1.1.2

Settings & Historical Context of Atonement

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Settings and Historical Context of Atonement

Events in Atonement happen in three distinct time periods and several different settings.

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Setting of Part One

  • The story begins in the hot summer of 1935 in a country estate in Surrey, England owned by the upper-middle class Tallis family.
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The impact of WW2 on setting

  • Almost half of the novel depicts a privileged world of wealth and status which will soon be disrupted by the social upheavals accompanying World War 2 (1939-45).
  • The world of this section of the novel recalls the country house setting of Evelyn Waugh’s novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), which depicts the grandeur and then the decline of a lifestyle of great privilege in an England ravaged by war and crippled by its economic costs.
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Setting of Part Two

  • Part Two is set in war-torn northern France in the days before the Dunkirk evacuations in May, 1940.
  • We follow three soldiers as they make their way to the northern coast of France and are provided with numerous examples of the horrors of World War 2.
  • We see how war affects the soldiers and the innocent civilians who are caught up in it.
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Setting of Part Three

  • Part Three of the novel is set in London in the spring of 1940.
  • The atmosphere in the city is tense, with its occupants braced for an invasion by the Germans and the return of a retreating British army from the beaches of northern France.
  • McEwan again depicts the horrors of war by setting the action in a London hospital which is overwhelmed by the wounded returning to England from France. Readers are not spared from the graphic descriptions of the injuries sustained by the soldiers.
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Final setting: 1999

  • The final part of the novel is set 55 years later, in 1999.
  • It is initially set in London but, in its closing pages, it returns to the country house setting of Part One, with the house now a plush hotel, part of the service sector economy of late twentieth century Britain.

Jump to other topics

1Introduction to Atonement

2Chapter Summaries & Analysis: Part One

3Chapter Summaries & Analysis: Part Two

4Chapter Summaries & Analysis: Part Three

5Chapter Summaries & Analysis: Part Four

5.1Epilogue: London, 1999 - Pages 353-371

6Key Character Profiles

7Key Themes

8Writing Techniques

9Context

10Critical Debates

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