The past can be a powerful and influential factor in people’s current lives. In Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Robbie Grace’s relationship to the past is instrumental to the meaning of the work as a whole because it establishes the concepts of atonement and guilt,the importance of social class, and creates a basis for McEwan’s commentary on religion and war.
Unsurprisingly, Atonement is a novel about forgiveness, or atoning for one’s sins. Everybody is guilty of something, and although Robbie is the one who must ultimately face the consequences of Briony’s accusations, even he is responsible for the weight of his (in)action(s). Robbie’s three and half years in prison clearly have a profound psychological effect on his mentality, and after living
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McEwan is a known advocate against war, and his portrayal of it in this book is representative of his views on the topic. In the beginning of the novel, Uncle Clem’s vase is kept around only because of the fact that its keeper saved lives in the war; nobody in the family actually likes the vase, but they keep it around because of the good values it represents. When the vase is broken, Cecilia admits that it represents “her dead uncle...the wasteful war, the treacherous crossing of the river, the preciousness beyond money, the heroism and goodness” (p. 28), the vase itself is pointless without the meaning behind it. This is the way McEwan feels about the war as well. Unlike most war novels, the war portrayed in Atonement is pathetic and wasteful. The RAF is in a country-wide retreat across France from Germany, leaving many soldiers stranded in the countryside. Small groups like Robbie and the two corporals with him are abandoned to make their own way to Dunkirk on foot. During this retreat more citizens are killed by overhead German Stukas, misplaced bombs, and violence than in actual combat. There is no type of glory or heroism in this kind of war, and McEwan makes it known by the low morale among the troops. Also, Robbie is there because of his past and the deal he was offered to get out of prison. The fact that an innocent man must fight in a war to exonerate himself from a crime he did not …show more content…
All the signs point to Robbie as a representation of Christ: he participates in the Last Supper before the twins go missing and is then later betrayed by Judas (Briony); he is forsaken by his “father” (Jack Tallis and his real father), he comes from a humble background; he travels across the wilderness and faces temptation; and he has a wound in his side (the shrapnel). Unlike Christ, however, Robbie is bestow forgiveness upon his enemies. At one point, he says, “Yes, she [Briony] was a child at the time, and he did not forgive her. He would never forgive her” (p. 220). McEwan, an proclaimed atheist, also uses the theme of religion to make a commentary on baptism. Baptisms are meant to represent renewal, rebirthing, and cleansing, but in Atonement they mark the beginning of sin, particularly for Cecilia and Briony; shortly after her adventure in the fountain, Cecilia begins to lust after Robbie, and Briony is a scorned would-be lover after she is rescued by Robbie after jumping into a lake. The irony is that sins are derived from a character, a being, that is supposed to represent holiness and the forgiveness of sins (which he can’t do). Last but not least, at the very end of the Briony likens herself to God when she says, “ ...How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God?...No atonement for God, or
In her, “Between Vengeance and Forgiveness,” Martha Minow discusses, not only the tandem needs of truth and justice that arise and intersect in the wake of conflict but also the duality existing between the notions of vengeance and forgiveness that surface as needs, particularly in a society recovering from violence. The central question of Minow’s work explores the idea that there may be a need for middle ground between vengeance and forgiveness. For the purposes of this work, in delineating first the needs of victims and then the needs of society at large in the wake of violent conflict situations, it may be asserted the Minow’s middle ground abides at the intersection of acknowledgment of harms and retribution for harms committed. To demonstrate
Many people show empathy for humans like homeless people or ill family members or even just someone in a bad state. These people you can say show responsibility towards those events that are unpredictable in life. There are many people that show this, many people that explain this, and even many people that cause those emotions. These people don’t feel the same things we feel, these people see society in different eyes, in different ways, and in other words in different perspectives. They feel that they cannot forgive people for events that caused them anger, depression, or even made them feel like if they weren't worth anything.
Wright grew up in the Jim Crow South where everything about his life was socially and culturally inferior to the white masses. In Bloom’s Modern Critical Views Richard Wright, Qiana J. Whitted wrote about Wright’s life as a kid, shedding light on how his grandmother forced him to partake in religious in order to be saved from “religious execution” (123). It was this type of religious interpretation held by his grandmother, that was a “cultural marker” for Wright, reminding us, “that in his life, as in his writing, Richard Wright wrestled with his faith” (122). This struggle can be seen in Wright’s male character, Big Boy, in Big Boy Leaves Homes. Big Boy and his friends go to swimming creek where they see and are saw by a white woman. With the woman, was a white man who shot at Big Boy and his friends. Big Boy wrestles with Jim over the gun and ends up shooting and killing him. In panic, he runs home to retell the story of the murder he committed and the ones he witnessed. As he tells the story, his father sends for some of the religious members in the community. During this time Big Boy’s mother calls out several times for mercy, “Lawd Gawd in Heaven, have mercy on us all!” (36). The religious community members become a fist around Big Boy and come up with a plan for saving his life. In the midst of this Big Boy experiences an internal conflict with his actions and how they look in the eyes of God.
In Harry Mulisch’s novel The Assault, the author not only informs society of the variance in perception of good and evil, but also provides evidence on how important it is for an innocent person experiencing guilt to come to terms with their personal past. First, Mulisch uses the characters Takes, Coster, and Ploeg to express the differences in perspective on the night of the assault. Then he uses Anton to express how one cannot hide from the past because of their guilt. Both of these lessons are important to Mulisch and worth sharing with his readers.
In Nicholas Lezard's critique of McEwan's Atonement he states that, " the novel is itself the act of atonement that Briony Tallis needs to perform; yet we are very much in the land of the unreliable narrator, where evasion and mendacity both shadow and undermine the story that is told." To atone is to seek forgiveness for one's sins. The novel is Briony's attempt to be forgiven for the crime she committed as a naïve girl of 13, during the summer of 1935 heat wave. The narrator delivers the story from different points of view; she bases the other characters thoughts and reactions upon her own knowledge of their persona. While retelling the story the narrator has the tendency to lie, or rather avoid the truth, to improve her novel. After Briony admits that her atonement was not entirely truthful, the reader may question the reliability of the narrator.
Forgiveness is portrayed through the characters and events all throughout the novel. Khaled Hosseini focused on the topic of making wrongs right with forgiving others and forgiving themselves. Hosseini shows how forgiveness can bring happiness even in the most dreadful of times. For example, Amir went on a long journey to find salvation for the sins he’s committed. He sought out forgiveness from Baba, Hassan, and himself. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini shows how Amir, Soraya, and Hassan find their own salvation and this is how Hosseini uses forgiveness to demonstrate how anyone can find grace even in the hardest of times.
Guilt is a powerful force in humans. It can be the factor that alters someone's life. On the other hand, forgiveness can be just as powerful. In The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, her characters-the Price family-travel to Africa on a religious mission. Throughout the novel, the concept of guilt and forgiveness is reflected on multiple occasions. Each character has a different experience with guilt and how it affects them in the end. By structuring The Poisonwood Bible to include five different narrators, Kingsolver highlights the unique guilt and forgiveness to each individual experiences as well expresses the similarities that all humans face with these complex emotions.
Forgiveness is one of the hardest things to do concerning one another’s well-being. The step of forgiveness requires us to look past the wrongs that have been done to us, and without any sort of retribution or atonement of sorts, drop that wrong-doing out of the scope of the relationship and move on. Christianity and Psychology have differing, yet surprisingly similar ways of looking at the role of forgiving one another. The agreement is obvious, Psychologists and Christians alike recognize that forgiveness has great value in preserving relationships, not just personal but communal as well. The disagreement tends to be a difference of opinion in what context forgiveness is appropriate. The question then bears itself, who is right? Should we
Alongside a plot that deals with a series of unhappy events, Ian McEwan’s Atonement explores the concept of reality in the fragile equilibrium of human existence. McEwan’s mastery of narration helps to shape his reader’s comprehension that reality is subjective. McEwan’s employment of shifting focalization and presentation of a single event approached from several character perspectives and use of both third and first person narration all contribute to this conclusion.
In Atonement, ten-year-old Briony’s imagination gets the best of her, leading to her guilt-stricken state sixty years after the events. Briony wrongfully accused her sister Cecilia’s lover Robbie of raping her friend (McEwan 50). This postulation manifested itself because Briony accidentally walked in on Cecilia and Robbie being intimate, leading her to believe Robbie did the crime because in her eyes he was a “sex maniac” (McEwan 45). This small assumption inevitably led to the arrest of Robbie, destroying not only his life but also her sister’s (McEwan 87). Because Briony did not stop to completely assess the situation at hand, people close to her were negatively affected, leading to her long-lasting sense of guilt. Later on in her life, Briony even talked about the fact that “though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you” (McEwan
Relationships are hard enough, even without the horrors of war, rape, and incarceration. Due to rash decisions, a wild imagination, and childlike innocence, Briony Tallis commits an unspeakable crime condemning the fate of lovers Robbie and Cecilia. A precious family heirloom foreshadows a sequence of unfortunate events that unravels between the Tallis family. With each break of the smooth porcelain, a bond is broken and family ties are severed. In the novel, Atonement, author Ian McEwan tells a tragic story of life, love, and loss through the body of a porcelain vase.
Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement depicts a story told from the perspectives of three of the main characters: Briony Tallis, Robbie Turner, and Cecelia Tallis. Briony is the ultimate focus of the novel because her mission is atonement. She almost single handedly convicted Robbie for the rape of her cousin, Lola Quincey. She is seeking atonement for this horrible crime she committed against Robbie. However, Briony is never able to achieve atonement. Regardless of the efforts Briony makes, she cannot truly achieve atonement. Through Briony’s inability to achieve atonement, McEwan illustrates that atonement can only be sought after, never achieved.
Ian McEwan illustrates a profound theme that builds details throughout the novel Atonement, the use of guilt and the quest for atonement are used with in the novel to convey the central dynamic aspect in the novel. McEwan constructs the emotion of guilt that is explored through the main character, Briony Tallis. The transition of child and entering the adult world, focus on the behavior and motivation of the young narrator Briony. Briony writes passages that entail her attempt to wash away her guilt as well find forgiveness for her sins. In which Briony ruined the lives and the happiness of her sister, Cecilia, and her lover Robbie. The reality of the events, attempts to achieve forgiveness for her actions. She is unable to understand the consequences of the actions as a child but grows to develop the understanding of the consequence with age. McEwan exemplifies an emotional novel that alters reality as he amplifies the creative acts of literature. In this essay I will be arguing that, the power of guilt prevents people from moving on from obstacles that hold them in the past.
Napoleon. Hitler. Caesar. Briony. Like all of these historical figures, Briony takes on a God-like persona in Atonement. Throughout the novel, Briony attempts to atone for the sin she made in her youth- accusing an innocent man of raping her cousin. This specific sin, however, has grave implications on Robbie’s life. However, in the narrator’s description, one can see the God-like qualities seep into the story. At the end of the novel, McEwan reveals that Briony has been narrating the entire novel. She also reveals that she changes the ending of the story in order to keep Cecilia and Robbie alive and together. In the novel Atonement, Ian McEwan uses Briony’s character to represent a God-like figure who assumes multiple qualities of a God such as omnipresence and
The story also presents another facts of the Christian belief about sin and punishment, which is based on the strict principles of repentance and forgiveness.