Examples Of Robbie Turner In Atonement

In How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster, Foster begins his book by telling the audience how essentially all characters are on a quest throughout the course of a novel. This perpetual quest characters go on can be broken down into five parts: Quester, Place, Stated Reason, Challenges, and Real Reason. The novel Atonement by Ian McEwan is no different. Atonement is a novel that takes place in England and France, pre-WWI and peri-WWI. This is essential to the novel as it serves to be a large challenge for one of our questers, Robbie Turner.

Robbie Turner is a character in Atonement that goes on a quest for freedom and love. He has grown up in the northern countryside of London, England under the guardianship of his mother.

His mother has been the housekeeper to the Tallis family for most of Robbie’s life. Robbie’s father has been absent for a large majority of Robbie’s life, leaving “his wife and their six-year-old to wonder about him for the rest of their lives” (McEwan 78). Grace, Robbie’s mother, continues to work for the Tallis family after her husband’s departure. Seventeen years later, Robbie has recently graduated from college and now has aspired to be a doctor; this dream will be financially supported by the Tallis family. This decision made by Jack Tallis was not one that was supported by his wife, Emily Tallis. This decision is also what makes Robbie think that his lifelong friend, Cecilia, is avoiding him although Cecilia “was surprised that he should think she was raising the question of money. . .her father had subsidized Robbie’s education all his life. Had anyone ever objected?” (25).
The subject of Robbie Turner is not one that Emily Tallis responds to very kindly, “he was a hobby of Jack’s, living proof of some leveling principle he had pursued through the years” (142).

These thoughts of Robbie did not pay him kindly when Robbie Turner is accused of assault on the Tallis’ cousin and is forced to face one of the biggest decisions of his life: go into the army or go to jail. The reason that Robbie was forced with this decision is because the younger Tallis daughter, Briony, believed to have seen Robbie initiate this attack on her cousin. Briony had seen earlier Robbie “attack” Cecilia and had read and misinterpreted a letter which voiced explicit thoughts that Robbie had about her sister, Cecilia. This is just the start of Robbie’s hardships. Whilst in the army he continues to nurse his lovesick heart for Cecilia Tallis. Prior to the conviction Robbie and Cecilia admit their feelings for one another and soon after the Robbie’s supposed “assault” ensues. During his time in the Army he is allowed to see Cecilia but it not long enough to satiate Robbie’s everlasting hurt. Robbie and Cecilia have future plans of going away to live in a cottage and restart their lives once Robbie is relieved of his position in the English Army. Robbie thinks quite frequently of Cecilia and says that she is the only one who can keep him sane. He believes her to be his saving grace, the light at the end of the tunnel. He responds to one of Cecilia’s letters that read: “‘You are

my dearest one, my reason for life’. . . . not living, but life. That was the touch. And she was his reason for life, and why he must survive” (197). This conviction also has harmed Robbie’s future aspirations of becoming a doctor. Although his assault is on his record he believes he will be able to get it expunged and he will be free to live and go to school to continue his dream. His time in the army has also taken a toll on his physical health, you learn in the book that Robbie has a piece of shrapnel buried in his stomach that he refuses to look at under the supervision of others, thinking it to be too personal. This decision ultimately cost Robbie his life. Robbie dies of septicemia whilst in France fighting for England. Robbie does not start his quest on a mission for love, but a mission for success and freedom that ultimately gets turned around and he realizes the true meanings of life after his is taken away from him. He becomes self-aware that you do not need success, you just need something to look forward to, something to keep you alive when you want to give up. “He would lose himself in thoughts of her, and plan his next letter, refining the phrases, trying to find comedy in the dullness” (198).