Friday, 21 January 2022
Atonement Key Passages
Epilogue
Form
Epilogue: should be an add-on to the story but it contains the main twist ‘Robbie
Turner died of septicaemia at Bray Dunes on 1 June 1940, or that Cecilia was killed
in September of the same year’, links to Briony’s lies in Part Three.
Structure
Cyclical structure , references to the play, place, people. Letter from Nettle -
‘“Absolutely no…matter further.”’, potentially only true accounts in Part Two. Trials
of Arabella - cyclical - ‘This is the tale of spontaneous Arabella’, links to Part One
Page 3 ‘The play…’ - rst words in the novel.
Handling of time
Temporal dislocation - letter from Nettle refers back to the war ‘“RAF chappie”’, ‘“in
1940”’, links to Part Two as a whole.
Narrative perspective
First person (Briony) ‘on the morning of my seventy-seventh birthday’, most of the
novel has been focused on Briony, the ending is no exception.
Language
Meta- ction/meta-narrative ‘solitary typescript of my nal draft’, acknowledges that
she wrote this novel - it is from her perspective, sense of losing self, does she ever
mature? Connects to Part One Page 41 ‘Six decades later she would describe
how…she had written her way through a whole history’. Semantic eld of the brain
‘vascular dementia’, ‘temples’, ‘elated and urgently wanted to tell my closest
meetings’ - brain makes up who we are, she immediately seeks attention like she
has throughout the novel. Uses rhetorical questions a lot - who is she talking to?
‘How can a novelist achieve atonement…she is also God?’ McEwan pushing reader
to question who has the power: author, or audience?
Imagery
Parallel to description of library at the start ‘the room had seemed so much bigger
than I remembered’ - implies that her memory isn’t reliable, her child self had
embellished things, links to Part One Page 123 ‘what she saw must’ve been shaped
in part by what she already knew, or believed she knew’.
1
fi fi fi fi
Atonement Key Passages
Epilogue
Form
Epilogue: should be an add-on to the story but it contains the main twist ‘Robbie
Turner died of septicaemia at Bray Dunes on 1 June 1940, or that Cecilia was killed
in September of the same year’, links to Briony’s lies in Part Three.
Structure
Cyclical structure , references to the play, place, people. Letter from Nettle -
‘“Absolutely no…matter further.”’, potentially only true accounts in Part Two. Trials
of Arabella - cyclical - ‘This is the tale of spontaneous Arabella’, links to Part One
Page 3 ‘The play…’ - rst words in the novel.
Handling of time
Temporal dislocation - letter from Nettle refers back to the war ‘“RAF chappie”’, ‘“in
1940”’, links to Part Two as a whole.
Narrative perspective
First person (Briony) ‘on the morning of my seventy-seventh birthday’, most of the
novel has been focused on Briony, the ending is no exception.
Language
Meta- ction/meta-narrative ‘solitary typescript of my nal draft’, acknowledges that
she wrote this novel - it is from her perspective, sense of losing self, does she ever
mature? Connects to Part One Page 41 ‘Six decades later she would describe
how…she had written her way through a whole history’. Semantic eld of the brain
‘vascular dementia’, ‘temples’, ‘elated and urgently wanted to tell my closest
meetings’ - brain makes up who we are, she immediately seeks attention like she
has throughout the novel. Uses rhetorical questions a lot - who is she talking to?
‘How can a novelist achieve atonement…she is also God?’ McEwan pushing reader
to question who has the power: author, or audience?
Imagery
Parallel to description of library at the start ‘the room had seemed so much bigger
than I remembered’ - implies that her memory isn’t reliable, her child self had
embellished things, links to Part One Page 123 ‘what she saw must’ve been shaped
in part by what she already knew, or believed she knew’.
1
fi fi fi fi
