The Cement Garden

The Cement Garden is a traumatic novel by Ian McEwan about a very dysfunctional family in which both parents die leaving their four kids alone in the middle of their transition from childhood to adulthood. It is about these four relatively normal children and the choices they are forced to make in a very dire situation that they cannot escape. We will see how an extremely isolated and claustrophobic narrator can affect how a story is perceived and how fear of the outside world can overrule what one would and should do in such a situation as the one this family is faced with.

The story is narrated by Jack, a teenage boy and second child between Julie and Sue. He has poor personal hygiene, no friends or acquaintances and spends his free time fantasizing about his older sister, Julie, and masturbating. Jack’s father dies of a heart attack in the beginning of the novel. “I did not kill my father, but I sometimes think that I helped him on his way” (page 6, line 1-2). From the very beginning, we are told of how tormented and isolated Jack’s mind is. He feels responsible for the death of his father even though he had nothing to do with it, but he has no one in which he can confide, so instead he becomes extremely isolated and lonely. Everything that happens in the story is told entirely from his point of view. When their father dies, the response from the family is disturbingly silent and unemotional, as we are told nothing of their grieving process or mood. It is not even implied that it is being addressed in the family whatsoever. The family just moves on. Jack is still emotionally isolated from the rest of his family, and the story is filtered from his lonely perspective, which is why it is narrated in such a deeply claustrophobic way. “No one ever came to visit us. Neither my mother nor my father when he was alive had any real friends outside the family”(page 23, line 6-8). Jack’s isolated way of being only becomes worse when his mother lectures him, saying “Every time ... you do that, it takes two pint of blood to replace it.” (page 29, line 19-20) “that” being masturbation.

Some time after their father dies, their mother dies as well. The four children have to keep the death of their mother hidden from the outside world in fear of what will happen. They are so afraid of this unknown situation that they bury their mother in cement and hides her in the basement, making fear of the unknown a big theme in the novel. Again, we as readers are told very little about their grieving process, as Jack seems to be more focused on who will be in charge of the house now there are no parents. He even looks forward to being alone in the house. “When Mother died, beneath my strongest feeling was a sense of adventure and freedom which I hardly dared admit to myself and which was derived from the memory of that day five years ago” (page 71, line 9-12). He looks back on a time five years earlier when he was a part of the family. Now he is isolated from his siblings and his need to be a part of the family replaces what should be grief. Julie takes the figure of authority instead of Jack and that annoys him deeply. Jack’s obsession with Julie is constant throughout the story until he finds out Julie has a boyfriend who, through Jack’s eyes, seemingly has all the qualities Jack lacks, which increases his obsession and isolates him further. However, Derek is curious to find out what they have hidden in the basement, but Julie refuses to tell him. Derek attempts to impose on the children’s surreal world, but they will not let him, and even Julie turns against him. Fear of how an actual adult will react to their secret makes the children come up with lies and cover stories. The closer Derek is to uncovering the truth about the basement, the more Julie pushes him away. Julie and Jack ends up having sex in Tom’s room. When Derek asks:“‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I felt Julie shrug. Then she said, ‘Actually, it’s none of your business.’” Julie has now completely shut out the intruder and rounded up the whole theme of fear of the unknown and isolation. Throughout the story, Jack’s function is to narrate the story to the reader. He does so by standing on the sideline of the family as a sort of watcher. The story is filtered through his mind which makes it hard for the reader to determine how the family is, because it is told from his lonely and claustrophobic perspective.

The story is narrated by a teenager with a tormented and isolated mind, which makes it very traumatic to its readers. The choices the children make shapes the themes of mourning, growing up and, biggest of all, fear of the unknown, which overrules the children’s common sense.