The Cement Garden as an Allegory of Modernity

This thesis concentrates on the analysis of Ian McEwan’s controversical work The Cement Garden. By referring to Walter Benjamin’s theory of allegory, especially his illustrations of fragmentation and melancholy, this thesis will analyze the fragmentary images of ruins, death and corpse and the fragmentary time presented in it; meanwhile, it will explore the alienated human relationship, the identity crises and the barren spiritual state of modern people under the melancholic gaze. Through the analysis, the author elucidates that that The Cement Garden is not a “revolting novel ” as some critics claimed, but can be called an allegory of modernity in the modern cultural context.