ATONEMENT by Ian McEwan summary and analysis, Sintesi del corso di Letteratura Inglese

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ATONEMENT Ian McEwan ○ Atonement (2001), generally considered by literary critics as McEwan's literary masterpiece, in 2007 also became the Oscar-winning film version starring Keira Knightley, James McAvoy and Vanessa Redgrave. ○ McEwan's historical novel is set in 1935 under the threat of the approaching war. ○ The novel is structured into three sections – the second and third during WW2 – with a coda set in London in 1999 (for this reason, many readers say that the novel is made of 3+1 sections), and triads, triangles and three-way relationships abound in the plot. 3 + 1 sections: ○ Tallis House: ■ Duration: 1 day ■ Place: 1 hot summer day of 1935 ■ Setting: no clear description ○ Somewhere in between France and Belgium ■ 7-10 days ■ Retreat of the allied soldiers from Dunkirk ■ 1940 ○ London ■ Continuation of the story of the retreat of the soldiers ■ One hospital in London where all the injured from the front are brought ■ 3-4 months ■ Summer - Autumn 1940 ○ Coda ■ London + Tallis House ■ 1 day --> circular motion w the beginning of the novel ■ 1999 (some 60 yrs after the first part, huge gap) PART ONE CHAPTER 1 Briony's pov ○ Focus on "THE PLAY": not an ordinary play written by an ordinary author ○ To Highlight how anxious the author was (13 yr old girl) ○ The Trials of Arabella: book that's being read by Briony (protagonist); Arabella is looking for a proper husband: she finds a good aristocratic but soon understands that he's not a good match for her; she then finds a doctor, whom she calls a "Prince in disguise": she ends up marrying him ○ A couple years back, briony had already written a short story ○ Briony has now a clear idea of what she wants to be: an author, a writer ○ Briony likes to be carried up by her imagination: she wanted to tell a story that she could preserve the purity of her story in her imagination ○ Real intentions: she has decided to write this play bc she's happy that her elder brother Leon is coming back home from London, where he works as a bank clerk). ○ She decides to celebrate his homecoming w the writing and the staging of a drama ○ She likes to create stories out of nothing: she can create and destroy everything in this parallel world ○ She seems to be obsessed by tidiness and order ○ In her stories everything falls into place at the right time ○ Good distinction between the Good and the Evil characters: the good ones get rewarded in the end; the villains are punished ○ New characters arrive in the stage: the 3 cousins Lola, Jackson and Pierrot ○ Development of the story: arrival described from the pov of Briony, what she thinks of this arrival ■ She's too absorbed in her new task as a dramatist that she's not paying too much attention to her bro's predicament: she's too focused on the creation of her story ■ In her little world, B still thinks of marrying and weddings, these are the important celebrations in her stories, she has never considered divorce: she did not know exactly what that meant on an emotional level, she didn't know the eect of those happenings ■ She doesn't like disorder!! ■ Briony understands how easy it is to misunderstand everything CHAPTER 4 Cecilia's pov ○ 3rd person narrator, not omniscient: narrator that adopts the pov of a single character who has limits of what he/she sees, hears, thinks about what is happening ○ She hears footsteps and thinks it's Robbie walking barefoot, but it is Briony, who had just stopped crying: Briony is very used to these self-destructive behaviours ○ She's very amorous towards her sister, completely dierent behaviour than the one she had with Robbie: motherly attitude towards Briony ○ Leon arrives with a friend, Paul Marshall: encounter w Cecilia: they soon embrace one another and are happy to see each other ○ Paul is the president of a chocolate factory and is a few years older than Leon (25-26 yrs) ■ One of the London tycoons of the age, a millionaire ○ C is telling L about their mother, Emily, who's not feeling well ○ Description of Paul from the pov of Cecilia: ■ He seems to be a little arrogant; wants to show how powerful and rich he is ■ He has bought a new house in London but he's filled with work so he has had no time to go there yet ■ He has a new project in mind: the Army Amo ■ He's accused of being a warmonger (= guerrafondaio) ■ She's thinking about getting married, so she observes young men like him imagining her future with them ○ Leon invited Robbie to dinner and Cecilia is very annoyed by this ■ Leon seems to be knowing his sister so well and after mocking her in the beginning, now he has understood that something has happened between the 2 of them ■ He's making fun of her in front of Paul CHAPTER 5 Lola's pov ○ Lola explains to B her decision not to join the play ○ This episode has a possibility of a twin reading, so we understand that we're reading a story written by a very expert writer ○ Paul oers the twins a chocolate because they're very hungry, but they are not convinced ○ Paul turns to Lola and oers her (and only her) a chocolate using an imperative "bite it!!" so she accepts and eats the chocolate ■ First level of reading and meaning of the story: factory manager oers a chocolate bar to the 15 yrs old ■ Second level: parallelism: story structured on the Genesis (Bible) --> the snake oering an apple to Eve ■ Paul = snake ■ Lola = Eve ■ Chocolate bar = apple ● Paul seems to be the temper, the seducer, the villain of the story: dierent from how he appeared before ○ Paul's role: positive or negative?? CHAPTER 6 Emily's pov (Briony and Cecilia's mother) ○ She's lying in bed and she's thinking about her childhood ○ We now know what Emily Tallis thinks of Leon: he has the defect of being quite an ambitionless young man ■ He does not seem to be interested in his position in society, he's happy to be a simple bank clerk and doesn't care of becoming more than that ■ He receives critique from his mother, who wishes more for him ■ She forgives him because she loves him so much, she's very kind and generous towards other people in general ○ Complicated relationship with Cecilia: there seems to be more criticism than aection towards her daughter ■ Conflictual situations between mother and daughter ■ E does not understand her daughter's behaviour as an independent girl ■ New generation of girls who are little rebels: Emily does not understand this kind of new behaviours ■ She wishes her to get married and have a family, whereas C doesn't seem to be interested in such things at all ■ Cecilia is constantly smoking, and for a girl of her age that is not considered as a good sign ■ Emily's afraid that Cecilia might take this new model of girls and follows them (bad examples) ○ Then Emily thinks about Briony, and we can see that her perception of her changes completely ■ Description of the critical relationship between Emily and her sister Hermione ■ She despises Lola like she despises Hermione (Lola's mother), and wants to keep her away from Briony CHAPTER 7 Briony's pov ○ B is very crossed w Lola because she considers her guilty for the destruction of her play ○ B experiences how painful it is to her to accept reality and to move her imagination apart ○ Parallel situation stretched out for Briony: "The moment of return" from imagination ■ She remembers about the old times when Cecilia used to play the motherly part w her, when she came to comfort her from her nightmares telling her to come back into the real world. She's struggling to come back to the real world ■ This is a quite painful passage for her CHAPTER 8 Robbie's pov ○ Robbie's naked having a bath and he's thinking about Cecilia, he's thinking about what happened between them that morning ■ He's thinking about her in a dierent way, something new has happened between them, and he never thought of her in that way ■ He always thought of her as a sister, and now he sees things about her that he never noticed before ○ This passage is quite useless to the story, so why has the author stressed it so much? ■ To create a particular atmosphere, very sensual, physical ○ He's thinking about her body, he has all the details fixed in his mind, as if he took a picture: he noticed every single detail about her body ○ Everything she has on her body makes her prettier and prettier, he calls them "adornments" ○ He likes everything about her ○ Then he thinks of their relationship throughout the years: ■ it seems to be a social gap dividing them, and that's why their relationship is so dicult ○ He's changing his mind about Cecilia ○ Anatomy book on his desk "Grey's Anatomy": illustration of the vagina and he looks at it ■ He starts writing a letter apologizing to Cecilia ○ He has doubts about how to expose his feelings ■ He doesn't know how to use punctuation correctly ■ Uncertainty ○ He ruins the sheet: he's embarrassed of what he had just written ■ So she exits the room looking for her sister, but doesn't find her CHAPTER 11 ● Robbie's pov ● He's at the dinner table with everyone else, talking about the weather ● Confirmation that Cecilia's very proud when Leon asked her whether she behaved dierently these last days ○ She starts blushing and when Robbie is about to defend her, she speaks up in a very nervous and inappropriate way ○ She's very nervous, even during an event which should be a happy moment with the family ● Robbie gest lost in his memory and starts thinking about what has happened between him and Cecilia ○ Multiple Internal Focalization to show subjectivity: episode of the library now described by Robbie's pov ■ He was walking towards Tallis house and had already given Briony the letter for Cecilia, knowing that he gave her the wrong letter ■ He's very ashamed by his mistake ■ While walking he meets Cecilia, both are very ashamed: he's ashamed for the letter and she for having read it ■ Not easy to start the conversation ■ Conflicting feelings that the characters are experiencing: contradictory state of mind of both of them ■ He feels familiar with her, but at the same time feels like he doesn't know her at all; she was plain, but beautiful; she was like a sister, but alluring like a lover ■ The same happens to Cecilia: if she thinks about the letter she thinks it's stupid, but at the same time it has given her the chance to learn something new about life ○ Cecilia invites him into the library and start a very awkward conversation: he says he's sent her the wrong letter and she tells him that Briony had read the letter, so he apologises ○ He doesn't understand whether Cecilia is angry for the letter or for showing an unapologetic behaviour, she just says yes or no ■ Cecilia's frame of mind remains a mystery for him ■ She's nervous, but most of all she's angry that Briony has read the letter ○ Then she starts talking about her feelings: she felt just like he felt, and that day everything had changed between them. Something about themselves that they kept hidden from their view until that moment had resurfaced [Martin Amis says that McEwan is a master at describing contradictory feelings, the contradictions of the human mind] ● At the beginning she was angry with him, but then wonders why should she be angry when all he did is show her true feelings? ● She seems cross with herself for not understanding what she was feeling before ● They end up "making love" in the library ● The narrator wants to stress how important that moment was for them: they share a blissful moment, a moment full of happiness for both of them because they discovered what they needed in that exact moment "in a state of tranquil joy" ● Completely dierent description from Briony's ● Cecilia notices that someone had entered the room and tells Robbie, but he doesn't want to believe her ○ She had never hated someone that much ● Then we are again at the dinner table and we understand why Cecilia is nervous, in particular with Briony ○ The twins ask to go to the lavatory ○ Briony notices the twins are wearing her socks and gets angry ○ Cecilia gets angry with her little sister, she's very cross with her, she calls Briony "a tiresome, little prima donna" ○ The twins vanish, they don't return to the table, leaving a short note saying that they're not in the mood for celebrating ○ Then again something is interrupted: the dinner ○ Everyone is alarmed by the twins' disappearance ■ Some rescue teams are made to go look for them: rules are created and people start going in dierent directions looking for the twins CHAPTER 12 Emily's pov ● Emily's reaction to her husband's behaviour: he's always missing from the family and is almost always in London: ○ She thinks he has a lover CHAPTER 13 Briony's pov ● Anticipation: she's about to commit a crime ● Briony's walking alone in the park at night: here, she understands that she's no longer a child, she's passed the threshold from childhood to adulthood, and she's very proud of that ○ Moment of accomplishment for Briony ○ As she walks alone in the park, she witness another strange episode: she notices something moving before her, and she understands they are 2 figures in the darkness and again she doesn't understand what is happening ○ As she leans forwards, one of them runs away, but then she finds Lola who had been a victim of sexual aggression ○ Description of the second episode witnessed by Briony, a second sexual assault, again in the darkness ○ The disappearing figure is never described in detail ○ Briony immediately helps and comforts Lola, but she keeps asking her the identity of the aggressor ○ Lola remains silent in shock and cannot provide a satisfying answer, so she never names the identity of the aggressor ■ When B asks "Was it him?" she simply says yes, without saying the name ○ Briony understand that her role is that of protector of the family, saviour. She saved Cecilia and now Lola. ○ B says "It was Robbie, wasn't it?" and Lola remains silent in shock, under the eect of a trauma. Her mind wanders away from her body ○ Briony manages to walk Lola back home to find assistance from the family ■ Here, Briony starts to occupy the role of protagonist in the story of her family because she's Lola's saviour ■ It's important to her to have the central position in her family's story: self-centredness of Briony ○ She has a chance to get in the centre, everybody is looking after her, and she's become an important person in her family ■ So since Lola was to shocked to say anything, she decides to speak for her ■ But she's sill doubting about her recent witnessing, she's thinking about whether she's sure of these accusations or not: it all happened in the darkness so it wasn't easy for her to understand what had actually happened. ■ Important description of the typical doubts which Briony's having in the following days: she's been interviewed by the police, where she accused Robbie. Then she wonders if her accusations were true or if it was just prejudice towards him ("seeing" vs "knowing"): is she sure of having clearly seen him?? CHAPTER 14 Briony's pov ● Important anticipation of the future development of the story ● Topic of the sense of guilt which dominates this chapter [Paul Crostwaithe conducted a research on the soldiers who fought in the war by reading their diaries: they were ordinary people, not experienced. In their diaries they often describe reality as a nightmare. ] ● His 2 companions make fun of him calling him "Guvernor" in order to preserve their dignity since he was lower in rank ● Robbie's hand is trembling ● Robbie's life is split in 2: ○ During the day, he lives in reality ○ At night, he lives in a dream, dreaming of Cecilia and about all the letters they sent to each other, so he gets lost in his imagination, which is crucial for him in order to be motivated to continue his journey ■ This gave him a purpose ● This dramatic situation, however, was better than staying inside a prison cell because at least he was free ● What has happened to Cecilia? ● She has decided to cut o from her family (her parents, her brother and her sister too): she moved away and she was sent to Cambridge to study medicine, but since she's so crossed with her parents she decided to become a nurse instead, which seems to be an indirect punishment to her family ● Their relationship goes on through correspondence since they could not see each other ● The narrator tells us they did have a chance to meet each other again, but they are used to write to each other by imagining the other, without meeting ● "Robbie and Cecilia had been making love for years - by post" this tells us how dramatic the situation actually is. ● She tells him she's going to get married and they're going to go live together, so this gives Robbie even more motivation to keep fighting ● Cecilia become his strongest motivation to fight depression, he keeps reading her letters at night and knows some lines by heart ● She decided to cut loose from her family because they all believed an hysterical little girl. Robbie would like for her to re-establish her relationship with her family ○ But when Cecilia is nervous, she becomes stubborn: she could either support Robbie or stay w her family, so she chose him. ○ She's angry because she thinks that the police did not make enough enquiry about the rape, but that's because the family did not want to, and that's what makes her so angry ○ Briony = silly, hysterical little girl ● One recurrent thing she writes in her letters is "I'll wait for you. Come back", which is the same imperative she used w her sister when she had nightmares in order to make her come back to reality ● Another letter from Cecilia: ○ Briony's parents decided she had to attend the university of Cambridge, but she eventually decided not to go and to follow Cecilia's example instead ■ Cecilia as her role model (she plays a motherly role for Briony) ○ She makes fun of Briony as a nurse ○ Briony = a fantasist, someone who gets lost in her own fantasies but others pay the price of this ■ That's why Cecilia hates her little sister now and doesn't miss any opportunity to make fun of and criticize her ○ She's trying to give an explanation on why she decided to become a nurse too, she doesn't say anything about her motherly role ○ She feels that her sister is doing so as a sort of Atonement, to pay for her mistake, she wants to be of use to other people. ● We now get to understand what Robbie thinks of Briony and about what she did to him: ○ Back to an episode between Robbie and Briony, when B fell into the river and R saved her, during her swimming lessons ■ She tells him "I love you" ○ McEwan was interested in psychology and in the theories of Freud: ■ Number 3 is recurrent: 3 episodes where the water element is present ■ Fountain scene: Cecilia gets undressed to "punish" Robbie ■ Robbie's bath: he's thinking about Cecilia in a sexual way ■ Swimming lessons in the river: Briony and Robbie ■ Water elements: what do we think when we think about water? ■ Whenever we are talking about or making reference to the water element, in the back of our minds we connect it to sex --> Mental Association ■ Robbie is always present in these 3 episodes and it's like the 2 sisters are struggling to get the attention of the male figure ■ Oedipal Complex (Freud): loving relationship between the child and the parent of the opposite sex [ Jung: ● Oedipal Complex --> son and mother ● Elektra Complex --> girl and father ] ● It is a triangular relationship (again, number 3) ● She loves her father and he loves her --> but her father is also in love w her mother => JEALOUSY towards the mother ● Until 5-6 y.o. When we become social animals and we understand that we are part of a group and part of a family => revision of our ideas ● 5-6 years old: she experiences SHAME because she understands that her thoughts and behaviours towards her father were improper, because she understands that she was born from the love between her parents ● She creates a new part of the mind: the Subconscious (some king of safe), where put our unpleasant memories, embarrassing situations. When we close it, we kind of forget about them. ● This happens even if a parent is missing --> surrogate father/mother: usually it is a sibling, or someone from the family itself ● Back to Briony: her parents are both absent from her life, so she's always looking for alternative figures playing the part of the father and the mother: ○ Cecilia = surrogate mother, Robbie = surrogate father ○ Possible interpretations of her accusation: 1. because she was JEALOUS of Cecilia and therefore she punish Robbie 2. Kate Kellaway: "she's a child who becomes implicated in an adult sexual relationship that she doesn't understand" , she was too young to understand what was happening between the 2 of them; we can understand that simply from the 2 dierent descriptions of the library scene 3. Tom Shone: "the failure of Arabella's play and the need to occupy the centre stage drive Briony towards telling a lie": he argues that the real motivation is that she's very self-centred, she always needs to be under the spotlight and she will look for any possible strategy to have a central role in her family ● "You saved me" is what Briony tells Robbie ○ Similar to what Cecilia wrote to him in the letter "I love you and you saved me" => the two sisters have the same way of communicating that they love him. ● Second part of the narration: back to Robbie's health ○ Apparently he's not in good shape, we find him weaker and weaker. ○ He's injured and struggling but he's doing his best ○ The worst part is his mental confusion: he's walking towards Dunkirk but he's going towards insanity: he seems to forget about his own sense of responsibility, where he's going, and he seems to be living in a nightmarish situation between reality and imagination (=> as a consequence of his wound) ■ They never stop unless it's to sleep ○ His mental confusion aects his idea of future: his purpose was to reach Dunkirk to see Cecilia, but now he's victim of depression and has a very pessimistic attitude ■ He's trying to sleep but his mind is running fast and he's thinking about many things ○ This episode is crucial for the story: here, we find a sort of a summary of Atonement, because it insists on the same important topics discussed in the whole novel: 1) an important lie, 2) a fatal misunderstanding and 3) an impossible love 1. She lies to him when she says "yes" when he asks her "do you love me?" ■ She could have said no but she chose to tell a lie anyway ■ 5 years have passed but she hasn't changed: she lied before and she still lies now ■ Tom Shone: takes her defence by saying that here she's simply telling a white lie, so it's not to deceive him but to help him, to hide a very painful truth Is it justifiable or not? ● Wedding day: it is now that Briony suddenly remembers the face of the man that raped Lola that night: the rapist was PAUL MARSHALL ○ Lola was marrying her rapist!! ○ What should Briony do: should she raise her hand or should she remain silent? => She remains silent: why?? She feels a strong sense of guilt for having destroyed her sister's love story, should she now destroy another love story? She seeks compensation, and how can she achieve it through the destruction of another love story? ● Now Briony thinks it's about time to meet Cecilia, so she decides to go to her house without even telling her ○ She meets Cecilia, but C is not happy to meet her: she welcomes her in her room to talk ○ Cecilia believes the rapist is the serve man, Hardman, who is now dead. Briony is shocked by the news ○ Briony has in her mind to change her accusation but of course Cecilia tells her "You've lied once, how can the court believe you now?" ○ Cecilia seems split into 2 personalities ■ Briony's second mother ■ Deeply disappointed by Briony because she destroyed her love life ○ Cecilia doesn't want Briony to call her "Cee" ○ What's Briony thinking about herself now? ■ She was weak, confused, evasive, but never thought to be a liar. Of course she lied, but she believed she was telling the truth, she was not aware of telling a lie. ● We now find out that Robbie managed to get back to England and lives with Cecilia, but we don't know the whereabouts of the couple because it is from the pov of Briony ○ It is evident that he's not happy to find her there ○ Robbie seems like a frightening presence for Briony: he would like to get revenge on her, so briony is scared ○ Also Briony seems split in 2: ■ Scared of Robbie ■ Happy to have met Cecilia again ● Confrontation between the 3 most important characters: love triangle ○ Robbie wonders why she would accuse him of such crime when she knew him very well ○ Crucial confrontation between Robbie and Briony ■ He's very angry with her and his anger is very palpable "I'm thinking about breaking your neck or throwing you down the stairs" ■ He's described as a huge figure, muscular, strong and powerful. This is reality filtered by Briony's pov ○ Cecilia puts herself between the 2 of them as a sort of wall: she tells him "Come back, Robbie.. Come back" ■ He listens to her and kisses her deeply and passionately, a deep love, a sort of animal attraction, like wrestlers => So Cecilia manages to take control of the situation and she drives Robbie towards kissing her instead of letting him release his force towards Briony ● Briony's reaction: she felt relieved --> first positive description of her state of mind ○ She's happy because she knows she made a terrible mistake in the past: she feels her mistake hasn't had bad consequences, since they found each other again and are still happy together ● They decide that Briony will oer a new witness of the rape and she will change the name of the rapist and start thinking about possible meetings with lawyers etc ● Briony has to go back to the hospital by taking the metro and they go with her to the metro station in south London ○ She tells them she had gone to Lola and Paul's marriage when suddenly she remembered the face of the rapist, Paul ○ Robbie asks her if she's convinced and he want to get revenge on him, but Cecilia manages to calm him down ○ They reach the metro station where they leave Briony: she's finally happy for them ● This section ends with the initials "BT": it seems this section has been written by Briony Tallis herself, some 60 years after ○ She's finally happy, free PART FOUR LONDON 1999 ● Incident at Balham metro station (where we left Briony, Cecilia and Robbie at the end of part 3) ● 15th Oct. 1940: the Germans throw bombs all over London, one of which creates a big hole, where a double-decker bus falls into ○ It destroyed the water pipes, so the water channelled inside the metro station drowning all the people there ● For the very first time the narrator speaks in first person: Briony ("I") ○ In the other sections she referred to herself as "she/her..." ● Special day for Briony Tallis: it's her 77th birthday ○ First, we find her in the library looking for soldiers' diaries ○ Then, she goes to the doctor because she has some health problems ■ She is developing vascular dementia and soon she's going to lose her memory, she will lose the control of her mind ■ However, she's very calm, she's not alarmed by that prospect ○ We can make a comparison between her friends' reactions at hearing the news and Briony's reaction ■ Fist, she says she doesn't feel distressed, she's elated (happy), ■ Her friends seems devastated by her diagnosis [Julie Ellam: talks about this passage and especially about Briony's reaction, "Briony's need for compensation reaches peaks of pure self destruction"; she had this sense of guilt at 13 and had lived with it for her whole life, therefore she feels she has to be punished: Briony thinks that the dementia is her rightful punishment] ● She has the chance of meeting Lola and Paul, who are still happily together and extremely rich: she had seen them in newspapers because of all the donations, researches they had made --> people had a positive opinion of them ○ But Briony knows the secret: has he become a philanthropist to make aments for his wrong doing in 1945? ○ Their love aair seems like the best romantic love story, still in love after 60 years, which is a bit disturbing knowing their past ● Briony has just finished writing her last novel, and she sent some copies of her manuscript to some friends to receive feedback form dierent experts ○ She receives an answer from a colonel, his opinion on a story she wrote about WW2: she has made some mistakes ■ But Briony seems to be careless about noticing her mistakes, she seems to be making fun of the colonel, because he seems to be eager on having a realistic account on what was happening during the war; Briony, on the contrary, doesn't think that facts are so important in her new novel