Atonement Flashcards
Summarise Part 1
The book opens in the summer of 1935, and Part One focuses on the events of two days at the country house of the wealthy Tallis family. Here, the story is mostly
focalised through the youngest member of the family, Briony, a highly imaginative 13-year-old. A shocking event occurs which has serious consequences for several characters, especially Robbie Turner, the son of the Tallis family’s cleaning lady, who is sent to prison.
Summarise Part 2
Action moves to Normandy in May 1940. Robbie, now a private soldier in the British Army, is trying to find his way to Dunkirk to be evacuated.
Summarise Part 3
Takes place at same time as Part 2. Focuses on Briony, who is now 18 and has given up a place at Cambridge to nurse wounded soldiers.
Summarise the final part, London 1999
Novel’s final part moves forward to 1999. Briony is a successful novelist, celebrating her 77th birthday and reflecting on the events of the summer of 1935 and their
repercussions. She reveals that Part 2 didn’t happen, as did some of the events in Part 3, and this book was her attempt to attain Atonement.
Context of Part 1- An ‘idyllic’ English summer in a country house
At 1st sight seems far from any external threat. Its setting symbolises the solidity of the past: ‘It was a scene that could easily have accommodated, in the distance at least, a medieval castle…’
Context of Part 1- Hints of fragility and decay
- Island temple, an 18thC folly, has ‘a mottled, diseased appearance’ and its ‘exposed laths, themselves rotting away, showed through like the ribs of a starving animal’.
- 21stC reader is likely to pick up on the subtext: war is on the horizon and this type of privileged lifestyle is under threat.
Role of women, crime, and punishment: Empowerment in Atonement
Cecilia’s character reminds us of changes taking place in gender roles/expectations up to WW2. As an educated young woman graduate, we are told her Cambridge education ‘changed her fundamentally’ at a time when ‘there are girls getting all sorts of jobs now. Even taking the Civil Service exams.’
Role of women, crime, and punishment: Gender roles in Atonement
Depiction of both Cecilia and Briony as nurses, stereotypically nurturing female role, albeit one which they take on as part of war effort, not out of personal desire or aptitude.
eg Briony continues to pursue her writing career in the little time she has away from nursing.
How does McEwan use metafiction in the novel?
Uses it to explore nature of writing and being a writer through metafiction- what David Lodge defines as ‘fiction about fiction: novels and stories that call attention to their fictional status and their own compositional procedures’ (Lodge 2011).
How does McEwan use Briony as a writer to set up the premise of the book?
Briony’s imagination is portrayed as both gift and curse. It leads her to confuse reality and imagination with terrible consequences for which she spends her life atoning.
McEwan has stated that the influence of the tradition of the English novel was essential for the book. What are some examples of intertextuality in the book?
- Novel’s epigraph quotes Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, where Catherine Morland is ‘so full of the delights of Gothic fiction that she causes havoc around her…’
- Alludes to other novels in the English tradition, including Henry James’ What Maisie Knew, L. P. Hartley’s, Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa.
How does McEwan explore the nature of guilt and punishment in the novel through the crimes?
- Some crimes are punished excessively or unfairly, whereas some of those committing crimes get away scot-free, bringing to our attention the nature of justice.
- A 15-year-old girl is raped and subsequently marries her abuser, raising complex moral questions for a 21stC reader.
How does McEwan explore the nature of guilt and punishment in the novel through war?
Not all crimes are personal: the ? of assigning ‘blame’ for the suffering caused by WW2 is central to McEwan’s ideas about crime, punishment, victims and justice in the novel.
