2026-03-07T08:44:39Z https://kansai-u.repo.nii.ac.jp/oai

oai:kansai-u.repo.nii.ac.jp:02001697 2024-07-17T03:07:36Z 239:247:1720572986658

Plumbing Ethically : A New Pastorate in Ian McEwan’s Saturday 板倉, 厳一郎 53996 Itakura, Genichiro 20340177 Ian McEwan Saturday biopower/pastoral power affect/emotion 関西大学 Kansai University Ian McEwan’s post-9/11 novel Saturday (2005) has divided reviewers and critics mainly due to its exclusive focus on the complacent elite protagonist, Henry Perowne, who can be described as a Blairite neoliberal, and its use of Matthew Arnold’s ‘Dover Beach’ (1867) as a deus ex machina. Interestingly, Perowne’s complacency endorses Foucauldian ‘pastoral power’, now in the hands of medical professionals, which bears a close parallel to the godlike power of a novelist, a theme explored in Atonement (2001). Indeed, McEwan’s neurosurgeon exercises a form of control over the populace: on the one hand, he guides his patients to live a normal life by removing abnormalities and getting everything in the right order; on the other, he decides who is worthy of receiving further care. McEwan’s analogue between neurosurgery and creative writing consolidates this pastoral power of Perowne, who changes the course of people’s lives as easily as a novelist does. In addition to performing a life-saving surgical intervention for Baxter, he abuses his power for his personal and emotional ends in determining how this genetically abnormal intruder should live. This essay aims to understand the novel’s exploration of the power of this new pastorate in the era of medicalised politics. Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (grant no. 21K00354). departmental bulletin paper 関西大学東西学術研究所 2024-07-01 VoR application/pdf 関西大学東西学術研究所紀要 57 A19 A36 AN0004709X 02878151 https://kansai-u.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/2001697/files/KU-0400-20240701-10.pdf https://doi.org/10.32286/0002001697 http://hdl.handle.net/10112/0002001697 https://kansai-u.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/2001697 eng open access