Analisi libri inglese II (2020/2021), Sintesi del corso di Lingua Inglese

Scarica Analisi libri inglese II (2020/2021) e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! 1 Plot Normal People (2018) is a novel about the relationship between two Irish young people, Connell Waldron and Marianne Sheridan. At the beginning of the novel, the friendship between Marianne and Connell begins to develop when Connell regularly picks up his mother, Lorraine, from her job working as a housekeeper for Marianne’s wealthy family. In their conversation, Connell and Marianne share a deep sense of privacy them that eventually culminates in a kiss. Although he is attracted to Marianne, Connell, who is popular and athletic but plagued by insecurities, is worried about openly dating her, as she is school outcast. He’s painfully concerned about what his friends would say and what their relationship would do to his reputation, and when they begin sleeping together, he and Marianne decide to keep their sexual relationship a secret. Connell tells Marianne he loves her but asks another girl to go to the Debs. Deeply hurt, Marianne ignores Connell’s texts and doesn’t return to school, instead spending the remainder of the year studying at home. When school is finished and the summer is over, Marianne and Connell begin their first year at Trinity College (Dublin), where Marianne encouraged Connell to apply as an English major. While Marianne, a History and Politics student, is very popular there, Connell feels isolated and struggles to make friends. After meeting each other again at a party, however, they reconnect and resume their relationship. But this time they do not keep it a secret. When Connell loses his job and can’t afford rent for the summer, he puts off asking Marianne if he can stay with her. When he finally tells her about his situation, the two suffer a miscommunication and agree to see other people while Connell moves home to Carricklea. When Marianne returns home for her father’s anniversary Mass, she runs into Connell, who volunteers to attend the Mass with her. Marianne has begun dating her friend Jamie, which Connell discovers when they return to Trinity. The relationship is an unhappy one; Jamie is a privileged and arrogant, and he enjoys beating Marianne during sex. While it was Marianne who initially proposed that she act the part of a “submissive”, she does not enjoy Jamie’s sadism so much as believe she deserves it. Connell, meanwhile, has started dating a medical student named Helen, with whom he believes he is able to have a healthy, socially acceptable relationship for the first time. He and Marianne remain friends. Marianne and Connell both receive prestigious scholarship at Trinity. That summer he goes traveling in Europe with his friends Niall and Elaine, eventually arriving at Marianne’s family holiday home in Italy, where Marianne, Jaime, and their friend Peggy are staying. The first evening there, Connell witnesses a violent argument between Marianne and Jaime and is forced to intervene. Marianne breaks up with Jaime and go to an Erasmus program in Sweden. There, she has another destructive and abusive relationship with a Swedish photographer named Lukas. While apart from one another, both Marianne and Connell endure their share of depression and isolation. Connell is devasted by the suicide of Rob, a boy in his high school social group. He feels equally cut off from his hometown and the wider world of Trinity and Dublin. Normal People – Sally Rooney 2 Newly single, Connell and Marianne resume their sexual intimacy while she visits him in Carricklea. When Marianne requests that Connell hit her in the middle of sex, Connell cannot do it; ashamed, Marianne flees from his house. Once home, she is goaded into a fight with Alan (her brother), who accidentally breaks her nose. Marianne calls Connell, who drives her back to his house after first warning Alan to stay away from her. They move in together in Dublin, and Marianne has a new sense of herself as normal and invisible. Connell is accepted by an MFA program in New York, and Marianne – newly secure in their partnership – encourages him to go. Character analysis o MARIANNE SHERIDAN She’s one of the two central characters. As an outcast and loner, she spends much of her formative years imagining a better and more fulfilling existence. At first, Connell’s relationship with Marianne seems to offer a fresh start, as she believes that her life is starting anew. But his insistence on keeping the relationship secret and him likening himself to a “deviant” and “serial killer” for conducting a sexual relationship with her contributes to Marianne further internalizing the idea that her family has already instilled in her: that she is unworthy and unlovable. Once she’s in Trinity College, she becomes popular and cultivates a wide circle of friends. When she becomes involved with Jaime, who she practices sadomasochism with, her feelings of inferiority and depression also return. Despite Marianne’s struggles to overcome her demons, a turning point occurs when, while in a sexually exploitive relationship with Lukas, she finally overpowers Lukas by refusing to tolerate his treatment of her. She finally embraces her autonomy and ownership over her body. Now, Marianne and Connell experience a mutually supportive relationship. In encouraging Connell to continue his personal development, she is able to let Connell go while remaining confident that they will always remain part of each other’s lives. o CONNELL WALDRON He’s the quiet male protagonist of the story that is centrally defined by his self-consciousness. In high school, all Connell desires is to be socially accepted, which causes him to make many choices against his heart, including keeping his feelings for Marianne secret. He hurts her deeply, and for no reason other than to keep his social standing with his friends. As Connell enters college and is thrown into a world where he is no longer at the top of the social ladder, he starts to realize how silly some of his choices were in the greater scheme of things. However, as he continues to mature, he still struggles maintaining a real relationship with Marianne due to poor communication. He fails to share his deeper thoughts and feelings with her which inhibits their mutual ability to trust the other, leaving both feeling dejected and increasingly self-conscious. By the end of the book, Connell has sought professional help to move him through some of these challenges, and he is able to open up more to Marianne and be true to himself, allowing him to be happy and in love. 5 sending the rim into his face. Ennis thinks it was no accident and that men killed him with the tire iron. Lureen says Jack wanted to have his ashes interred in a place called Brokeback Mountain, but she didn’t know where it was, so she buried half the ashes and gave the rest to his parents. Ennis decides to visit Jack’s in Lighting Flat, Wyoming. Ennis is met by Jack’s mother and father. Mr. Twist says Jack had long spoken of coming home to Lightning Flat with Ennis to help run the ranch but had recently begun talking of bringing home another man, a Texan, instead. In the closet, Ennis discovers an old shirt of Jack’s, stained with Ennis’ blood, layered over a shirt of Ennis’, from their Brokeback days. Ennis buys a postcard of Brokeback and tacks it to his trailer wall; he hangs the two shirts beneath it on a nail. Around this time, Jack to appear in Ennis’ dreams. Character analysis o ENNIS DEL MAR Ennis is a man of few words, whose actions often speak for him. When Ennis meets Jack, he is saddled with responsibility, engaged to Alma, and at the mercy of a conservative Wyoming culture that has no place for a gay ranch hand. Yet Ennis has nowhere else to go and no other profession at which to try his hand. An orphaned high school dropout dependent on hardship funds and raised to be pragmatic, he is trapped in a life over which he has little control. Rather than run off with Jack and try to build a happy life, as Jack repeatedly suggests, Ennis considers the reality of it all: the violent opposition that would greet two gay ranchers living together, his marriage to Alma, his love for his daughters. The life he builds, which involves financial hardship and eventually child support, effectively prohibits him from escaping. Ennis is a prisoner of the life he has been born into. Without the financial wherewithal to escape, without any sort of community support for his sexual proclivities, and imbued with the belief that one must bear whatever one can’t fix, Ennis is fated to live out the rest of his life as a man who tasted happiness once but has never again reached that peak. Though it is Jack Twist who is murdered by those who oppose his sexual orientation, it is Ennis del Mar – living in his trailer, confined to a sad life on the broad, flat plains of Wyoming – who is the story’s tragic soul. o JACK TWIST Jack Twist is the more verbally aggressive and outgoing of the story’s two main characters. His name is onomatopoetic in its quick, light-footed sound. Jack Twist is flashy and brazen, a would-be rodeo star, and later a glitzy Texan transplant who sports a brass belt buckle and large capped teeth. He is far less able and willing that Ennis to subjugate his sexual impulses to the demands of conservative married life. The initial tryst on Brokeback is Ennis’ first sexual encounter with a man; but of Jack we may suspect that he is somewhat more experienced. And whereas Ennis muffles his sexual desire, Jack projects his desire for Ennis onto other men and women. Ennis and Jack are complementary: Ennis the taciturn loner, Jack the performer who needs an audience; Ennis the hand-to-mouth earner, Jack the man who has married into money. Yet for all his bravado and planning, Jack never seems to get what he wants. His father shrugs that most of his son’s ideas “never come to pass”, and Jack himself says, “nothing never come to my hand the right way”. When he tells Ennis his plan for them to run a ranch together, it doesn’t occur to him how detached from reality his fantasy truly is, how impossible or ill-advised it would be to 6 implement it. This divide between fantasy and reality drives the two men apart over the years, and Jack ultimately pays a steep price for his dreams. Themes o THE OVERWHELMING NATURAL FORCES OF DESIRE AND LOVE The passion between the two men is so strong that they cannot explain it rationally or logically. It is irresistible and overwhelming. The idea of two male ranch hands falling in love in conservative 1960s Wyoming epitomizes the suggestion that love, a natural force, persists against all odds. The figure of Joe Aguirre is a stand-in for all those passing judgment on them. Even Alma has only disgust for Ennis’ furtive sexual behaviour. But despite these opposing forces and the lives they build with their respective wives and families, Jack and Ennis are helpless in the clutch of their feelings for each other. o THE ENDLESS SHIFTING OF THE WORLD The novel begins with movement and motion in Ennis’ home, and the idea of the world being constantly in flux permeates the entire story. Despite the seeming permanence of Ennis’ situation, despite the feeling of endlessness conveyed by the Wyoming plains, the winds of change are always blowing. The wind, for Proulx, suggests the meeting of opposing forces, of past, present, and future. In this sense, the shuddering shirts of the story’s first line suggest a tension between the conservative, homophobic line that Jack has dared to cross and a time and place in which greater tolerance exists. Along the way, the narrator comments on changes in the main characters’ physical appearance. The result is a sort of time-lapse view of the relationship between Jack and Ennis. o HOME AND LEAVING HOME Both Ennis and Jack make frequent references to their parents and childhoods and this suggests the significance of home and leaving home to the story. Jack is condemned by his father for wanting to be buried on Brokeback rather than in ancestral ground. Jack’s desire to get away from home is ultimately what gets him killed. Ennis, on the other hand, is mindful of his father’s homophobia and being taken by him to see the dead body of a murdered gay rancher. He frequently professes his inability to break away from home and upbringing. Home evokes safety, conservatism, status quo, and acceptance. Staying home is synonymous with statis, permanence, and conventional thinking, then traveling away from home is an escape from all of that. Jack makes many trips to Mexico, a place that represents the gratification of his sexual desires, a place freer and more accepting than the place Jack calls home. o BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN Brokeback Mountain looms large is a physical sense, casting its shadows on the plains below, and it rises up in the shared memories of Jack and Ennis and represents an idyllic life. 7 The name “Brokeback” stands in for all that happens between the two men in the summer of 1963 and all they have lost since. They always refer to “Brokeback” rather than to specific events or feelings. Brokeback Mountain also stands in stark contrast to the flatlands of Wyoming in an echo of the duality between Jack and Ennis, man and woman, resistance and acceptance, past and present, life and death. The mountain serves as a tombstone under which the men’s relationship must finally be buried. o THE PLAINS OF WYOMING The flatland of Wyoming represents all that is dull and desperate. Ennis and Jack are both raised on the plain; Jack takes off for Texas to live with his wife, while Ennis is trapped by economic circumstance and responsibility. By the end of the story, Ennis’ pared down existence seems inseparable from the desolate Wyoming flatland, a locus of grief or of the status quo. The narrator describes the “open space” between what Ennis knows and believes about Jack’s death, a reference to both the expansive, endless plains and the open-ended pain that will stay with Ennis forever. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro 10 Ruth can be capricious and unkind to both Tommy and Kathy. In her attempts to fit in at the Cottages, she often ignores and mocks both of them. However, Ruth has the capacity for deep generosity and thoughtfulness as well. Through the offering of Madame’s address, Ruth shows her sincere desire to make amends for keeping Kathy and Tommy apart. o TOMMY He’s Kathy’s close childhood friend. At Hailsham, Tommy becomes an outcast among his peers because he lacks artistic ability. He develops violent temper, often throwing tantrums in response to teasing from his peers. Tommy remains anxious and self-conscious about his artistic abilities as a young adult, initially keeping his artwork a secret at the Cottages. His compelling imaginary animals resist interpretation, reflecting the deep humanity and complex individuality of the clones themselves. Tommy is in many ways more straightforward than Kathy and Ruth, often missing the subtle digs and sarcasm that they shoot back and forth. He also has very different relationship with them. He maintains a longstanding but difficult romantic relationship with Ruth. Meanwhile, he bonds with Kathy over their mutual desire to discover the truth about Hailsham. Tommy tends to trust Kathy with his biggest secrets. In his theorizing with her, Tommy also shows an observant and reflective side to his personality that mirrors her own. Themes o THE RELENTLESS PASSAGE OF TIME AND THE INEVITABILITY OF LOSS Although Kathy is almost 31 at the start of the novel, she has almost reached the end of her life. She has lost almost everyone she knew from Hailsham, holding onto them only in her memories. Many of her memories reflect a desire slow the relentless march of time towards these losses. The desire for more time ironically motivates the donation program, which depends on the students’ internal organs to extend the lives of people in the outside world. o THE POWER OF MEMORY Kathy copes with the losses in her life by turning to memories of the past. The novel’s title epitomizes this desire to hold on. However, Kathy’s memory is also a fragmented and somewhat incomplete. Her narrative is a process of recovery and an attempt to make sense of her memories. Her first-person narration also highlights the absence of other characters’ memories. Ruth and Tommy only appear as reflected through Kathy’s memory. o THE DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE Kathy’s narrative is ultimately a testament to the dignity and humanity of the students whom she remembers. The students’ live are as rich with the hopes, joys, disappointments, and sorrows that define human experience. Her narrative shows the depths of her humanity. o COPIES 11 The motif of copies and copying begins with the students themselves, who are clones copied from models in the outside world. Copies reappear in Norfolk, where Kathy finds a copy of her lost tape after a disappointing search for Ruth’s “possible”. Yet although the students are copies, the novel ultimately speaks to their originality and individuality. o PRETENDING AND FANTASY Hailsham itself is an elaborate act of pretending, signalled by the “sham” embedded in its name. in order to shield students from their future, the Hailsham guardians refuse to speak directly about donations. As they grow older, the students engage in various fantasies about the future. These fantasies become increasingly limited as time goes on. o LOST AND FOUND This recurring motif begins with Miss Emily’s description of Norfolk as a “lost corner”, which causes the students to imagine that all lost property found in England winds up in Norfolk. It suggests that if loss is inevitable, what is lost can always be found again. However, this fantasy. Becomes less compelling to the students as they grow older and begin to experience human loss. Ultimately, Kathy can recover her losses only in her memory and in her imagination. o THE SONG “NEVER LET ME GO” As a child at Hailsham, Kathy acquires a cassette tape of the Judy Bridgewater album “Songs After Dark”. Her favourite track on the album, “Never let me go”, gives the novel its title. The song symbolizes both the depths of human love and the fear of losing those whom one loves. Kathy imagines that the song is about a woman afraid of losing her baby. The crumbling boat is a symbol of mortality, highlighting the passage of time and the inevitability of loss that comes with it. The boat itself recalls a bleached skeleton and is noticeably surrounded by dead tree trunks. The ghostly boat in the marsh is as close to recovering this past as Hailsham’s students can come. The Human Stain – Philip Roth 12 Plot The narrator of The Human Stain is Nathan Zuckerman, a writer, who tells the story of a series of events happening to his neighbour (Coleman Silk) in rural New England in the summer of 1998. Coleman Silk is a retired classic professor who left his position at Athena College in disgrace after supposedly using a racial epithet to refer to two african-american students. Professor Silk had never seen these two students, so on the sixth week of class, he asked, “Does anyone know these people? Do they exist or are they spooks?” Professor Silk insists he meant the term to refer to their ghostlike existence, as the students had not attended a single class. However, the term also has a history of being used a racial slur. Subsequently, his colleagues and students accuse him of being a racist. Professor Silk resigns and obsessed over the injustice by keeping boxes of documentation and writing a draft of his novel intitled “Spooks”. One the day of arranging his wife Iris’ funeral in 1996, Coleman goes to his neighbour’s house and begs Zuckerman to write the story of the spooks incident. This begins a friendhsip between the two men. Two years later, Coleman Silk, age 71, tells Zuckerman that he has been having an affair with a 34- year-old woman named Faunia Farley, who is illiterate and works as a janitor and a farmer. However, a former Athena College colleague (Delphine Roux), send an anonymous note mailed to Coleman, saying that everyone knows about his affair. Coleman’s daughter, Lisa, also seems to have found out the affair and refuses to talk to her father. His lawyer, Nelson Primus, urges Coleman to end the affair. Faunia’s exhusband, Lester Farley, begins to stalk Coleman and Faunia, even confronting them at Coleman’s house. Lester has been released from the VA hospital after being institutionalized upon the deaths of his children and assigned to a support group of fellow Vietnam veterans. Lester decides he is completely dead inside, that he died in Vietnam, and that truth is what makes it okay. Believing this truth also provides Lester with the motivation to kill Faunia and Coleman. Lester plans and executes his plan late at night. He forces Coleman’s car to run off the road and kills both Faunia and Coleman. The final chapter details the funerals for Faunia Farley and Coleman Silk. At each funeral, Nathan Zuckerman discovers the secrets they had been keeping and the ways in which both characters invented their own, respective identities. At Faunia’s funeral, Nathan discovers that she kept a diary and lied about being illiterate. At Coleman’s funeral, Nathat meets Ernestine Silk, Coleman’s sister, and discovers that Coleman was an african-american man. Coleman had “passed” as a white man since he signed up for the U.S. Navy, when he was nineteen. In the final scene of the novel, Nathan confronts Lester while the latter is ice-fishing. They have a vague conversation that is never explicit but harbors threatening undertones, speaking of secrets and the importance of keeping them. As Nathan walks away, he feels determined to finish the novel and move far away from Lester Farley. Character analysis o COLEMAN SILK 15 “without Viagra none of this would be happening.” Zuckerman’s situation is different: he learns the serenity of old age is a delusion. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood 16 Plot Offred is a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian and theocratic state that has replaced the United States of America. Because of dangerously low reproduction rates, handmaids are assigned to bear children for elite couples that have trouble conceiving. Offred serves the Commander and his wife, Serena Joy, a former gospel singer and advocate for “traditional values.” Offred is not the narrator’s real name – handmaid names consists of the word of followed by the name of the handmaid’s Commander. Every month, when Offred is at the right point in her menstrual cycle, she must have impersonal, wordless sex with the Commander while Serena sits behind her, holding her hands. Offred’s freedom, like the freedom of all women, is completely restricted. She can leave the house only on shopping trips, the door to her room cannot completely shut, and the Eyes (Gilead’s secret police force) watch her every public move. As Offred tells the story of her daily life, she frequently slips into flashbacks, from which the reader can reconstruct the events leading up to the beginning of the novel. In the old world, before Gilead, Offred had an affair with Luke, a married man, he divorced his wife and married Offred, and they had a child together. Offred’s mother was a single mother and feminist activist. The protagonist’s best friend, Moira, was fiercely independent. The architects of Gilead began their rise to power in an age of readily available pornography, prostitution, and violence against women – when pollution and chemical spills led to declining fertility rates. They cracked down on women’s rights, forbidding women to hold property or jobs. Offred and Luke took their daughter and attempted to flee across the border into Canada, but they were caught and separated from one another. After her capture, Offred’s marriage was voided and she was sent to the Rachel and Leah Re-education Centre, called the Red Centre by its inhabitants. At the centre, women were indoctrinated into Gilead’s ideology in preparation for becoming handmaids. Moira is brought to the Red Centre, but she escapes, and Offred does not know wat becomes of her. Once assigned to the Commander’s house, Offred’s life settles into a restrictive routine. She must visit the doctor frequently to be checked for disease and other complications, and she must endure the “Ceremony,” in which the Commander reads to the household from the Bible, then goes to the bedroom, where his Wife and Offred wait for him, and has sex with her. The first break from her routine occurs when she visits the doctor and he offers to have sex with her to her pregnant, suggesting that her Commander is probably infertile. She refuses. After some time has gone by without Offred becoming pregnant, Serena suggests that Offred have sex with Nick secretly and pass the child off as the Commander’s. The same night that Offred is to sleep with Nick, the Commander secretly takes her out to a club called Jezebel’s, where the Commandeers mingle with prostitutes. Offred sees Moira working there and learns that her friend was captured just before she crossed the border. The Commander takes Offred upstairs after a few hours, and they have sex. Soon after Offred return from Jezebel’s, late at night, Serena arrives and tells Offred to go to Nick’s room. They have sex. Soon they begin to sleep together frequently, 17 without anyone’s knowledge. One day, all the handmaids take part in a group execution of a supposed rapist, supervised by Aunt Lydia; Ofglen strikes the first blow. At home, Serena has found out about Offred’s trip to Jezebel’s, and she sends her to her room, promising punishment. Offred waits there, and she sees a black van from the Eyes approach. Then Nick comes in and tells her that the Eyes are really Mayday members who have come to save her. Offred leaves with them, over the Commander’s futile objections, on her way either to prison or to freedom – she does not know which. The novel closes with an epilogue from 2195, after Gilead has fallen, written in the form of a lecture given by Professor Pieixoto. He suggests that Nick arranged Offred’s escape but that her fate after that is unknown. She could have escaped to Canada or England, or she could have been recaptured. Character analysis o OFFRED She is the narrator and the protagonist of the novel, and we are told the entire story from her point of view, experiencing events and memories as vividly as she does. She tells the story as it happens, and shows us the travels of her mind through asides, flashbacks, and digressions. Offred is intelligent, perceptive, and kind. Offred is not the crusading hero a reader might expect. After her failed attempt to escape with her husband and daughter, she submits to her role in the regime rather than endure further torture or exile. Although Offred is friends with Ofglen, a member of the resistance, and feels a thrill at the possibility of someone bringing down Gilead, she fears joining it herself. In her affair with Nick, Offred becomes absorbed by a physicality and autonomy that Gilead has denied her, and she turns away from participating on Ofglen’s plans. When the possibility of escape finally comes at the end, it comes through Nick, rather than a plan Offred puts in place herself. Offred’s inertia shows how an oppressive regime like Gilead can destroy most people’s ability to resist it. o THE COMMANDER The Commander poses an ethical problem for Offred, and consequently for us. First, he is Offred’s Commander and the immediate agent of her oppression. As a founder of Gilead, he also bears responsibility for the entire totalitarian society. In person, he is far more sympathetic and friendly toward Offred than most other people, and Offred’s evenings with the Commander in his study offer her a small respite from the wasteland of her life. At times, his unhappiness and need for companionship make him seems as much a prisoner of Gilead’s stricture as anyone else. As the novel progresses, we come to realize that his visits with Offred are selfish rather than charitable. The Commander’s moral blindness, which is apparent in his attempts to explain the virtues of Gilead, is highlighted by his and Offred’s visit to Jezebel’s. Offred’s relationship with the Commander is best represented by a situation she remembers from a documentary on the Holocaust. In the film, the mistress of a brutal death camp guard defended the man she loved, claiming that he was not a monster. In other words, anyone can seem human, and even likable, given the right set of circumstances. But even if the Commander is likable and can be kind or 20 o REPRODUCTION The Handmaid’s Tale argues that legally controlling women’s reproductive freedom is morally and politically wrong. The suffering of Offred and the other handmaids is directly caused by the Gileadean state’s desire to own and control women’s fertility. Certain details link Gilead’s goal of controlling women’s reproductive function with the political goals of the 20 th century U.S. religious right. It also argues that women’s reproductive function can be a form of wealth, a “national resource”, in order to warn us that figures in power will always be tempted to control women’s bodies. The Children Act – Ian McEwan 21 Plot The Children Act is the London-set story of well-respected family law judge Fiona Maye, her disintegrating marriage, and the young man whose case changes her life forever. As the novel opens, middle-aged High Court judge Fiona unwinds with a scotch and water after a particularly intense argument with her husband, Jack. Though she understands that her marriage has been on shaky footing for a while, she is nonetheless shocked that Jack has come to her and essentially asked her permission to have an affair. Jack, a college professor, finds himself attracted to a colleague (Melanie), 28-year-old statistician and, with Fiona’s consent, he wants to start a sexual relationship with the younger woman. She warns him in no uncertain terms that should he proceed with his pursuit of Melanie, then their marriage is over. Fiona’s clerk, Nigel, phones to tell her that she will hear an emergency case in the next few days. A 17-year-old Jehovah’s Witness named Adam Henry has leukaemia and, based on their religious beliefs, his parents have refused a blood transfusion that could save his life. The hospital, charged with doing whatever is necessary to care for Adam to prolong his life, feels compelled to go against his parents’ wishes, so the situation merits an official court ruling as soon as possible. She regrets that they have never had children, but her career has always been a priority, and she has the success and reputation to show for it. Later, at the end of the day, she returns to the empty flat; Jack has not attempted to get in touch with her. The following day, Fiona hears Adam’s case. Not wanting to make a misstep in such a major decision, she decides to meet with Adam before issuing her ruling. At the hospital, Fiona and Adam form an instant bond. He shares with her some of the poetry he has written and then plays his violin as she sings along. Utterly charmed, Fiona leaves the hospital and hands down her decision: Adam must have the blood transfusion. When Fiona arrives home at the end of the day, Jack is sitting in front of their door, suitcase at his side. He admits that he was foolish to pursue the idea of an affair and that he quite like his life with Fiona. While she anticipates their lives returning to normal, Fiona can’t help but feel a bit disappointed; part of her had been looking forward to living alone. Several months later, a case calls Fiona to the city Newcastle. Adam is angry at his parents and no longer shares their religious beliefs. Nevertheless, when she gets to Newcastle, she discovers Adam has followed her there. He has run away from home and asks if he can come live with her and Jack. Fiona refuses. After getting him a train ticket home, Adam turns his face, and they kiss on the lips. Fiona panics. No matter how innocent or inadvertent the kiss was, she could lose her job, her reputation, all she has worked for, if anyone were to find out. When she receives another letter form Adam, this one a poem comparing her to Satan. One evening, at a Christmas concert, Fiona learns that Adam has died. His leukaemia returned, and now being 18 years old, he made the decision to forgo a lifesaving transfusion. Consumed by guilt, Fiona feels his death is her fault because she refused to let him live with her and sent him back to his religious parents, who undoubtedly influenced his decision. Later, at home, Jack comforts her, and she confesses everything to him. Her revelation brings her and Jack closer, and they experience a renewed commitment to one another. 22 Themes o RELIGION/BELIEF The central theme of the novel is religion. The novel explores whether religion’s influence on society and on specific individuals is positive and negative and whether religion is a useful place for people to search for the meaning of life. The religious characters in the novel are consistently portrayed as being less educated that the non-religious characters. Adam’s life is based on his belief as a Jehovah’s witness, and his parents are willing to have their son die. Throughout their religion, the family tries to search for the meaning of life. o LOVE We are introduced to Fiona and Jack’s marriage at the very beginning of the story. He is having a hard time dealing with Fiona’s time-consuming work, their non-existent sex life and Jack threatening to leave if things don’t change. o RESPONSIBILITY Fiona has significant responsibilities for several matters. The court and her personal life per se. She is so depth with her job, that it causes her husband to want an affair. Plot Atonement – Ian McEwan 25 illustrates that each individual’s reality is as much a product of their own biases, assumptions, and limited knowledge as it is a reflection of an objective truth. o GUILT Guilt is a primary theme on this novel. After she realizes the damage that her callous testimony has wrought, Briony spends a lifetime burdened by her guilt and attempting to atone for her misdeeds. Since McEwan casts guilt as such powerful and universal human sentiment, it is worth noting that Robbie’s wartime experience often forces him to forego feelings of guilt in the interest of self-preservation. In this way, the author shows that Robbie has been somewhat dehumanized as a consequence of Briony’s childish misconduct. o CLASS The tension that drives the book’s early plot is the scandalous love affair between Cecilia and Robbie. Although Robbie has been incorporated into the Tallis family, he is nevertheless an outsider. Robbie’s future depends on the charity of the Tallises. o LOST INNOCENCE As Atonement characters develop over the course of the novel and are injured to the sufferings of the adult world, they grow progressively less innocent. This universal loss of innocence is largely catalyzed by Lola’s rape and Briony’s false testimony. Briony grows less and less confident in her own perspective and more open to understanding the perceptions of others. The complicity compounds itself further when Lola marries her rapist. From then on, she must consider her victimization from a cold perspective – to allow the truth to surface would undermine her husband, and her own high social station which she gained through the marriage. This makes it impossible for her to regain the youthful perspective she held previously. o THE UNCHANGEABLE PAST The most important plot developments in the work stem from actions or experiences that can never be erased or counteracted. Once Briony testifies against Robbie, she takes on a responsibility for Robbie’s fate that she will never be able to shed, and she loses an innocence that she will be never able to regain. o STORIES AND LITERATURE The end of the book reveals that all of Atonement is a semi-autobiographical novel that Briony has written decades after her youthful mistakes took place. This framing device gives new signifying power to the self-conscious storytelling and narration that appear throughout the plot. As Briony grows up, her approach to storytelling evolves to reflect her maturity as a human being. Briony’s narrow-minded and automatic judgement of others has disastrous consequences. Briony, in response to witnessing events she does not properly understand, constructs a story in which Robbie is thoroughgoing villain. This story soon spirals out of her control – much like the “Trials of Arabella” did – and leads to Robbie’s years of imprisonment. 26 Later on, Briony again crafts stories – only this time, she relies on her writing to come to terms with the hurt she has caused. Her first attempts are too simplistic: she submits to a magazine a piece about witnessing Cecilia and Robbie’s encounter at the fountain, and the magazine’s rejection letter encourages her to delve deeper into the harms the naïve witness might bring to the older lovers. However, at the end of the novel, Briony is more prepared to reconcile with her past through writing.