Atonement

1. Atonement Eyanna Gruver

2. Atonement Basics Title- Atonement Author- Ian McEwan Genre- Drama, Historical Fiction Date of Publication- 2001 Point of View- Third Person Setting- World War II era Europe

3. About the Author Born Ian Russell McEwan Born June 21, 1948 in Aldershot, England Lived abroad during his childhood in places like Libya, Germany, and Singapore because his father was in the British Army Was sent back to England when he was 12 to attend Woolverstone Hall Boarding School back in England From 1966-1970 McEwan attended the University of Sussex where he realized his interest in writing

4. About the Author He began writing prose attending the University of Anglia in 1970 Graduated, then spent a year in Afghanistan Returned from Afghanistan and married a “free spirit” by the name of Penny Allen; a woman with whom he had two children, divorced in Then married Guardian editor Annalena McAfee with whom he is still married Some of his more popular novels include: First Love, Last Rites (1975),  Enduring Love (1997),  Saturday (2003), and On Chesil Beach (2007)

5. Major Characters • Briony Tallis • Role- Main protagonist • Background Info- • The younger sister of Leon and Cecilia, Briony is an aspiring writer. • She is a thirteen-year-old at the beginning of the novel and takes part in sending Robbie Turner to jail when she claims that Robbie assaulted Lola. • Briony is part narrator, part character and we see her transform from a child to a woman as the novel progresses. • At the end of the novel, Briony has realized her wrong-doing as a child and decides to write the novel to find atonement.

6. Major Characters • Cecilia Tallis • Role- Could be considered another main protagonist • Background Info- • The middle child in the Tallis family • Cecilia has fallen in love with her childhood companion, Robbie Turner. • After a tense encounter by the fountain, Robbie and she don't speak again until they meet before the formal dinner in the library. • Upset over the loss of her love, she has almost no contact with her family again. • She and Robbie are the ones who have to deal with the consequences of Briony’s crime.

7. Major Characters • Robbie Turner • Role- Main male character • Background Info- • Robbie is the son of Grace Turner, who lives on the grounds of the Tallis home. • He attended Cambridge University with Cecilia. • After being caught making love to the higher class Cecilia, Robbie is accused of raping Lola. Robbie is found guilty of the crime and sent to prison for three years. • When Britain enters the war in 1939, Robbie tries to emancipate himself by fighting in France. • He eventually returns and lives with Cecilia

8. Other Characters Leon Tallis – The eldest child in the Tallis family, Leon returns home to visit. He brings his friend Paul Marshall along with him on his trip home. Emily Tallis – Emily is the mother of Briony, Cecilia, and Leon. Emily is ill in bed for most of the novel, suffering from severe migraines. Jack Tallis – Jack is the father of Briony, Cecilia, and Leon. Jack often works late nights. Grace Turner – The mother of Robbie Turner, she was given permission from Jack Tallis to live on the grounds. She has become the family's maid and does laundry for the Tallises. After the conviction of her son for a crime she doesn't believe he committed, she leaves the Tallis family. Lola Quincey – Lola is a 15-year-old girl who is Briony, Cecilia, and Leon's cousin. She comes, along with her brothers, to stay with the Tallises after her parents' divorce. She is red-headed and fair-skinned with freckles.

9. Other Characters Jackson Quincey – Jackson is a young boy (Pierrot's twin) who is Briony, Cecilia, and Leon's cousin. He comes, along with his sister and his twin, to stay with the Tallises after his parents' divorce. Pierrot Quincey – Pierrot is a young boy (Jackson's twin) who is Briony, Cecilia, and Leon's cousin. He comes, along with his sister and his twin, to stay with the Tallises after his parents' divorce. Danny Hardman – The handyman for the Tallis family. Paul Marshall – A friend of Leon's, who rapes Lola and, some years later, marries her. Corporal Nettle – Nettle is Robbie's companion during the Dunkirk evacuation. Corporal Mace – Mace is Robbie's companion during the Dunkirk evacuation. Betty – The Tallis family's servant, described as "wretched" in personality.

10. Plot Summary • Part One tells the story of one day in 1935 at the Tallis family estate north of London, England. It focuses on Briony Tallis, the thirteen-year-old youngest daughter of three, who aspires to be a writer. • She has written a play to be performed at dinner for the homecoming of her brother, Leon, which is to be put on by herself and her three cousins who are staying with the Tallises for the summer because of a divorce between their parents. • Before the play can be rehearsed, Briony witnesses a scene at the fountain between her older sister Cecilia and the son of the family charwoman Robbie Turner. • What is an innocent act is greatly misunderstood by the young imagination, and this sets off a series of events with eternal consequences.

11. Plot Summary • Following the fountain scene, Briony intercepts a letter from Robbie to Cecilia and reads it. • In it, she discovers perverse desires and sets out to protect her sister from this sex-craved maniac. • Before she can do so, she witnesses the couple making love and mistakes it for assault, further confirming her assumption that Robbie is out to harm Cecilia. • Before the night is through, her twin cousins run away from home triggering the rest of the dinner guests to search for them in the dark night. • Briony, who is searching alone, witnesses a rape taking place of her older cousin Lola. • Briony convinces everyone at the scene, including authorities, that the assailant was Robbie Turner, and he is taken to jail.

12. Plot Summary • Part Two takes place five years later. • It follows Robbie Turner as he retreats through France as a soldier during the war. The reader has learned he served three years in prison for his crime and is now able to exonerate himself by serving in the army. • Separated from his battalion, Robbie is marching through the countryside with two other corporals trying to get to the evacuation town of Dunkirk. • During his march, Robbie experiences the atrocities of war, and has plenty of time to consider his situation as soldier, criminal, and victim of Briony's false accusations. • The three men make it to Dunkirk which is in a state of complete chaos. • Robbie is severely wounded but is determined to make it home to Cecilia who is waiting for him.

13. Plot Summary • Part Three picks up the eighteen-year-old Briony who has signed up as a nurse in London. • Suffering from guilt for her crime as girl, Briony hopes nursing will act as a penance for her sin. • Briony is also still writing. • She submits a story to a London journal which is rejected, but in the rejection she is encouraged to develop the story further as it is quite good. • When the soldiers return from Dunkirk, Briony experiences the horrors of war first hand, and is humiliated at her failure to perform her duty. • At the end of Part Three, Briony seeks out her older sister. • Before she does, she attends the wedding of Paul Marshall (whom she knows to be Lola's rapist) and Lola. • Briony does nothing to stop the marriage.

14. Plot Summary • When she visits her sister, it is discovered that Robbie is still alive and living with Cecilia. • Briony does not so much as ask for forgiveness from the two lovers (who refuse it anyhow) as simply admit her guilt and seek counsel on what she can do to make it better. • Robbie and Cecilia give Briony a list of instructions to follow that will help clear Robbie's name. Briony agrees to do each one, and heads back to work in London. • The last we see of Robbie and Cecilia is on the tube station platform.

15. Plot Summary • The final section of the book, London, 1999, is a letter from the author to the reader. • It is revealed here that the author is Briony herself. She explains that she was able to write the war parts of the book with the aid of letters form the museum of archives and a pen-pal relationship with one of the corporals with whom Robbie marched. • Briony attends a birthday party/family reunion at her old home, which is the original scene of the crime. • She reveals that she, herself is dying and in a final twist, Briony informs her reader that she has made up the part about visiting Cecilia and Robbie in London and how both died in the war. Her act to let their love last forever in the pages of her book will be her final apology for her crime.

16. Themes • Guilt/Atonement • The entire novel plot revolves around Briony, a woman that spends her entire life repenting over a crime that she committed as a child. • Misunderstanding/Perception • Briony in the part 1 of the novel, because she is too young to fully understand the adult world that she is slowly becoming a part of, misinterprets the events happening around her. • The narration even displays the theme of perception; the author (Briony) continuously has to go back and repeat the same events through different eyes so that the reader gets the full picture of what is going on. • By doing this, Briony is trying to atone for her misconception of events as a young girl.

17. Themes • Injustices of War • Ian McEwan was an activist against war, had a father who was in the British Army, and also grew up in military camps around the world. • Robbie fights in the war to vindicate himself from a crime that he was wrongly accused of– this highlights the injustice of war. • The Power of Words/Literarture • Briony doesn't understand the letter Robbie has sent Cecilia and sees it as a threat. • Robbie places the wrong letter in the envelope which makes Briony accuse him of rape. • Robbie was a literature major. • Briony made up the happy ending of love in her story.

18. Important Quotes • "A world could be made in five pages, and one that was more pleasing than a model farm. The childhood of a spoiled prince could be framed within half a page, a moonlit dash through sleepy villages was one rhythmically emphatic sentence, falling in love could be achieved in a single word--a glance. The pages of a recently finished story seemed to vibrate in her hand with all the life they contained.“- Narrator, page 7 • Briony, because of her passion for writing, is aware even as a child of the power of words. She understands that as a writer you can manipulate situations to your liking. What Briony is too young to understand, though, is the difference between fiction and reality.

19. Important Quotes • "How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime." -Narrator, page 162 • At a young age, Briony commits an act that haunts her for the rest of her life. The guilt Briony has leads to a "self-torture" that stays with her for "a lifetime." By comparing Briony's guilt to the beads on a rosary and a "loop" (a shape with no beginning or end), the author is able emphasize the eternity of Briony's guilt.

20. Important Quotes • "The problem these fifty-nine years has been this: how can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her. There is nothing outside her. In her imagination she has set the limits and the terms. No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they are atheists. It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. The attempt was all."–Briony Tallis, pages 350-351 • This quote shows how at the end of the novel, Briony has recognized her sin and tries to atone for it by immortalizing the life that Robbie and Cecelia could never have through the pages of her book. She realizes that it is impossible to give yourself atonement, and that one must seek it to be granted by the one who they have wronged or hurt.