tallis's hyperactive emotional literacy and Cecilia's disciplined emotional restraint, while Robbie Turner's intellectual tenderness exposes the fragility of heteronormative masculine identity under class and institutional pressure. In The Innocent, Leonard Marnham's arrested emotional development collides with Maria's continental emotional directness, producing a crisis of masculinity that culminates in corporeal horror. Taken together, the two novels reveal McEwan's sustained interest in what this article terms emotional misrecognition: the systematic failure of characters to read each other's affective states across gendered lines. The article concludes that McEwan uses gendered emotional asymmetry not merely as psychological realism but as a formal device that determines narrative outcome, moral authority, and the politics of memory.
Keywords
Gender Dissonance, Emotional Systems, Affect Theory, Ian Mcewan, Atonement, The Innocent, Feminist Narratology, Misrecognition, Masculinity, Narrative Authority
Citations
IRE Journals:
V. Jennifer Rani, Dr. N. Vijayakumari "Gender Dissonance and Emotional Systems in Ian McEwan's Atonement and The Innocent" Iconic Research And Engineering Journals Volume 9 Issue 11 2026 Page 4172-4179
IEEE:
V. Jennifer Rani, Dr. N. Vijayakumari
"Gender Dissonance and Emotional Systems in Ian McEwan's Atonement and The Innocent" Iconic Research And Engineering Journals, 9(11)
About IRE Journals
IRE Journals is an open access online journals established with an aim to publish high quality of research work in various diciplines. We have more than 6 years in publications. Over 2500+ papers already published.
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