Similarities Between Running Wild And Mcewan

‘Child hood innocence is never live – by the child – as innocent, but constructed as such afterwards’.
Innocence is given a curious examination in both J.G Ballard’s Running Wild and Ian McEwan’s The Child in Time, with each text set against the backdrop of a dystopian English society, close enough to reality to be considered allegorical in reference to the state of the nation. It is within the discussion of society that the idea of innocence is represented as a constructed and therefore unattainable notion, a quality that no longer exists in its true form. Both authors present the message that the state, with particular allusion to the Thatcherite government, has taken the concept of innocence and exhausted it through aggressive capitalism
and privatisation. What I aim to explore is how each text presents the idea of manufactured innocence and how this is used as a social and political critique, while examining other contrasting readings of innocence across both texts.

The Child in Time begins with the blunt realisation that society has lost its innocence. It is revealed as the protagonist Stephen ‘obsessively hunts… on the watch for children’ that his daughter has been missing for two years, yet she continues to exist within him; they are merely separated by the ‘fine tissues of time and chance’ . Her absence however is ‘stencilled’ onto him in a way that suggests he is missing a piece of himself. McEwan chooses to juxtapose this sad loss of a child with the state; he begins the novel by discussing ‘subsiding public transport’ undoubtedly an early reference to the idea of manufactured innocence. By discussing the loss of his daughter Kate alongside a deliberation of state provisions, McEwan creates an early dichotomy between the loss of childhood innocence and the state. This is also purported to in Stephen’s interaction with a young beggar girl. The cry of ‘Fuck you, mister' from the child not only symbolises a retraction from childhood innocence in behaviour, but also issues a critique of British society and its ruthlessly capitalist agenda which has allowed a young girl to be begging on the street. The hat she holds out to collect the money is described as ‘standard issue’ , an allusion to the state provision of begging in the novel, which McEwan uses to unremittingly condemn the state’s cruel free-market agenda. Furthermore, one could argue that this is how McEwan chooses to represent innocence. The girl with little to eat has been turned into a delinquent entrepreneur in the eyes of the state, thus reiterating the conceit pertaining to McEwan’s writing of manufactured goods representing the loss of innocence.

Running Wild chooses to dissect the idea of innocence from an opposing perspective and details it as something that no longer exists, rather an artificial ideal created by the state and the media in order to better their own interests.
The presentation of the child characters in the novel as less likely murderers than ‘visitors from outer space seeking young human specimens’ underlines the sacred link between childhood and innocence in public discourse and thought. This is despite evidence placing the children at the scene of the murders, ‘extensive scuff-marks, bloody handprints and shoe impressions that match the children’s… indicate almost all were present’ . One could argue that this seemingly obvious incident of parricide not only highlights the loss of innocence but, equally shows how the public, so fettered by their own notions of innocence ‘fail to recognise the obvious’ . Baxter refers to this as a prevailing cultural logic of denial, something Ballard conforms to by presenting society’s most innocent as simultaneously the most evil and bloodthirsty. This is captured in his portrayal of eight-year-old Marion Miller the leader of the Pangbourne children and her clichéd image of virtue, ‘blond curls… a dreamy infant scarcely off the breast’. Parodying Marion’s archetypal innocence, Ballard illustrates that real innocence does not exist beyond Thatcher’s idealised image of the child, and that government policies have led to innocence becoming a state constructed
ideal. Heather Nunn expounds on this making the claim that society was invested with moral weight into the image of the idealised child . Naturally, parents feel obliged to try and provide the very best for their families and this was strongly promoted in Thatcher’s political discourse, something that Ballard is highly critical of. He maintains that by using the image of the child as the foundation for a strongly capitalist, neoliberal society, the state has effectively taken away the notion of innocence and replaced it with a manufactured ideal.

McEwan’s portrayal of Charles Darke is also fundamental to the analysis of innocence in the novel. One could argue that to McEwan Charles represents both sides of the Thatcherite agenda. The strong leadership and handling of foreign affairs typified the ‘energetic, successful public side’ and much like Charles gave Britain a powerful image. Yet, ‘the mad lows’ also characterised a regime that left millions unemployed and without hope; a similar to the lack of hope that can be seen within Charles who eventually commits suicide. Charles is also symbolic of the state mobilisation of innocence; his actions in the novel, like his surname, represent what McEwan sees as the dark side of the neoliberal state, a series of ultra-capitalist and smothering policies, which have created a false idea of childhood purity. McEwan mockingly portrays a series of extreme neoliberal policies, each of which are endorsed by Charles to symbolise Thatcher’s utilisation of innocence and the child as a foundation for society. The regulation of begging, with beggars force to wear badges and beg in strictly allocated spaces is enthusiastically championed by Charles, who claims to have created ‘a leaner, fitter public charity sector’. A further example of state manipulation of innocence comes in the form of the autocratic childcare handbook, which Charles co-writes with The Prime Minister. Dominic Head presents the handbook as ‘the logical extension of unchecked Thatcherism’ , and one can make the argument that the epigraphs to each chapter are there as a perpetual reminder of the risks of a government putting its capitalist agenda before the people. Moreover, McEwan argues that by justifying these policies as ‘right for the family and right for Britain’ , the state is wrongly using the sacred image of childhood to promote its own selfish goals.

Despite this damning critique of Thatcherism, there are other ways in which the authors present and deconstruct the idea of innocence.
Both texts chose to fixate on the idea of a missing child, a facet of British culture that has been obsessed over in public discourse and by the mass media. This is something Colebrook refers to as ‘cultural pornography’ , a phenomenon that has left the public completely fixated with the idea of captured or stolen innocence. When Kate disappears in the supermarket McEwan describes how ‘the lost child was everyone’s property’ , something which poignantly describes the feeling of a shared desire to recapture innocence. This is also particular prevalent in Running Wild where ‘millions’ are have said to have seen extracts from the film ‘in numerous documentaries’ emphasising the intense public fascination and what Colebrook terms ‘a false fantasy about our own lost innocence’
Ballard’s description of the children’s photos ‘smiling out of their school speech-day portraits and holiday snapshots’ arguably fulfils this notion of cultural pornography. The children are captured within their pictures pure and perfectly innocent and it is this almost nostalgic element of the photograph that simultaneously compels people to want to find the missing child but equally to recapture their own former
innocence.

Whilst certainly playing into a culture of cultural pornography, Ballard indisputably personifies several real fears held by the general public. While this novella is almost farcical in its idea of mass parricide, the contemporary references that litter this text cannot be ignored and this is arguably done to evoke fear attributed to the loss of innocence. One clear example of this is the apparent ubiquity in which Ballard mentions other recent mass killings, referencing the “Hungerfood massacre” four times through the novella. The author cleverly plays into the widespread public fear that has come out of several recent ‘lone assassin’ attacks, and by flagging up these atrocities in his fictional story, Ballard simultaneously makes Running Wild more sincere whilst bringing the notion of a homicide committed by a younger into public consciousness. Unlike with cultural pornography where the search for a missing child leads to a desire to find our own innate innocence, Ballard has encouraged the reader to question the idea of innocence at all. His comparisons of the children as ‘a Baader-Meinhof gang for the day after tomorrow’ forcibly remove the presumptions of the innocent child, which Ballard argues to be a fantasy of public imagination. It is through this examination of how and why the children have ceased to represent a blameless ideal that Ballard opens up criticism to both Thatcher and the neoliberal state. The novella’s postscript, which depicts an ‘assassination attempt against… the Mother of the Nation’ acts as a flagrant warning of the dangers of neoliberalism. Ballard is suggesting that continued governmental influence over the notion of innocence will lead to a backlash against the state, just as the Pangbourne children fought back against their Thatcherist parents.

Conclusively, innocence is a concept at play throughout both texts and can be interpreted in a number of ways. Equally, it has been manipulated by both authors to present an overwhelmingly critical perception of Thatcherite government. Although the texts are vague in their allusions to the Iron Lady, mentioning her only as ‘Mother England’ or simply ‘The Prime Minister’ , an overtly political tone is adopted throughout both novels, with the representation of innocence key to this. Both Ballard and McEwan use the image of the idealised child, a smothered and mollycoddled product of consumerist society to illustrate the dangers of Thatcher’s policies. Both make the successful case that innocence has ceased to exist in its real form by political actors taking the sacred symbol of childhood and placing it at the foundations of a capitalist state. McEwan’s use of Charles Darke as a personification of extreme neo-liberalism and his perverse regression into childhood show the dangers of this kind of state sanctioned innocence. Equally Ballard uses the rather extreme scenario of parricide to demonstrate how over privatisation coupled with an over-emphasis on rearing children in the ‘correct’ way may lead to a violent backlash. Moreover by playing into public anxieties over missing children and mass killings both writers are able to deliver their thoughts on the loss of innocence in a powerful way. The writers’ controversial use of children perhaps above all highlights the dynamic role the idea of innocence performs in both texts.