Ian McEwan

Chapter 3 considers Ian McEwan’s engagement with neo-Darwinism in its manifestation as evolutionary psychology. From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, human behaviour is driven by genetic self-interest and society is structured around competition, while our tendency to self-deception disguises our motives from ourselves and others. This bleak view of human nature, which was promoted in the 1990s by influential figures such as Daniel Dennett and Steven Pinker, informs the characterization and plot of McEwan’s major novels (Enduring Love, Atonement, and Saturday). It also inflects the movement known as literary Darwinism, with which McEwan was closely associated. Having charted McEwan’s tight connections with neo-Darwinism, the chapter concludes with a reading of his recent novel Nutshell (2016) as a witty subversion of the neo-Darwinian orthodoxies which shaped his earlier work