Introduction

The novel Saturday is written by Ian McEwan, and it narrates a story about Henry Perowne who was a neurosurgeon, and was a successful and contended man. The character of Henry Perowne in the novel was complexly designed. He was having quite balanced family life, but the impending war against Iraq and the related events made the things changed in his life, over a single day. The novel describes that how the busy surgeon managed to spend time with all of his family members, upon getting a single day off from work. The writer has discusses the events and activities of day thoroughly, and in a way which kept the readers involved right from the beginning to the end of the book. This paper argues that tragedies impact the life of individuals in various ways, who live in the countries going through any sort of political disaster. A brief summary of novel is presented, character of Henry Perowne is analyzed and finally, the changes which occurred in his psychological change before and after the accident.

Thesis Statement

In Ian McEwan's Saturday, he uses the character Perowne to show how tragedies can have a profound impact on individuals.

Discussion

The main character of the novel is Henry Perowne who successful in his family and professional life, as a professional he was a successful neurosurgeon; as a family man, he was married to a newspaper lawyer and had loving relations with his growing children (Adams, 2005). He considered himself very lucky for being a happy family man and professional, and enjoyed a good level of self esteem and self respect. The novel discusses a single day of February 2003; this was the period when the war against Iraq was continued and it has been 2 years since attacks on New York and Washington. Every line of the novel depicts thoughts and memories of the surgeon with the help of which it becomes quite easy for the reader to analyze the character of Henry Perowne.

Novel Summary

Early morning when Perowne was still in bed, he noticed a plane o fire which was coming down. The lane drew his attention mainly, because he knew that London had high probability of terrorist attacks (Greer, 2005). He wondered about the passengers of the plane whose lives may be ended abruptly; this sight and the feeling made Perowne's mind to bring deadly assumptions. He was relaxed when finally got to know on radio that plane was from innocent Russian and was safely landed. However, the downed plane was not the only event of the day.

On that particular morning of Saturday, thousands of people were gathering in the streets of London, with the aim of protesting against war. This was the time, when Perowne along with his anesthetist was proceeding toward his routine squash game. While on their way, they were trying to avoid those marchers, as Perowne was not willing to join them. One of the major reason behind not joining the anti war march is the fact that ...