Atonement

Atonement: analysis

The novel is written in a highly literary style, with richly detailed descriptions and a focus on the inner lives of the characters. The author employs a range of narrative techniques, including shifts in perspective and the use of different narrators to tell the story. Atonement is set between three time periods:

• 1935 England
• During the Second World War in England and France (1939-1945)
• 1999 England

Atonement: summary

Atonement is a novel split into three parts. It is in the third person but it is later made clear that events are told from the viewpoint of Briony Tallis, one of the key characters in the novel. She is a young girl and a passionate writer.

Briony, older now, feels deep guilt for what she has done to Cecilia and Robbie. She has now become a trainee nurse, rather than following her passion for writing. Briony visits her sister to find Robbie staying in her apartment while on leave from the army. Cecilia and Robbie clearly still love each other.

Briony apologises and promises to legally rescind the testimony she gave that put Robbie behind bars. She also says she will tell her parents that she was wrong about Robbie. This will not change things but she feels it is the least she can do. She also tells Cecilia and Robbie that it is more likely that Paul Marshall was the one who assaulted Lola. However, Lola has recently married Paul so he will never be prosecuted. Cecilia and Robbie do not forgive Briony fully but there is a sense that relations between the sisters have improved.

The last section of Atonement is set in 1999. It is in the form of a diary entry by Briony. She is now seventy-seven years old and a famous novelist. However, she is also suffering from dementia. This diary entry reveals that Briony has been the author of the previous sections of the novels. It is her novel, also called Atonement. She has written it in an attempt to make up for the suffering she unintentionally inflicted on Cecilia and Robbie. It is also revealed that not all of what she wrote was true.

The section in which Briony encounters Robbie in Cecilia's apartment, the two reunited, is fictional. In reality, Robbie died of his injuries in Dunkirk and Cecilia died during the bombing in the Blitz. Briony believed the two deserved a happy ending after all they had suffered. Atonement is a fictional story contained inside another fictional story.

Atonement: main ideas

One of the main ideas of this novel is contained in its title: Atonement. Briony is young, misguided, and naive at the beginning of McEwan's novel. This leads to her misperception about what occurs between Cecilia and Robbie. She is not malicious in sending Robbie to prison as she truly believes she is protecting Cecilia and other women from Robbie. This is also impacted by how Briony sees gender. She sees men as capable of dominating women.

The novel is called Atonement because Briony spends the rest of her life trying to atone for what she has done. She becomes a nurse instead of going to Cambridge as a way of giving back. She also constructs an entire story that gives Cecilia and Robbie the happy ending that she has robbed them of in real life. In this story, Briony apologises and makes things right in a way she was never able to in real life. It is clear that Briony's mistake has plagued her for her entire life as she still writes of it in her diaries at seventy-seven years old while suffering from dementia.

Atonement: characters

Let's take a look at some of the key characters in Atonement.

The first section of Atonement begins in the Tallis family's large country home in the English countryside in 1935. The family consists of father Jack, who works a busy government job, mother Emily, and their three children, Leon, Cecilia, and Briony. Leon is the eldest and is coming back to the family home to visit his wealthy friend Paul Marshall. Cecilia is also returning after completing her degree at Cambridge University. She attended university with the son of the Tallis family's housekeeper, Robbie Turner.

At the same time, the family is being visited by their cousins, twins Jackson and Pierrot and their fifteen-year-old sister Lola. Their parents have recently gone through a divorce. Jack is often away at work and Emily is often incapacitated with a headache while these visitors are present.

In the midst of all this, romance is developing between Cecilia and Robbie. They are childhood friends and very close. Their flirtations are witnessed through the naive and misguided eyes of thirteen-year-old Briony. Through a window, she sees Cecilia strip down to her underwear in front of Robbie and get into a fountain. Though the two are awkwardly flirting, Cecilia is, in reality, getting into the fountain to retrieve broken pieces of a vase.

Briony sees it as a coercive situation in which her sister is in trouble. This perception is increased by a vulgar note that Robbie gives Briony to deliver to Cecilia. Briony is instructed not to read this but she disobeys. Later in the evening, Briony catches Cecilia and Robbie making love in the family library. It is consensual but she perceives it as an assault.

All those staying at the home have a dinner party that evening. Jackson and Pierrot run off and disappear. A search party is set up to find them. During the search, Briony witnesses Lola being sexually assaulted in the dark. She cannot properly see the assailant. The police are called but Lola will not say who attacked her.

Because of her earlier misconceptions about him, Briony accuses Robbie of being the perpetrator. She provides evidence of what she previously witnessed between Robbie and Cecilia. Briony is believed and Robbie is arrested and sent to prison. Cecilia does not believe any of this and subsequently cuts off ties with her family. She is deeply in love with Robbie and promises to wait for him.

The second part of Atonement begins in 1940, during the Second World War. Robbie has been released from prison on the condition that he joins the British war effort. Cecilia has become a nurse. The two are only able to meet briefly before Robbie is sent to France. Readers see Robbie in Dunkirk not long before the evacuation. Both he and the war effort are struggling. He is only sustained by thoughts of Cecilia and the letters she has been sending him. Robbie collapses on the beach, too weak to carry on.

Fig. 2 - Atonement explores the effects of World War Two on individuals, and the horrors of combat.

Atonement: themes

Let's take a look at some of the themes present in McEwan's Atonement.

Perspective

Perspective is key in Atonement, largely because it is so complex in this novel. Briony sees what unfolds between Cecilia and Robbie through the perspective of a young child that does not understand matters of sexuality. All she can do is assume from what she already knows. She ends up being wrong, which has dramatic consequences. Cecilia and Robbie have very different perspectives of the events in question because they experienced them firsthand.

Throughout Atonement, Briony matures and reevaluates her perspective on events with the new information she has as an adult. This means that the novel is a bildungsroman as we see Briony gradually grow up. She totally changes her perspective about what has happened and spends the rest of her life trying to atone for her mistake.

Perspective is also very important in Atonement because it is revealed at the end of the story that the perspective readers have gained throughout the novel was wrong. Briony has created this story to make up for what she did as a child. This means that everything we have read has been through Briony's eyes. She has used outside sources to discover how others experienced the events that unfolded but it is solely her perspective. The first section that was seen partly through Cecilia's eyes and in her voice was really a part of Briony's novel. It is notable that Cecilia does not narrate again after this.

On top of this, the reunion between Cecilia and Robbie is revealed to be fictional. As readers we must now reevaluate things with our new perspective of the story. For example, on a first reading, the section in which Robbie is in Dunkirk during the war seems to be from his perspective. But it is actually a fictionalised version that is given from Briony's perspective. It is her novel and Robbie never really returned from the war to tell her his experiences.

Class

Class is another key theme in Atonement. Cecilia and Robbie's relationship is halted because of the accusations against Robbie that send him to prison. But it is likely that their relationship would have struggled even if this had not happened. Cecilia is from an upper class family and Robbie is the son of the Tallis family's housekeeper. Although Robbie is quite welcome in the family, there is still a class difference. Jack Tallis has also paid for Robbie's university education. This leaves Robbie in the position of owing something to the Tallis family because of their money and his lack of it.

It is also important that almost everyone, with the exception of Cecilia and Robbie's mother, immediately believe that Robbie is guilty. Robbie is from a lower class which is more traditionally associated with criminality. Jack and Emily's class prejudices are noted in the novel. Paul Marshall, on the other hand, is the real perpetrator of the assault upon Lola. His wealth and status mean he is not even a suspect. He is able to eventually marry his victim, meaning he will forever avoid the consequences for his crime.

Atonement by Ian McEwan: quotes

We will now look at some quotes from Atonement and their significance.