Atonement
A-Level Revision Notes
English Literature
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1 Atonement – A-Level Revision Notes – English Literature.
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2 Atonement – A-Level Revision Notes – English Literature.
Table of Contents
Context ................................................................................................................................... 5
Summary ................................................................................................................................ 8
Analysis ................................................................................................................................ 10
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory ......................................................................................................... 11
The Trials of Arabella .................................................................................................................... 11
Setting – England And France, 1935 To 1999 .................................................................................. 11
The Tallis Home ............................................................................................................................. 11
France And Dunkirk ....................................................................................................................... 12
London .......................................................................................................................................... 12
Narration – Variable: Third Person Limited Omniscient/Third Person Universal/First Person
(Briony Tallis) ................................................................................................................................... 13
Stealth Third Person, With Knives ................................................................................................... 13
Even More Minds ............................................................................................................................. 13
Characters ........................................................................................................................................ 15
Briony Tallis ................................................................................................................................... 15
Robbie Turner ............................................................................................................................... 15
Cecilia Tallis ................................................................................................................................... 15
Lola Quincey .................................................................................................................................. 16
Paul Marshall................................................................................................................................. 16
The Tallis Family ............................................................................................................................ 17
Emily Tallis..................................................................................................................................... 17
Jack Tallis ....................................................................................................................................... 17
Leon Tallis...................................................................................................................................... 17
Jackson and Pierrot Quincey ......................................................................................................... 17
Charles Quincey ............................................................................................................................ 17
Hermione Quincey ........................................................................................................................ 17
Betty .............................................................................................................................................. 18
Mr. Hardman................................................................................................................................. 18
Danny Hardman ............................................................................................................................ 18
Ernest Turner ................................................................................................................................ 18
Grace Turner ................................................................................................................................. 18
Corporal Mace............................................................................................................................... 18
Corporal Nettle ............................................................................................................................. 18
Sister Marjorie Drummond ........................................................................................................... 18
3 Atonement – A-Level Revision Notes – English Literature.
Fiona.............................................................................................................................................. 18
Luc ................................................................................................................................................. 19
Themes, Motifs, and Symbols ................................................................................................ 19
Coming of Age .................................................................................................................................. 19
Compassion and Forgiveness ........................................................................................................... 21
Dreams, Hopes, and Plans ............................................................................................................... 24
Literature and Writing ..................................................................................................................... 26
Family ............................................................................................................................................... 28
Sex .................................................................................................................................................... 31
Versions of Reality ........................................................................................................................... 34
Warfare ............................................................................................................................................ 36
Sample Answers .................................................................................................................... 39
Briony's Stand Against Oblivion: Ian McEwan's Atonement ........................................................... 39
Forgiveness in Atonement ............................................................................................................... 51
4 Atonement – A-Level Revision Notes – English Literature.
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5 Atonement – A-Level Revision Notes – English Literature.
Context
Atonement, published in 2001, is a book about screwing up. It's by Ian McEwan – a serious
and critically acclaimed big-deal novelist who won the Booker Prize, so the stakes are a
whole lot higher.
The person in the wrong here is Briony Tallis, a dreamy, upper-class 13-year-old control
freak who we first meet in England before World War II. Briony wants to be a writer because
– she figures – they get to control the whole world. When you write, after all, your
characters do what they're told to and speak when spoken to. You can make up a character,
give him an awful name like Beluga Throckmorton, and then make the poor guy do all of
your homework. And you know what? He has to listen to you on account of living inside
your brain and all.
Instead of putting Briony in control of the world, though, her imagination ends up spreading
chaos and misery and guilt.
Ian McEwan's Atonement is a novel that does a lot of thinking about novels. You can see
why this would interest McEwan since he's a novelist and all. But many of you probably
aren't planning to write novels. Many of you probably don't even want to write novels. So
why should you care about Atonement?
The thing is… while many (okay, most) people don't necessarily write novels, everybody
makes up stories. For instance, you might look at Atonement – all 300 pages of it – sitting
there glaring at you, and imagine how someday you'll get to the last page and then toss it
across the room.
You might imagine what it would be like to win that soccer game you have tomorrow, or
just to be done with the test you're studying for next week. Or maybe sometimes you might
even imagine what it would be like to talk to a cute classmate you're a bit shy around (you
know the one). These imaginings are your story, your novel, the one – to paraphrase
McEwan – that is writing itself around you.
We tend to think of what we imagine as being stuck inside our head. What Briony finds
in Atonement, though, is that what's in your head can get out and start walking around.
Sometimes this is totally cool, but sometimes it's really, really bad.
Let's say, for example, that your brain tells you that your history exam is next week, when in
actuality it's this week. You might find yourself feeling pretty bummed, not to mention cross
with your own brain. Or what if you decide that you have absolutely no chance of winning
your soccer game this weekend? Well then you might not even try – and so the not winning
of your imagination becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in reality.
Our imaginations don't only focus on ourselves, though. For instance, let's say you can't find
your copy of Atonement anywhere. The friend you lent it to last weekend assures you that
she put it back in your locker on Monday, but your little brain doesn't quite believe her so
you decide to stop speaking to her. Whether you're right about the book or not, the innerworkings of your brain have just totally impacted the lives of both you and your friend.
Imagining doesn't always mess things up, though.
6 Atonement – A-Level Revision Notes – English Literature.
Sometimes thinking about getting to know that cute classmate can lead to actually getting
to know that cute classmate. And sometimes, too, you need imagination if you're going to
fix the problems your brain has caused. How can you atone, or make up for, what you've
done if you can't first imagine doing right?
Atonement, then, isn't just about big honking books. It's about the stories in our heads and
how they get out and spread trouble – and occasionally good cheer – on their
own. Atonement isn't just for novelists, but for anyone who has a head and has to live, one
way or the other, with the things banging around inside it.
7 Atonement – A-Level Revision Notes – English Literature.
Summary
A lot happens in Atonement. And then some of it doesn't, so the plot gets even more
tangled.
We start out at the Tallis family's very upper-class English home in 1935, a few years before
World War II. The family is expecting a visit from their maternal cousins – the young twins
Jackson and Pierrot, and 15-year-old Lola – all of whom have been temporarily cast adrift by
their parents' divorce. The Tallis family is also expecting a visit from brother Leon and his
friend, the chocolate magnate Paul Marshall. With five (count 'em, five) people arriving, the
house is in something of an uproar – especially since father Jack Tallis is off in London at his
government job, while mother Emily Tallis is largely incapacitated with a migraine.
In the middle of all this burble and bustle, Robbie Turner, the son of the housekeeper,
realizes that he's fallen hopelessly, passionately in love with his childhood friend Cecilia
Tallis.
Their courtship rituals result – as these things will – in a series of awkward sexual displays.
Cecilia jumps into a fountain in her underwear. Robbie accidentally gives Cecilia a letter he
meant to destroy in which he tells her exactly what he wants to do with her. Then they do
some of those things, not nearly privately enough, in the family library.
These embarrassing events are witnessed by Briony, Cecilia's imaginative 13-year-old sister.
Spurred by confusion, and by her penchant for making up stories, she decides that Robbie is
a "maniac" who is after her sister. This results in disaster when the twins run away after
dinner, and everyone races out to search for them in the dark. Briony finds Lola, who has
been sexually assaulted, and sees a figure running away into the darkness. Though she does
not see his face, she is convinced that it was Robbie, and accuses him to the police. Robbie
is taken to prison, despite the protests of Grace Turner (his mother) and Cecilia, who
pledges her love and promises to wait for him.
The novel now jumps several years to 1940. Robbie has been released from prison to join
the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) fighting in France against the Nazis. The war has gone
horribly though, and so Robbie is trudging cross-country to the sea at Dunkirk, where he, his
companions Mace and Nettle, and the rest of the British hope to be ferried across to
England and safety. Robbie is wounded and increasingly delirious. He is sustained only by
letters from Cecilia and his hopes for their future together. He finally collapses into sleep,
waiting for the evacuation, which is to begin the next day.
The narrative shifts to Briony. She is riddled with guilt since realizing that it wasn't Robbie
who raped Lola. In part to try to atone for what she has done, she refuses to go study at
Cambridge. Instead, to her mother's shock, she becomes a training nurse in London, where
she cares for some of the first British soldiers wounded in the war.
On one of her days off from the hospital, Briony goes to visit her sister and offers to tell
their parents and the court that her statement about Robbie was false. She discovers
Robbie, who has survived the Dunkirk crossing, staying in her sister's apartment – scandal!
(Or at least the landlady is scandalized, anyway.) Though it seems unlikely that Robbie's
verdict can be overturned, she promises to retract her statement before an official witness,
to tell their parents, and to write them a full account of what she did and why. She also tells
8 Atonement – A-Level Revision Notes – English Literature.
them that Paul Marshall has married Lola, and that it was almost certainly he who raped
her. Cecilia and Robbie do not forgive her, since she did ruin their lives and it's hard to get
past that. But there is some sense of reconciliation.
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9 Atonement – A-Level Revision Notes – English Literature.