9.3.1
Literary Genres & Atonement
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Literary Context for Atonement
Atonement can be seen as belonging to different genres of novels.
Atonement as a crime text
- Atonement can be read as a crime text.
- The novel revolves around the sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl and Briony refers to her own “crime” of falsely accusing Robbie.
- There is an obvious villain in Paul Marshall and a number of different victims. However, there is no detective figure in Atonement; rather, it is the reader who is placed in the role of detective in having to piece together a ‘true’ version of events from the fragments of different perspectives which we are provided with.
Atonement as a love story
- Atonement can also be read as a love story.
- Robbie and Cecilia find love despite their different social backgrounds, mirroring the younger Briony’s fairy tale of a princess and the “humble woodcutter”.
- However, they are both soon torn apart by forces greater than themselves. The lovers defy the disapproval of family and society in fighting to be together again, and are eventually rewarded for the strength of their love with a reconciliation before the end.
Briony's rewriting of the love story
- However, Briony admits in Part Four that this version of the story is a fiction, a rewriting of history to provide her readers with “hope” and “satisfaction” (p371).
- In reality, theirs is a tragic love story, with Robbie dying in France before a final reconciliation.
Coming-of-age/childhood text
- The novel can also be considered as a coming-of-age text or as a novel about childhood. We watch Briony grow from a naïve child to an able nurse, as well as witnessing her development as a writer.
- Critics such as Frank Kermode have noted the similarities between Atonement and Henry James’ novel, What Maisie Knew (1897), particularly in the way that problematic adult relationships (the novel centres around adultery and divorce) are viewed from a child’s perspective.
McEwan & Wells on Atonement
- Ian McEwan described Atonement as “my Jane Austen novel” in an interview he gave to Newsweek.
- There are direct references to Austen’s Northanger Abbey (1803) in the epigraph and in the choice of the name “Tilney’s” for the hotel in Part Four.
- However, as Juliette Wells has argued, in “Shades of Austen in Ian McEwan’s Atonement” there are other connections to be made such as the parallels between the young Briony and the young Jane Austen.
1Introduction to Atonement
1.1Introduction & Background to Atonement
1.2Focus of Your Exam: Crime Texts
2Chapter Summaries & Analysis: Part One
2.6Chapter 6
2.10Chapter 10
2.11Chapter 11
2.12Chapter 12
2.13Chapter 13
2.14Chapter 14
3Chapter Summaries & Analysis: Part Two
3.1Pages 191-201: To the Farmhouse
3.2Pages 202-213: The Night in the Barn
3.3Pages 214-226: The Attack
3.4Pages 226-234: Robbie's Reflections
3.5Pages 234-246: To the Bridge over the Canal
3.6Pages 246-254: Arrival at Dunkirk
3.7Pages 254-265: To the Cellar
4Chapter Summaries & Analysis: Part Three
4.1Pages 269-277: London, 1940
4.2Pages 277-286: Briony as Writer
4.3Pages 287-315: Victims of War
4.4Pages 315-327: Lola & Paul Marshall’s Wedding
4.5Pages 328-349: The Visit
5Chapter Summaries & Analysis: Part Four
5.1Epilogue: London, 1999 - Pages 353-371
6Key Character Profiles
6.1Briony Tallis
6.2Robbie Turner
6.3Cecilia Tallis
6.5Paul Marshall
6.6Emily Tallis
7Key Themes
7.1Introduction to Crime Texts
7.2Crimes in Atonement
7.3Criminals in Atonement
7.4Victims in Atonement
7.5Detection in Atonement
7.6Settings in Atonement
7.7Guilt & Punishment in Atonement
8Writing Techniques
9Context
9.1Historical Context
9.2Social Context
9.3Literary Context
10Critical Debates
10.1Marxist Literary Criticism
Jump to other topics
1Introduction to Atonement
1.1Introduction & Background to Atonement
1.2Focus of Your Exam: Crime Texts
2Chapter Summaries & Analysis: Part One
2.6Chapter 6
2.10Chapter 10
2.11Chapter 11
2.12Chapter 12
2.13Chapter 13
2.14Chapter 14
3Chapter Summaries & Analysis: Part Two
3.1Pages 191-201: To the Farmhouse
3.2Pages 202-213: The Night in the Barn
3.3Pages 214-226: The Attack
3.4Pages 226-234: Robbie's Reflections
3.5Pages 234-246: To the Bridge over the Canal
3.6Pages 246-254: Arrival at Dunkirk
3.7Pages 254-265: To the Cellar
4Chapter Summaries & Analysis: Part Three
4.1Pages 269-277: London, 1940
4.2Pages 277-286: Briony as Writer
4.3Pages 287-315: Victims of War
4.4Pages 315-327: Lola & Paul Marshall’s Wedding
4.5Pages 328-349: The Visit
5Chapter Summaries & Analysis: Part Four
5.1Epilogue: London, 1999 - Pages 353-371
6Key Character Profiles
6.1Briony Tallis
6.2Robbie Turner
6.3Cecilia Tallis
6.5Paul Marshall
6.6Emily Tallis
7Key Themes
7.1Introduction to Crime Texts
7.2Crimes in Atonement
7.3Criminals in Atonement
7.4Victims in Atonement
7.5Detection in Atonement
7.6Settings in Atonement
7.7Guilt & Punishment in Atonement
8Writing Techniques
9Context
9.1Historical Context
9.2Social Context
9.3Literary Context
10Critical Debates
10.1Marxist Literary Criticism
Practice questions on Literary Genres & Atonement
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