Chapter 8: Key Themes

English Lit: AQA A Level Atonement - Specification B, topic 2.8.2

Key Themes in Chapter 8: Robbie

Robbie is the focalizer in Chapter 8. The chapter focuses on Robbie's interests, his career hopes, his stints as an actor and his living space.

Robbie is the focalizer throughout Chapter 8.
The tone is educated and cultured, with references to Romantic poets such as Keats and to contemporary, cutting-edge poets such as W.H. Auden. This shows Robbie’s interest in literature.
The inclusion of medical terms and texts reveal Robbie’s interest in medicine.

On pages 90-92, as Robbie walks to the Tallis house, the narrative perspective shifts to three decades in the future with Robbie imagining himself as a doctor in 1962 looking back at “this time when he walked along the footpath…”.
Robbie is full of confidence and “optimism” about his future, feeling “exultant” as he walks along. The shift in time perspective creates a dark sense of irony as Robbie’s fortunes are about to change dramatically for the worse.

We learn that Robbie has previously played the part of Malvolio in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a failure in love who suffers public humiliation and is imprisoned. The parallels with Robbie’s life will soon become clear.

Robbie’s house, his mother’s bungalow, is full of confined and “narrow” spaces: “his small bedroom, his bathroom and the cubicle wedged between them he called his study”.
The obvious contrast with the sprawling spaces of the Tallis household illustrates the class divide between Robbie and the Tallises. Robbie thinks of himself as someone “without social unease” thanks to a “childhood moving freely between the bungalow and the main house” (p86) but Robbie is still conscious of his lower-class status.