The Cement Garden Ian McEwan
Psychological novel Setting This book is mostly written in and around a very special house in England. It starts during summer and ends during summer. Characters There are four main characters in this book, but there are also two very special characters; the book is all about them but they aren’t in the book for a long time. The main 4 were: • Jack; The narrator and most important child in the book. He’s about 14-15 years old and so in puberty. • Julie; She’s the older sister of Jack. She’s already about 18 years old and she’s responsible for the rest of the children. •
Sue; The younger sister of Jack. 12 years old and keeps a diary since the death of their mother. • Tom; The younger and only brother of Jack. He got bullied on school and wants to be a girl because they don’t get bullied. Then we have the two special characters: • Dad; Jack’s father dies already in chapter one when he and Jack are working on their garden which father wants cemented. • Mom; His mother dies about halfway in the book in her bed after a long time of sickness. The last character: • Derek; Julie takes him home as her boyfriend. At the end he betrays them as he calls the police. Summary The story starts with a big family of six people. They don’t have family or friends and neighbors aren’t there because there aren’t even houses for them. The father of the children decides to put cement all in the garden and so it goes. When he and Jack are working, suddenly father’s heart stops working and he dies. After “Dad” died, “Mom” becomes very sick and stays in bed for a long time. Three days after jack’s birthday also Mom dies and the children are all at their own. They’re afraid that they have to go to a house for orphans, so they decide to put their mother into the cement which was left from the gardening, and they put her with the cement into the cellar. Julie gets a boyfriend, Derek. She takes him home a lot of times. Jack doesn’t like him, which is also because he likes his sister Julie very much. When Derek notices the bad smell of the dead body in the cellar he looks for it. Jack has to tell him something, so in his quickest thought he says his dead dog is lying in the cement. Jack and Julie don’t know that Derek already has a thought that it is a lie of Jack. When he sees Jack and Julie having sex with each other he gets really angry. He goes down into the cellar to look what is really in the cement. When he sees the dead body lying in the box he immediately calls the police and this is where the book ends. Themes • Loneliness – These four children are all at their own in this big house after their parents died without having friends or family. • Death – Both parents died and Jack thinks very much about death and his mother the whole book long. • Abandoned ness – These children are totally abandoned from the outside world, are afraid of it and don’t go to school.
Conclusion I liked this book very much. It isn’t very hard to read, but I did learn some new words. The story was very special, also in the way it was written but also the story itself was sort of weird or sick. I would really recommend it to someone, it’s like a
must-have-read, it’s very famous and I would like it very much to read more books of Ian McEwan.