Childhood, politics and satire in The Child in TimeFor most children there is a strong desire to never grow up. This “Peter Pan” complex has a great impact on most children and therefore on many adults later in life. Many of the images in The Child in Time are linked to this desire and the title is perhaps directly related to the concept. Kate is the prime example of this eternal youth. She is not killed by any significant event - she does not die of illness or suffer an unfortunate accident - instead she is kidnapped during what would be a completely banal and routine visit to the supermarket. There's really no sense that she's lost for a reason; disappears without warning or any provocation. Kate realizes this dream: the desire to always be a child, and it is how she, where others had not been so lucky, had managed to desire enough to allow childhood to surround her so completely that she could not be touched from the outside. world. Kate becomes a child forever, as the title suggests, she exists as much, or more, as a "child in time" as a real person, living and growing. For Stephen she will always be the little girl she was the last time he saw her, and her only growth can be achieved by superimposing on her personality a stereotypical caricature of what a child her age would be: a child hoping for a walkie -talkie for him. his birthday - without his eccentricities or personal characteristics. When Stephen tries to win Kate back, in the elementary school scene, he too is overwhelmed by childhood. Without thinking, he is dragged into a lesson and becomes a stereotypical student until he manages to escape from this strange reality and return to...... middle of paper ......f Nuclear apocalypse without moving, except for another drink. He seems actively very anxious not to deal with his unhappiness over Kate's kidnapping, even to the point of taking up Arabic and tennis. Both tennis and Arabic, however, seem associated with youth – tennis as a game played when one is still young and active – although Stephen finds that he is not active enough to play; and Arabic, which he believes should be learned in a very scholastic way: he calls his tutor by his last name and talks to him about nothing other than the lesson at hand. McEwan describes childhood as a very powerful and important force, and The Child In Time focuses on someone for whom this is particularly powerful. It seems to try to highlight different views of childhood, across time and across political theories, using The Child In Time as a reasonable and successful satire..