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Women in Amsterdam

In McEwan's works, women like Molly and Rose are depicted as more moral than men, embodying goodness and tolerance amidst male shortcomings. The narrative explores themes of mortality and ethical engagement, particularly through the characters' responses to Molly's death and Clive's moral failures. McEwan critiques the superficiality of relationships and the ethical dilemmas faced by his male characters, contrasting them with the strength and support of their female counterparts.

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5 views1 page

Women in Amsterdam

In McEwan's works, women like Molly and Rose are depicted as more moral than men, embodying goodness and tolerance amidst male shortcomings. The narrative explores themes of mortality and ethical engagement, particularly through the characters' responses to Molly's death and Clive's moral failures. McEwan critiques the superficiality of relationships and the ethical dilemmas faced by his male characters, contrasting them with the strength and support of their female counterparts.

Uploaded by

subratachsarkar7
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Women

One could easily discern that women for McEwan appear to be more moral beings than men.
Both Molly and Rose are capable of embracing differences: the former (in a sense) abates the
tensions between the four men as host and guest while the latter never shows signs of indignation
at her husband‟s unfaithfulness and the “indecent” pictures. Dominic Head contends that the
author’s friendliness toward women has been due to “the second wave of feminism” as shown in
Germaine Greer‟s The Female Eunuch (1970)—of which McEwan did read. In McEwan‟s own
words, “my female characters became the repository of all the goodness that men fell short of”.
Amsterdam begins dramatically with an ending: the cremation of Molly Lane’s remains.
Although her husband George has deliberately chosen not to mourn her passing with a memorial
service- at least not at this point- Molly’s friends and former lovers have come together to mark
the end of her pain-tormented latter days. Molly’s ending brings a heightened awareness of their
own possible ends to at least two of her lovers/mourners, Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday, and
precipitates a complex structure of endings, or deaths, ranging from physical demise through
trajectory of sexuality to issues of narrative closure. As if her disease had contaminated her
former friends and lovers, the two men undergo a process of physical, mental and moral
involution until the end of the novel when, unawares, they perform euthanasia on each other.
Molly’s death has brought many sleepless nights to Garmony as well and everything he was
afraid of, all the nightmares, came true.
When Julian realizes the photos are about to be published he starts to doubt himself and feels
weak, ill, hit by an unidentifiable disease, exactly like the two others. It is Julian’s supportive
wife, Rose, the surgeon, who remains calm and rational, helps him to solve the whole situation
and saves his face. Julian is the archetypical pompous politician with a secret while his wife
Rose is the standard 'stand by your man' politician's wife.

One senses, therefore, the flatness about the characterization of Molly and Rose—one epitomizes
sensuous perfection (“restaurant critic,” “gorgeous wit,” “photographer,” “daring gardener,”)
while the other intellectual beauty combined with maternal tolerance (in her capacity as a
pediatrician). Both are further deprived of realism, with Molly dead and Rose taking on media
exteriority as she defends her husband in front of the camera.

McEwan also criticizes the enclosure of selves and the inability to engage with others ethically
most conspicuously through the portrayal of Clive who fails to rescue a woman about to be raped
in order to grasp an inspiration for his symphony. The victim woman emphasizes the failure of
Clive as an ethical person.

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