Trauma healing through music in McEwan’s The Children Act

Abstract Previous scholarly inquiries into Ian McEwan’s The Children Act have predominantly been conducted through the prism of psychology, illuminating various facets of his exploration of the pains and dilemmas people face. However, few have addressed the close connection between music and healing from trauma in the novel. The Children Act highlights the traumatic decisions that the protagonist Fiona Maye has to make regarding her own marital crisis and the legal cases she takes on, while music runs throughout the development of the plot and serves as an indispensable means of recovery. Drawing on Judith Herman’s framework on trauma and PTSD together with Diane Austin’s music therapy concepts, and situating both within the contemporary diagnostic and emotion-regulation landscape, the present article explores how music may facilitate Fiona’s recovery from trauma. Specifically, it examines the progression of Fiona’s recovery through three distinct musical functions: how music appears to serve as a protective cocoon, allowing her to reclaim a foundational sense of safety and object constancy amid marital crisis; how the stability and fluidity of musical engagement provide a structured environment for navigating vulnerable emotions, even as the same material can retrigger intrusion; and how her engagement with music, as both listener and performer, can be interpreted as a bridge between conscious experience and unconscious trauma. The analysis reveals that The Children Act portrays music not as a cure but as a form of emotion regulation that holds loss open long enough for reconnection to become possible. This interpretation contributes to ongoing discussions on the intersection of psychology, trauma, and music, offering a fresh view on the existential and symbolic dimensions of McEwan’s novel.