Self-Composing Women of John Fowles and Ian McEwan: Kenosis inThe Magus and Atonement

This paper examines how postmodern literature employs the concept of kenosis to destabilize traditional literary and social norms alongside widely acknowledged concepts such as self-referentiality, polyphony, and the carnivalesque. Reframed from its theological meaning of self-emptying, kenosis is explored as an authorial strategy that relinquishes narrative control, enabling characters and readers to co-construct meaning. The study focuses on John Fowles’ The Magus and Ian McEwan’s Atonement, analysing how postmodern strategies such as fragmentation, intertextuality, and narrative ambiguity alongside kenosis reshape gender dynamics and expand representational possibilities. Fowles constructs a polyphonic text where letters, diaries, and performances coexist without privileging a single discourse, while McEwan employs shifting perspectives and an unreliable narrator to foreground the instability of truth. In both cases, the author withdraws, allowing diverse voices and interpretations to emerge. Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity also provides a critical framework in this context: female characters, Alison and Julie/Lily in The Magus; Cecilia and Briony in Atonement, initially constrained by patriarchal norms, ultimately subvert stereotypes and enact alternative femininities. By integrating postmodern concepts with Butlerian performativity, this paper argues that kenotic structures destabilize authority, amplify marginalized voices, and reimagine identity. Ultimately, The Magus and Atonement exemplify postmodern literature’s capacity to resist absolutes, critique cultural constructs, and envision literature as a collaborative site of meaning-making through a kenotic liberation of characters from the authorial imposition of the author.