ATONEMENT Flashcards
Features of a Postmodern text
Fragmentation, scepticism, questionable narrators
What is a pastiche?
Mimicking of other texts
Atonement as a metafiction
Reflection at the end- self aware
Fragmentation in Atonement
Unexpected narrative twist
Intertextuality in Atonement
Epigraph nods to Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The vase
Symbolises the appearance of something ‘fixed’ but is really fundamentally broken
‘that ____, _________, _________ little girl’
‘that busy, priggish, conceited little girl’
‘_____-___ year assignment’
‘fifty nine year assignment’
‘guilty of a ______ rather than ___________ ________ ‘(via McEwan)
‘guilty of a mistake rather than intentional mendacity’
The image of the ruined tongue
Symbol for our incapability to render ourselves accurately or truthfully
Briony’s desire to control reality
Through the act of writing, seen in her farm animals in her bedroom
Effect of timeslips
Emphasises the separateness of different points of view
Perspective of class and impact on narrative
‘class tinted spectacles’ ultimately leads to Robbie’s imprisonment. The note- ‘cunt’- shocking to middle class
Lack of justice- Lola and Paul
Their continuation of wealth points toward social corruption
Guilt/atonement
Briony’s writing of the novel is her act of atonement- metafiction
Love
Breakdown of Lola’s parents marriage, sexual love
‘Briony was a ______ to her ___________ _____’
‘Briony was a shrine to her controlling demon’
‘A ______ to be ________ for a _______’
‘A rosary to be fingered for a lifetime’
‘Her mothers’ _________ _____’
‘her mothers’ heartless smile’
Dear Miss Morland, consider the ________ ______ of the ____________ you have ___________’
‘Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained’
‘her _______ ______ dolls’
‘her straight backed dolls’
‘______ and _________ were too chaotic for her tastes, and she ___ ___ ____ __ __ ___ __ __ _____’
‘mayhem and destruction were too chaotic for her taste, and she did not have it in her to be cruel’
‘it was a _____ face’
‘it was a cruel face’
‘quite the little ___-_________ _______’
‘quite the little pre-Raphaelite princess’
‘this wealthy young entrepreneur might not be ____ _ ___ ____ if he was willing to pass the time of day entertaining children’
‘this wealthy young entrepreneur might not be such a bad sort if he was willing to pass the time of day entertaining children’
‘an outrageous ___ __ ___ ____’ (about Lola)
‘an outrageous lie on her lips’
‘something ________, _____, perhaps even ______’
‘something elemental, brutal, perhaps even criminal’
‘some ________ __ ________’
‘some principle of darkness’
‘he was the __________ __ ____’
‘he was the incarnation of evil’
‘he’s ________ us for years’
‘he’s deceived us for years’
‘with a ____, ___________ heart’
‘with a dark, unfulfilled heart’
‘she meant it, and was _________ ______’
‘she meant it, and was perfectly honest’
‘she marched into the _________ __ ___ ___ __________’
‘she marched into the labyrinth of her own construction’
Quotations for Robbie’s suffering
‘vanished life’
‘wasted day’
‘not every child is so _________ and ______’
‘not every child is so purposeful and malign’
‘Briony had contemplated a _______ ________ ____’
‘Briony had contemplated a ghostly parallel life’
Quotations for Briony’s suffering at the hospital
‘fiercely pinched her toes’
‘rubbed her neck raw’
‘she would never ____ the ______. She was __________’
‘She would never undo the damage. She was unforgivable’
‘her secret ______’
‘her secret torment’
‘_________ of their ________’
‘mausoleum of their marriage’
‘she hadn’t intended to _______, she hadn’t acted out of ______’
‘she hadn’t intended to mislead, she hadn’t acted out of malice’
‘a final act of ________’
‘a final act of kindness’
Evidence to suggest that Paul knew the police
Offering them cigarettes from a ‘gold case’
Pats senior officer on his shoulder
Three forms of injustice in Atonement
Paul Marshall’s evasion of all legal punishment
Robbie’s wrongful accusation
Briony’s lack of legal punishment
‘absolute power of ________ _______’
‘absolute power of deciding outcomes’
‘she lay in the dark ___ ____ __________’
‘she lay in the dark and knew everything’
What is the moral purpose of The Trials of Arabella?
To convince Leon to marry
What is Briony’s moral purpose in writing her novel ?
To bring Robbie and Cecilia back from the dead
Where are the direct allusions to Northanger Abbey?
- Epigraph
2. Tilney’s hotel
How can dark irony be heard in Henry Tilney’s words in the epigraph?
References the importance of ‘our laws’ in English society- McEwan exposes these
3 things the vase can symbolise
- The fragility of Robbie and Cecilia’s love
- The wealth of the Tallis’ and how it will be lost
- War
What can amo bars be seen to symbolise?
Exploitation
Amo bars- allusion to war
Amo- ammunition
‘shell’
What does Marshall use amo bars as a tool for?
Exploiting Lola
Briony’s comedically pretentious language
‘the extrinsic fellow’
‘Mother and chid had been _________’
‘Mother and child had been vaporised’
How does McEwan show how war turns murder into a science?
Robbie’s focaliser- ‘mother and child had been vaporised’
Which two writers was Atonement influenced by, and what were they well known for?
Henry James and Virginia Woolf, known for their psychological analysis
McEwan uses ________ to create an _________ ______
McEwan uses narration to create an artificial reality
20th century class system
Rigid class system- upper class inherited money, land and often homes
Emily on Briony
‘to love her is to be soothed’
‘Into an ________ ____’
‘into an eternal loop’
What crime can be seen to be the catalyst for everything else?
Emily’s neglect
McEwan on Briony
‘I never thought of her as a wicked person’
‘that she was ______’
‘that she was needed’
‘her arm was _____ _______ ___ ________ ____ ___ _______’
‘her arm was much thinner and lighter than her mother’s’
Quotation for Lola’s youth
‘Quite the little Pre-Raphaelite princess’
‘her arm was much thinner and lighter than his mother’s’
‘barely more than _ _____, ______ ____ ___ ____, __ _____ ___ ______’
‘barely more than a child, prised open and taken, to marry her rapist’
‘her mother’s __________ _____”
‘her mother’s heartless smile’
Quotations for Paul’s apparent harmlessness
‘conventionally dull’
Postmodern elements of Atonement
The idea that there is no absolute truth
Metafictive nature of Atonement, and impact
Trials of Arabella, and London 1999 highlight the constructed nature of the novel
Encourages reader to question everything
Dunkirk as a metaphor
For Robbie’s suffering, and also Briony’s self-absorption
Country house setting can be seen as….
A version of England that will never return after the war
Irony of Briony becoming a nurse
She is unable to fix the metaphorical wounds inflicted upon Robbie and Cecilia
How does McEwan piece together pieces of different subgenre?
Contrasting settings allude to different crime fiction eras
Irony in setting of part 1
Briony’s childhood home is ironically idyllic and peaceful
Evidence of Briony’s childish behaviours continuing into adulthood
Her constructed, false ending of her novel can be seen to be a rearranging of destinies to fit her own tidy our
‘the ______ ____ odour of _____ blood’
‘the sticky sour odour of fresh blood’
What does the opening evoke?
Allusion to Austen novels?
What does the allusion to Northanger Abbey prepare us for?
The deceit and naivety to follow
What was the country house a symbol of after WW2?
The declining upper class
What is the effect of our first impression of Paul Marshall?
Overtly sexual and predatory (‘comically kinked like pubic hair’)
‘uncomfortably aroused’
‘uncomfortably ______’
‘uncomfortably aroused’
Sets him up as a suspect in the context of rape
What can be said about the police force ?
Ineffectual and obtuse
‘You saw him, then’
Declarative rather than interrogative
Language of the police force
Declarative rather than interrogative
Briony’s language when talking to the police
Monosyllabic- cold ?
‘Yes, I saw him’
Which character does McEwan draw parallels between with Robbie?
Malvolio from Twelfth Night
Why does McEwan parallel Robbie and Malvolio?
Draw similarities between them as tortured lovers
Foreshadows tragedy/ fate of Robbie
Helps the reader to empathise with the extent of what he has lost
Line said by both Robbie and Malvolio
‘Nothing that can be can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes’
Early on example of Briony’s controlling nature
Wanting to ‘guide’ Leon to the ‘right’ wife
‘possessed by the desire to…
..have the world just so’
McEwan’s use of diabolical imagery
‘possessed’, ‘demon’
May foreshadow turbulence
Briony needing to be the centre of attention
All the animals positioned to face her
How does Clarissa foreshadow future events?
Heroine is seduced and raped by the villain (Robert Lovelace)
‘The truth…
…instructed her eyes’
Tilney’s Hotel
Reminder for readers that stories cannot be trusted’
Lack of justice
Robbie and Cecilia (the victims) die
Paul (the rapist) is ennobled
Briony (the liar) becomes a fêted author
