Focalising Through Briony & Robbie

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Focalising Through Briony in Atonement

McEwan uses subtle differences in language and register to distinguish between his characters.

Briony' pretentious language

The chapters in Part One which are focalised from Briony’s perspective are marked by quite pretentious language, particularly in the text of Briony’s play, The Trials of Arabella. Briony uses words intended to show off her expanding vocabulary rather than to convey precise meaning.
- For example, the prologue introduces the “extrinsic fellow” with whom Arabella will “evanesce from her home” (p16).

Comedy from Briony's style

McEwan creates comedy from Briony’s self-consciously overblown style.
- For example, when Briony tries to impress her older sister with her vocabulary. In the pause, Cecilia predicts “a dictionary word about to have its first outing” (p45).
- Moreover, when Briony settles on her word (“genre”) she mispronounces it and Cecilia asks her bluntly, “What are you talking about?” (p45)

Briony impressed by "maniac"

A more troubling consequence of Briony’s love of ‘sophisticated’ language is the way she is impressed by Lola’s use of “maniac” to describe Robbie after both girls read the obscene note: “A maniac. The word had refinement, and the weight of medical diagnosis” (p119).
Lola’s use of the term further prejudices Briony against Robbie before the scenes in the library and by the island temple later that night.

Focalising Through Robbie in Atonement

By contrast, the narrative voice focalised through Robbie’s perspective in Part Two of the novel is characterised by a much simpler and naturalistic use of language.

"Leg in a tree"

We first see this in the description of “a leg in a tree” (p192) where the absence of adjectives or other descriptive devices serve to make the image starker and more shocking.
Likewise, when Robbie reflects on the destruction he has seen, he imagines Europe as a “dead civilisation”, the simplicity of the adjective adding to the power of the image.

Expletives & slang terms

The realism of the soldiers’ dialogue is noteworthy in Part Two. The dialogue includes expletives and slang terms.
This is in marked contrast to the more refined language of Part One where the only use of an expletive is in Robbie’s obscene additions to his note to Cecilia.
Robbie’s use of the taboo term “cunt” (p86) helps to condemn him as a “monster” in Briony’s eyes, who feels “disgust” (p158) at how the lower-class Robbie could use “a terrible word” towards her sister despite everything the Tallis family had done for him.

Scientific language in Part Two

The use of language in Part Two also helps to convey the horrors of war.
After the Stuka attack, Robbie observes that “Mother and child had been vaporised” (p239).
The use of such a scientifically precise term underlines how ruthlessly efficient humanity has become at turning the murder of an entire family into a science.