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 significant impact on most children and therefore many adults later in life. Many of the images in The Child in Time relate to this desire, and the title is perhaps directly related to the concept. Kate is the first example of this eternal youth. She is not killed by a significant event - she does not succumb to illness nor is she struck by an unfortunate accident - but during what would be a completely standard, mundane trip to the supermarket, she is removed. We don't really get the feeling that she was lost for a reason; she disappears without notice or any provocation. Kate realizes this dream - the desire to always be a child, and it is as she, where others had not been so lucky, had managed to wish hard enough to allow childhood to be surround it so completely that it could not be touched from the outside. world. Kate becomes a child forever, as the title suggests, she exists as much, if not more, as a "child in time" as she does as a real person, living and growing. To Stephen, she will always be the child she was the last time he saw her, and her only growth can be achieved by superimposing onto her personality a stereotypical caricature of what a child her age would be like - a kid hoping for a walkie-talkie for his birthday - without his own eccentricities or personal characteristics. When Stephen tries to find Kate, in the elementary school scene, he too is overwhelmed by childhood. Without thinking, he is drawn into a lesson and becomes a stereotypical student until he is able to escape this strange reality and return to...... middle of paper ......f L nuclear apocalypse without moving, except for another drink. He actively seems very keen not to express his displeasure with Kate's kidnapping, even to the point of taking up Arabic and tennis. Tennis and Arabic, however, both seem associated with youth – tennis being a game played while still young and active – although Stephen finds that he is not really active enough to play; and Arabic, which he considers to be learned in a very academic manner - he calls his tutor by his last name and only speaks to him about the lesson at hand. McEwan depicts childhood as a very powerful and important force, and The Child In Time focuses on someone for whom this is particularly powerful. He seems to be trying to highlight different views of childhood, across time and across political theories, using The Child In Time as a reasonably successful satire..