Ian McEwan - bibliografia e analisi di Atonement, Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Ian McEwan - bibliografia e analisi di Atonement e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! PPP Ian McEwan Biography and works. Book#1 PPP Biographic details. Basic info. Ian McEwan was born in 1948, in Aldershot, southwest of London, but he spent most of his childhood abroad, at military bases. The family’s longest posting was in Libya, but they also lived in Singapore and in Germany. Ian as a child was often wondering why his family always lived on its own, and remained cautiously detached from social contacts. His father, David, was a Scotman and a career Army officer: he worked long hours, and little Ian was often alone with his mother, Rose, a housewife. Ian McEwan. PPP Biographic details. Early life and family. His parents, who both left school at fourteen, had few literary interests, but, he says, “The writer in me is from my mother. She was a great worrier, which requires an imagination. She was always convinced that she left the iron on.” McEwan’s father was domineering and temperamental, but he loved Ian fiercely; they hunted for scorpions in the desert and was a daring and courageous man. He easily became a model of masculinity in Ian’s eyes. They also went off swimming together and Ian recalls: “I used to stand on his shoulders, which were very slippery because the sea would wash his Brylcreem off his hair.” David McEwan, an acutely intelligent man served in the Second World War, and was wounded at Dunkirk; the Army offered to send him to college, but he declined. However, his father liked to spend some hours of his past time in local pubs where he would drink beers. Also because of this, David turned violent and, as Ian McEwan remembers, the marriage of his parents was “quite troubled,” and there were episodes of domestic violence. At those times, his memories of him become “quite terrifying.” McEwan's mother was originally married to Mr. Wort and had two children from that marriage. During the Dunkirk retreat, Ian’s father remained injured and was sent home to recover. While in London, he came to know Mrs. Wort and started a relationship with her; in the meanwhile, Mr. Wort was busy fighting on the front. Ian's mother and father also had a child out of wedlock, David Sharp, who was given up for adoption in 1942 because of the consequences this affair would entail. Mr. Wort was then killed in the war and the end of WW2, David McEwan and Rose Wort got married. By that time Ian was born. McEwan’s family p Page 2 Friday, 07 Oct, 2022 Ian McEwan PPP PPP Enduring love. 1997. PPP Amsterdam. 1998. ‘Amsterdam (1998), though it won the Booker Prize, is undoubtedly one of McEwan's lesser novels.’ [Peter Childs] Written in a short time, the novel is a dark story dealing with two English men who pretend being friends. However they move to Amsterdam, a city famous for its tolerance to euthanasia, and deviously kill each other. PPP Atonement. 2001. 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. It is his pure maturity. A love story destroyed. Enduring Love (1997), is generally considered as a work belonging to his full maturity and it starts with one of the most famous scenes in contemporary fiction. Joe and Clarissa, a consolidated couple, become witness of the death of an innocent man falling from an air balloon. A psychopath, who also watches the scene, falls in love with Joe, and this, added with the shock experienced by the couple, threatens to destroy their love-story. The novel was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. One of his best works. / Atonement characters’ plan. Other works in chronological order. PPP. After Atonement bibliography. What did he wrote in the last 20 years?  Saturday : Set during the time of the English and US's invasion to Iraq, Ian McEwan’s novel represents Saturday February 15th 2003 as it is experienced by Henry Perowne, 48-year old consultant neurosurgeon at a central London hospital. The day passes while Perowne thinks about the protest against the war in Iraq and his private chores. According to initial plans, his day should culminate with the family dinner and his daughter Daisy coming from Paris, but his day is disrupted by the encounter with a psychopath.  The Children Act (2014): deals with the high court judge Fiona Maye, mixing episodes of her career and private exchanges with her husband Jack, a professor in ancient history who has been her faithful and loving companion, who announces to her that he wants to embark on an affair with a young woman. Fiona's reaction is to move him away from her and she decides to dive into her profession, solving the case of Adam, a young Jehovah's Witness, ill with leukemia. The boy falls in love with her but she ignores his feelings and tries to reconcile with her husband Jack instead. Husband and wife together manage to save their relationship, when Fiona is informed that Adam has died, refusing further blood transfusion cures.  Nutshell (2016): Ian McEwan’s fourteenth novel, pays a visible homage to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Narrated in the first person by a “thirty-eight-week-old foetus” (Pinker), the story is a contemporary version of Hamlet in which the protagonist is unborn but equally philosophical and “troubled.” The novel mainly follows the plotting of the murder of the unborn narrator’s father, poet John Cairncross. The greedy perpetrators are expecting mother Trudy, John’s twenty- eight-year-old wife, and her lover, John’s brother, property-developer Claude Cairncross.  The Cockroach (2019): proposes a reverse of Kafka's Metamorphosis: this is the story of a cockroach that wakes one morning in the body of a man. This man, it happens, is the prime minister of the United Kingdom. This last novel is a bitter and sharp satire about Brexit England. Page 6 Friday, 07 Oct, 2022 Ian McEwan PPP Atonement, film transposition. (2007) Atonement. Let’s talk about the book. Ian McEwan The book could be divided in 4 sections: 2nd and 3rd set during the WW2, then the 1st and 4th before and after. The 4th is called a coda, set in London after many years, in 1999. Tallis house fr/b London Ldn/ Tallis house |----------------------|----------|----------------------------- ----------|--------------------------| one hot summer summer summer/autumn day of 1935 of 1940 of 1940 1999  1 day  10 days  few months  1 day [1st section] [2nd section] [3rd section] [4th section] At the beginning, in the first chapter, we encounter Briony, a lively 13 years old, who is eager to see her brother Leon again. To celebrate his brother’s home coming, the little girl wrote a play. She’s nervous but happy to see her brother and, even if this is not the first time as a playwriter, she is watching her mother reaction while reading her work. Briony is the youngest of the house and because of it she’s the pampered one, everyone treats her as a baby, although she’s already a teenager. In fact, her mother exaggerates her reaction just to see her daughter happy. The reader’s attention is brought onto the play: it’s a love story where the beautiful Arabella is searching for a proper husband and she manages to find it, after some struggles, in a prince in disguise, caring and loving. Usually her play, such as the one she wrote at 11, have a similar pattern, where the good characters go through some troubles but are rewarded at the end, while the bad ones are punished. Then, the narrator gives us some information about Briony’s character. We learn that she’s fond of order and has a passion for tidiness. Also, she can create or destroy whatever she’s writing about. ------------ --------------- -------------- ----------------- The first important thing for Will was the solidity of the house, it didn’t matter if it looked beautiful or not. In this park, Cecilia is walking that day, thinking about different things: she’s thinking about her life in Cambridge, where she is a medicine student at the famous university. and also about what’s happening in the 18th century novel she’s currently reading. That morning she’s meeting another character: Robbie Turner. He’s not one of her relatives, but the young gardener working in Tallis house and they are long known friends, they played together since kids – he’s the only child of the most important housekeeper of the house and lives not in Tallis house but in an house in the park. Robbie Turner is also a student of medicine in Cambridge, even if he comes from the middle class, because he was always a brilliant and excellent student, so Cecilia’s father decided to pay his studies’ expenses. He’s one year older than Cecilia, so 23. There’s a brief description of their meeting and we learn they are awkward when they talk. They seems to put a mask when they are with each other. Cecilia asked him to roll her on of his cigarettes, but then she feels she asked something stupid, so she began to talk about the weather, but this also sounds perverse. Robbie again changed the topic, asking her about the book, so she said it’s boring and made a foolish comment about reading Fielding every day. Robbie seems not interested in the conversation and starts watching elsewhere. It’s strange that they have some communication problems, because they are two really intelligent There’s a clear wheel on her side: she wants to be an adult, she considers herself a woman already, even if she’s 13. ------------------------ ---------------------------- ---------------------- In chapter four, Cecilia has repaired the vase in an amazing way and she hears someone walking bare foot. Imagination: she thinks it’s Robbie so, being still very angry, she goes in the direction of the sound, but notices that’s Briony, who seems anxious. Briony is always in the center of attention and Cecilia is behaving as a mother to her, asking nicely and sweetly what’s happening. The younger has understood that the play won’t make it so she’s tearing the poster in various pieces. So Cecilia put down the vase and goes to consolate her sister. Cecilia is imagining and remembering the behavior of her sister when she had a nightmare. ** Then, Briony, Cecilia and Leon met each other in the garden and they all seem very happy. Along with them, there’s Paul Marshall, Leon’s friends. He starts saying he heard an awful lot of about the sisters. He’s quite an important persons, a magnate he owns a chocolate factory. This chapter is all in Cecilia’s pov so it’s not a description of Paul, but a description of him by Cecilia. The guy seems quite an arrogant person, a foul-mouthed man, because as soon as they meet he tells them he recently bought a huge house, but he’s also working so hard that he could barely go there. He’s basically complaining about his life as an entrepreneur who’s so busy and envies them, chilling in the countryside. He tells them about his work and his future plans, he recently started a second factory. Then, he brings up the current situation whit Hitler, who seems eager to expand, so Paul thinks he can try and contact the Eng Army to provide them with chocolate bars. Someone is starting to call Paul a warmonger, because he only thinking about his own profit, who’d be huge if England would enter the war state. Cecilia started to think about the fact even if an handsome boy and hugely rich but he’s also terribly stupid, so the perspective of marring him soon fades. In the conversation, we learn that the siblings’ mother, Emily, is laying in the bed, because of her frequent migraines. So the mother is present, but she’s not there, that means she is away from the family life. About their father: Leon asks about him and Cecilia answers that maybe he will come back later. So he’s absent from their life too. Soon after, in another exchange between Leon and Cecilia, he informs her he met Robbie while coming to the house and invited him to join them. Here there’s another interesting description of Cecilia’s character: she gets very nervous very soon when she knows about the invitation, so she asks for a cigarette. Leon understands that something happened between them, so he asks is he’s bothering her, but she denies everything. He’s also making fun of Cecilia telling Marshall they live basically in the same place, Cambridge, but hey hardly meet each other. This is strange according to Leon. *** superficial level: the passage describes the entrance of Paul in the kid’s room and their exchange. One of them is angry and Paul shows his famous chocolate bar to all of them, describing what’s inside and outside, the colors of it and it seems he’s advertising the product. He says probably this choco bar is gonna be the standard for soldiers. At this point of the kids argues that the soldiers won’t need it, but Paul says that soon it’s going to be a war, but the children don’t believe him. So he offered the bar to Lola. He then watches her reaction while she’s biting it. On the most deep level: we find a connection between this passage and the Genesis, the temptation of Eve, her encounter with the snake who offers her the apple. In this case we have this rich entrepreneur who’s offering Lola a choco bar, using an imperative form to invite her to bite it. The chocolate bar plays the part of the apple. (continues)  continuous struggle between the real world and the imaginary world(!!).* The pov changes every chapter, so this is not a omniscient narrator who has a very limited view of what’s happening. ** Constant shift from reality and imagination and vice versa. *** We have a further confirmation that Ian McEwan is really interested in the psychology of the characters, so he always highlights a trait of the character. Page 6 Atonement. Let’s talk about the book. Ian McEwan In the photo on the left we can see the actressthat interpreted 13 years old Briony in the movie, Saoirse Ronan. (continues) There’s some kind of mismatch in the level of meaning: in the surface level, Marshall seems a young man taking care of some kids and tries to distract them from the stress they’re having. On the other hand, he’s playing the part of the tempting snake, the villain, so we remain a little disoriented: is Marshall a good person? Or the narrator is trying to tell us that maybe he’s an evil character, a villain of the story? The narrator instill a doubt in the reader on the real intention and role of this character. ------------------------ ---------------------------- ---------------------- The sixth chapter starts from Emily Tallis’ perspective, the mother. She’s lying on the bed because of her terrible headaches, but as any mother she’s thinking about her children. The first one is Leon, some says because he’s the only male, other says because he’s making his return. We learn what she thinks of her son: he’s an unambitious boy, he could take help from his father to have a good position but he doesn’t care and is content with his position as a bank clerk. She accepts his non ambition because he’s such a good fellow and always surrounded by friends, so she cannot complain too much about his lack of social ambition. He also interested in rowing and every weekend he’s always doing some sports. The relationship between Emily and Cecilia is a bit complicated. The mother is resentful about the fact the family is giving so much to her and she’s returning too little. Emily also complains about Cecilia not being a typical young girl, because Cecilia always smoking, and she has some strange behaviors she learned from her Cambridge’s friends. Emily doesn’t like the fact that women can be independent, it is unbelievable for her that Cecilia always wants to be on her own. Last but not least, she starts thinking about Briony. She’s soon described as poor darling that gives an idea about the fact that she plays the part of the favorite child. She’s also considered the victim of her three cousins, that are insensible to her who wrote the play to entertain everyone. We can understand that there’s conflict between Emily and her sister Hermione, described as scheming and as a cheater – because she’s divorcing, and Emily thinks this is caused by the fact she has found a new lover. Also, Emily thinks that Lola is similar to her mother, so she blames her niece for the Briony’s sadness. -------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------ In chapter seven, the perspective shifts from the mother to Briony, who is very angered about the failure of the play and she starts coming to terms with reality. To ease herself, she decided to go for a walk in the huge park. It’s very painful for her to push away her imagination and accept reality. This a moment of return to reality for her: she is reminded of the invocation made by Cecilia when she was having nightmares and a little child. “Come back” was the invocation and now In this occasion, the narration makes use of the repetition of a word: wet. This adjective is repeated twice, but there’s no need unless the narrator wants us to understand something. Nothing particular happens, but this creates a very sensual atmosphere. He switches from the image of Cecilia that morning in the fountain to the image he has always cherished. They considered themselves brother and sister from the beginning. There’s a social difference between them, they come from two different classes. According to him, Cecilia is ashamed to meet him in Cambridge when she’s with her friends and present him as her house cleaner’s son. He pretends not to be bother about that, but that is not what he truly feels. Then he starts thinking again of Cecilia: she was always invisible to him, like a sister, and she doesn’t seem very attractive to him, in the perspective of the usual image he has. But this afternoon things have changed. For the very first time, he considers her as a strange beauty and get back on what happened that morning. He’s obviously sad about what happened at the vase but blames her for being restless. While he’s thinking all of this, he comes to a decision: he’ll write a letter of apology to her. So, he goes out of the bathroom and to his room, where there is a typewriter. An important detail is that before starting to write the letter, he notices that his anatomy textbook is open on a page with an illustration of a huge vagina. (continues) [Passage from imagination to reality]  it’s an important theme in the novel, almost as a motive, as we see in various passages. In the book there are various levels of meaning and the rhetoric of the author has its peak in the book, bc McEwan wrote the book after 20 years as a writer. means ‘come back to reality’. -------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------ In the eighth chapter, we can see Robbie getting prepared for the dinner he was invited to, so the narration continues from his point of view. While he’s in the bathtub, he’s thinking about Cecilia, about this surprising punishment he has received. In his head there’s still the image of her body. Here again we have the description of a character who switch from reality and imagination. We are told what Robbie is not thinking to what happened to him, he’s excited about the vision, and he is almost obsessionally thinking about her and her body. Page 7 Atonement. Let’s talk about the book. Ian McEwan In the photo on the left we can see the actor that interpreted Paul Marshall in the movie, Benedict Cumberbatch. (continues) When he’s writing the letter, we see various versions of that: he’s very hesitant at first, then becomes more daring and at the end he eliminates almost all the contradictions he was writing. In his first attempt of writing the letter, it’s difficult for him because he’s trying to make something emerge to the surface and it’s not clear what he wants to tell her. He switches from a formal way of addressing her to a more friendly way. Step by step, he’s removing some masks. In this description, the character starts to unfold his chaotic thoughts, but then he slips to imagination again and changes the wording of everything. Something unconscious slips out and comes to the surface, something that he wasn’t aware of, and he was shocked about what he wrote. After realizing it, he decided to write another copy but this time with a pen. Now there are two copies of the similar letter, one typewritten and the other written with a pen. While he’s going to Tallis House, he sees little Briony running and jumping when returning home. So, he decides to use the kid has a personal postman asking her to give Then, we see Cecilia thinkin’ about what happened earlier that morning; she starts feeling vulnerable at the thought of Robbie seeing her in that condition. In this passage, Ian McEwan uses a kind of writing where he shows the character’s contradictions: Cecilia was feeling provocative in that moment, she was angry, but in the afternoon, after reflecting, she thinks she made a mistake, she starts doubting she behaved in a good way. There’s also another thing that concerns here: Robbie’s letter. Briony completed her task as a postman and gave the paper to her sister, but it wasn’t put into an envelope, so Cecilia asks herself is it could be possible for Robbie to send her a letter like this, moreover giving it to the little Briony to deliver. We can see a sort of a change in Cecilia. We have a very precise description on what’s happening in her mind while she reads the letter. In the paper, there was an obscene word repeated twice and this detail resonates in her on two level, because she makes an association with Briony repeating twice the title of her play. (continues) (continues) The narrator, in this passage, highlights twice that Robbie understands that Cecilia has no experience at all, but he takes care of that. So this is the 2nd description of the episode, but while in Briony’s thinks her sister is terrified and needs help, Robbie describes this as a blissful moment, where they are experiencing happiness. In fact, when interrupted, they are irritated. At first, only Cecilia notices someone walked in the room and tells Robbie, who, at first, didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want that wonderful moment end. Later, at the dinner table, Cecilia is very crossed with her little sister, who thinks she a savior. The two has little exchange while Robbie’s watching. * During the dinner, while playing, the twins run away, so everyone stopped eating and start looking for them. ------------------- -------------------------- ----------------------- In the chapter twelve, we shift to Emily’s point of view, the mom. She’s concerned about her husband, who, she thinks, he’s having an affair, because he’s always away from home and a quite a long time. ------------------- -------------------------- ----------------------- The thirteenth chapter opens with the announcement that a crime will be committed by Briony. During the search for the two boys, she starts to walk alone, thinking she’s safe and that also Cecilia is safe, because she’s walking with Leon. She thinks herself as an adult, she’s involved in the search, but doesn’t need anyone to accompany her. Moreover, she’s enjoying the sensation of “being” an adult. ** During her stroll, Briony is the witness of an attempted violence towards her cousin, Lola. *** In the dark, she needs a couple of seconds to figure out there are two people and soon one of them departs, fearing Briony coming in their way. Again, the little girl understands what she has just saw and she feels the need to take care of her cousin. Now it is crucial for Briony to identify the rapist, so she starts questioning Lola, but the poor girl has just experienced trauma, so she doesn’t give any clear answer. Again, this episode gives Briony the chance to feel the protagonist and also gives her a new task: she’s feeling very important for her family, because she thinks she’s helping them against the ‘maniac’. So, she decides that she’d speak on Lola’s account, if her cousin will remain silent. As always, she’s self-centered, she needs to feel as the center of attention after she couldn’t be as her play failed. Right away, Briony accuses Robbie of the attempted rape and Lola subtly agrees. But after some time, doubts start emerging in the girl’s mind: ‘Is she certain that the rapist is really Robbie?’, ‘Did she clearly saw him in the dark?’, ‘Is she sure the rapist is Robbie or did she speak after a prejudice?’. She start thinking that maybe she said something wrong, she accused the wrong person; she’s not sure it’s Robbie anymore. Actually, she spoke by prejudice, she did not saw Robbie in the dark, but she knew it was him. In chapter fourteen, the point of view is still Briony’s. At the beginning, this day was a normal day, but then had its weird developments for all the protagonists. Regarding Briony, she feels she achieved maturity after going through everything that happened. The narrator highlights a strange guilt feeling that she’s experiencing, telling us that it will soon become self-torture which will haunt her for the rest of their life. [In this situation, everybody wants to play one’s part, it’s like everyone is waiting for something to happen.] Everyone is really active at that time of the night. Leon – the most important male in the house, because his father is absent – is taking care of everything now that the police arrived; while two characters are playing a little bit in the shadows: Paul Marshall and Cecilia. Paul Marshall comes in after searching for the twins and talks politely with the police. Instead, Cecilia remains alone, she doesn’t want to be involved in this. (continues) * Briony is called “a little primadonna”. ** Again we see how this is a crucial day: Briony’s walking from being a child to adulthood. *** This is the second time that Briony witnesses a sexual assault. Page 10 Atonement. Let’s talk about the book. Ian McEwan In the photo on the left we can see the actress that interpreted 77 years old Briony in the movie, Vanessa Redgrave. . (continues) In the meantime, little Briony walks into her sister’s room, finding it really untidy, really different from hers, and she takes Robbie’s letter – which she has already read – to share it with the whole family. The letter mistakenly given to Cecilia is the piece of evidence that everyone is looking for: he now fits perfectly the spot of the ‘maniac’ Lola talked about. Being the only witness apart from the actual victim, the detective asks Briony if she saw the rapist and she confirms. He’s asking for visual confirmation, but she says she knows it was him – and that’s very revealing. Right after, the detective asks her again and she changes her wording saying she saw him. This is a built obsession developed after Briony talked with her cousin, who is not actually experienced, and her self-centeredness consolidated her prejudice about Robbie. As soon as Robbie comes back to the house, he’s arrested to clarify if he’s a maniac or not. Before he goes into the police car, Cecilia runs to him, and they have a brief exchange. This is a very powerful scene, because Robbie doesn’t know if she believes in Briony’s accusations. Also, neither of them seems to be ashamed to show this, now, connection. After reaching Dunkirk, many soldiers managed to evacuate to England – a little miracle seeing how terribly the war was going for the English. The 3 soldiers are Robbie, Nettle and Mace, the latter are caporals, while Robbie is a simple soldier, but he’s the leader of his unit because of his intelligence; they call him Governor. What happened to Robbie all these years? What about his relationship with Cecilia? We found out they continuously communicate with letters and how important these became for them: the policemen always read all Robbie’s letters, so they developed their own language, their own secret code. * A question, however, is hanging in the air: Is it love or just their imagination? They went back to being awkward when together, in this situation because they were used to write and not to talk face to face. [ About McEwan style is often said it is a knife: we read an important statement about this uncommon sentimental relationship  making love by post. ] ** (continues) To remember, this chapter is in Briony’s pov, so this scene is described form her perspective and she’s observing the scene from a window in the house. In this moment, she understands how much she loves her sister. At the very end, we read about the police car going through the park towards the exit and we witness Robbie’s mother screaming “Liar! Liar” when the car is almost out of Tallis House’s Park. --------------------- ---------------------- ------------------------- PART TWO. It feels like a different novel from now on, the reader is disoriented. 5 years have passed since the last episode and WW2 has already started – we’re in 1940. 3 soldiers are trying to reach Dunkirk, where the French were defending their territory. The Ardennes Forest was considered a natural defense, but the Germans easily managed to surround the Allied Forces, who remained isolated by the border between France and Belgium, so the English forces were forced to retreat to Dunkirk. One of these three soldiers is Robbie Turner: for 5 years he has been jailed, thought responsible of rape. If prisoners wanted to be free they could but only by joining the Army and fighting during the war. After this first part, there’s a description of the first encounter of Cecilia and Robbie after he was released from prison, but he was obliged to join the army; while Cecilia has become a nurse. *“going to the corner of the library” was a reference to the memories both of them were feeding on, in this case their passionate kiss in the library the same evening in which Robbie was arrested 5 years earlier. **Their bond seems to be really strong, although we cannot understand if their relationship is based on imagination or not. Page 11 Atonement. Let’s talk about the book. Ian McEwan In the photo on the left we can see the scene in which Robbie and Cecilia met each other again after 5 years of “making love by post”. . Atonement. Let’s talk about the book. Ian McEwan In the photo on the left we can see the actress that interpreted Lola, Juno Temple. . (continues) A little later, we have learn about an episode that happened a long time ago, where Briony fell into the water and made Robbie save her, saying to him “you saved me”, kinda quoting what Cecilia told Robbie at the cafè. In the second to last part of the narration, we follow the three soldier on their way to Dunkirk and we discover that Robbie’s been injured in the last battle, so he is becoming weaker and weaker by time and he starts losing his mind.* He shifts from being a reliable leader to be absent minded and careless, he doesn’t think about Cecilia anymore. This is important, because her letters were his strength, so he became morbidly depressed and pessimistic about the future. Everything to him seems pointless, also Cecilia and their future together; he stars losing contact with reality. When he reaches back to Dunkirk, we find him in a feverish night, where it’s difficult for him to sleep quietly and this is disturbing to the other tired soldiers that want to sleep. His comrades want to shake him out of his mental confusion, so one of them tells Robbie that they’re gonna go home in a few hours and be safe. After that, In addition, Briony is a bit upset because her sister Cecilia did not respond to her letter yet and seems not wanting to see her. Her mind, then, slips into thinking about her cousin Lola: recently her father sent a letter informing her that Lola and Paul Marshall are about to get married. In the back of Briony’s mind is still tingling this sense of guilt about what she has done before, and it seems there’s no solution, because it is not possible to go back in time. After some pages, we see Briony taking care of the patients, as always. Some French soldier has just arrived so sister Drumond asks her to stay by their side, because she’s one of the few nurses who can speak French. Among these men, there is Luke, a guy that tells Briony his story, which seems the summary of the novel itself: he talks about a lie, a misunderstanding, and an impossible love. The exchange between the nurse and the soldier is really confused, because the poor man is talking nonsense, he lost his reason, he talks about different topics almost without any clear purpose and it’s difficult for Briony to follow him. (continues) he slips in his imagination back to the night when he was arrested, giving us his POV, so we finally get to know the brief exchange happened between him and Cecilia when she ran to him. It is important because Cecilia told him she is not ashamed of his arrest and she’ll wait for him to comeback, which she repeated at the end of all her letters. The end of this section is dramatic: we see Robbie slipping back to reality and at first it could seem a positive situation, but if you think that the addressee is the reader then it could mean that we won’t hear from him again. In fact, this is the last time we see Robbie’s POV. PART THREE. The narration is again set in London, but the POV shifts to Briony who is in the nurse academy. Her superior, sister Drumond is a strict, severe and undercoming woman who is feared by all the young nurses. They are waiting for the patients coming from Dunkirk. We learn that Briony did not give up on her dream to be a writer, a novelist, of course not a dramatist; she still takes her time to get lost in her imagination each night when she’s writing her diary, which is a mix of her own mind and the description of reality. When she’s writing and wants to make a reference to sister Drumond or some patients she uses nickname, like her own code, similar to the language invented by Cecilia and Robbie in their exchanges. We can see again the duality of a McEwan’s character: in one part of her day she’s studying to become an efficient nurse, while the other part of her day she’s thinking about her dream. When she’s writing, she is really fine, her imagination is like her safe place, and for this reason she still writes stories, one of it already sent to a publisher – this novella was sent some time ago, but still she didn’t receive any commendation so she’s a bit disappointed. Section 1: insisted on the gap between imagination and reality but it was evident whenever they were imagining or not. Section 2: the distinction becomes unclear.  Paul Crosthwaite has written about the dramatic effect on people: McEwan, before writing part 2, has read many diaries written by soldiers, especially by ordinary people who became soldiers, whit no real experience, so he read and then wrote about the traumatic effect of this.  it is not easy to understand if they’re telling real stories or it’s just their obsession. So Crosthwaite thinks McEwan based his narration on these. Section 1: had different POVs, different chapter = order. Section 2: has no chapters, 3rd person narrator, Robbie’s POV. Section 3: has no chapters, 3rd person narrator, Briony’s/Cecilia’s POVs. *It’s a moment between imagination and reality, a nightmare-ish situation. Page 13 Atonement. Let’s talk about the book. Ian McEwan In the photo on the left we can see the actress that interpreted Lola, Juno Temple. . (continues) While addressing sister Drumond she uses a non- specific word so the soldier understood she was talking about her sister, the real one, Cecilia. Talking to him make Briony thinking about the love story between Cecilia and Robbie, her mistake and all the guilt, the shame, the embarrassment come up to her again. When she eases the bandages, after he asks her to do it, she can see the brain, from the wound on his scalp, so she understands how bad it is. He then stars hallucinating. The story becomes more and more confusing with Luke constantly shifting from reality to imagination; he mistook Briony for one of his friends in France and starts complimenting her. She wonders if she should tell him that is not true, but she has no time. * After we reach the end of Luke story, Briony receives a letter from the publisher Horizon: we learn the title of the manuscript and, though being very kind in their words, the publisher refused her work, arguing it was too similar to a Virginia Wolves**’s work. To be fair, they also encouraged her to keep writing, because they see the potential in her. ---- The wedding between Lola and Paul Marshall is approaching and Briony decides she’ll attend, even if this event brings up memories she had removed. But when she shows up, uninvited, she notices that only a few people are present. There her mind continuously slips from reality and what she sees to her imagination, what she thinks and vice versa. (!!) For the very first time after that day, she could remember correctly the identity of Lola’s rapist: she realizes that the dark figure she saw was Paul Marshall, her cousin soon – in a few minutes – to be husband. Would she be happy for her cousin? While she’s thinking, she hears the priest asking if among the witnesses of the wedding there is someone who is contrary to the union and she’s wondering what she should do. Should she raise her hand and tell the priest what she’s just remembered? Should she avoid say anything? Both perspectives would be difficult and would have consequences.  She decides to remain silent. We can justify this going back to the Kermode’s triangular relationship. *** After this sort of epiphany, Briony goes to Cecilia to tell her about the memories she just recalled. Their meeting is quite difficult, especially at the beginning because of the presence of a nasty landlady. Cecilia is trying to hold back her anger without much result, and this is evident when Briony calls her with the nickname she used back then, Cee – Cecilia doesn’t want to be part of the family, she doesn’t want to deal with them anymore. During the discussion, they struggle to find common fair and misunderstand each other a lot. Cecilia tells her sister a really important thing: there’s no point for her to change now her accusation, because everyone already knows she is a liar. But Briony reaction is interesting: she doesn’t understand why her is sister is calling her a liar and that is important for the critical analysis of the character – she can never take a situation correctly. As the time passes, the meeting becomes more and more dramatic, Briony cannot be forgiven, especially from Cecilia. Moreover, a little later Robbie arrives, and we have the encounter of the three most important character. The situation is surprising for the reader and Briony herself, but both are at least happy in seeing that Robbie crossed the border alive and kicking. At first, he is so crossed with the young girl that pretends she not even there, but this causes a shift in Cecilia’s behavior: she knows that troubles rise for her sister in meeting Robbie. *Some critics remark that Briony, as we can see her, did not lost her habit of telling lies. Tom Shone defended Briony in this situation: this is a white lie, a little lie to support someone in avoiding the reality that could hurt them. ** The novel mentioned here is Ms Dalloway: it is the story of this girl who in a single day is preparing a celebration in her house and she wants her guests to wear uniforms. While she’s taking care of the preparation she is constantly talking and thinking. The description of Briony walking is very similar. Another novel mentioned is a story about two women, in which one of them, the oldest and the protagonist, takes the role of the mother. (!!) It’s a kind of epiphany, a very important passage. *** Cecilia Robbie Lola Paul M. (1) (2) Briony Briony (1) She feels she is involved in Cecilia and Robbie’s relationship, influencing it, so she feels a sense of guilt for ruining their love story. She needs forgiveness. (2) During the ceremony, she feels involved in the bride and groom’s love story, she fears she could ruin their love too, so, feeling sorrowful for have ruined a relationship yet and wanting compensation for it, she remains silent to not ruin anything this time. According to the Oedipus complex theory, Briony accused Robbie because she was angry and jealous, but she stored the true memories in her subconscious, till now – even if we don’t know when the recalling happened. Page 14 story(cit. “there was a crime”): it was not true that Briony had the chance to meet Cecilia again in 1940, nor Robbie, that part of the novel was entirely invented, purely fictional. WHY? Because Robbie didn’t make it across the channel, he died in Dunkirk, and Cecilia died soon after the tube bombing incident. The readers wanted and happy ending and she created it for them, she made up the “happily ever after” ending they asked for. *** Briony’s position here shifts from being the protagonist, a character of the story to being the narrator; it’s a remarkable shift, but actually nothing has changed: apparently she’s only good at lying****. [Fiction is also an invented story.] (!!)  Fiction, being an invented story, sometimes could contains lies, so the whole novel insists in the twin meaning of fiction: a literature work but also a lie. [In Atonement we can find a novel inside the novel: the first three parts are also the last Briony’s novel, which is about her life. (rfr. to the note at the end of part three.)] (!!)2 Her words were interpreted in various ways: as a sense of surrender, as like she surrendering to her incoming death or as a resignation, which become evident in her statement; and also, according so some other critics, she’s just accepting her death. Love in Atonement: We often stress that McEwan vision of love is very extremely pessimistic: the way he describes love, feelings and relationship gives a sense of gloom throughout the entire book, which could have been also read as a very sad and dramatic love story, about this striking love affair of Robbie and Cecilia. No marriage seems to work out (her mother doubted her father had a mistress in London; Lola’s parents visited Tallis House because they where splitting) except for the most disappointing one between Lola and Marshall. Page 16