6.5.1

Overview of Paul Marshall

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Overview of Paul Marshall in Atonement

Paul Marshall arrives at the Tallis household as Leon’s guest.

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Marshall's family & wealth

  • Marshall belongs to a powerful family who have made their wealth through manufacturing. He is about to make his own fortune through the chocolate Amo bar he is beginning to market.
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Presentation of Marshall

  • Marshall is the novel's villain, although he remains a shadowy figure throughout. McEwan only briefly allows us to see events from his perspective and, as a result, we are forced to rely on the at times “unreliable” perspectives of others in order to make our own judgements of him.
  • When we see him from Cecilia’s perspective, Marshall is a rather ridiculous figure. We are invited to laugh at the “pubic hair growing from his ears”.
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Marshall's arrogance

  • However, McEwan doesn't create much sympathy for Marshall: instead, he is presented as an arrogant and insensitive bore.
  • Marshall dominates the conversation, launching into “a ten-minute monologue” (p49), and speaks with a condescending tone on “resentful” grammar-school types who begrudge him his wealth. Readers are likely to agree with Cecilia that, after all of the anticipation of his arrival with Leon, Paul Marshall is “unfathomably stupid”.
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Sinister presentation of Marshall

  • But Marshall is also presented as a rather sinister character.
  • The first hint of this is in the final sentence of Chapter 4 where Marshall perhaps (again, McEwan creates ambiguity) brushes Cecilia on the arm as she passes.
  • In the following chapter, events are briefly focalized through Marshall's perspective. During that time, we see him wake from a dream involving his younger sisters in a state of sexual arousal; a particularly unsettling image.

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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