“Major characters can find themselves in collision forces beyond their control, and in many cases

their responses to the collision can be described as morally questionable”

Major characters in Ian McEwan’s ‘Atonement’ find themselves facing collision forces
beyond their control. Briony Tallis is one of the main characters of which this applies to. Her
immaturity and misunderstanding of the rape of her cousin, and supposed rape of her sister causes
her to carry out actions which could be seen as morally questionable. However I strongly believe
that her response to these events was not out of her control, she acted on her uneducated view
rather than her definite knowledge of the situation. These actions then carried on to the lives and
relationship of her sister Cecilia Tallis and her lover Robbie Turner. These two characters were faced
with events beyond their control due to the actions of Briony. McEwan effectively explores the
themes of war, guilt and atonement with atonement shown largely through Briony as a novelist.
‘Atonement’ is split in to four parts, although war as a physical crisis and theme is present
throughout all four parts it is more significant in parts two and three. However in part one it is quite
obviously present in the Tallis household with Jack Tallis’ war work and Paul Marshall’s plan to sell
camouflage ammo bars. The subtle references to the war in this part help us sense the imminent
destruction that comes with war. In the second and third parts there are direct references and
description of the war that Robbie has to face as a consequence of Briony’s actions. War is most
definitely a collision force which is out of both Robbie’s and Briony’s control, as well as the rest of
the 1940’s English society. The actions of Briony caused Robbie to be sent to a war as a form of
atonement for a crime that Paul Marshall had committed. Robbie could not control his going to war;
he had the word of a young girl who was higher up in the hierarchal society of this time against him,
and also a witness to the rape or a witness “what she believed she knew”. He had to face the
dangers and trauma of the war due to forced completely out of his control, but not necessarily
Briony’s. The theme of war in this novel is much about destruction and waste, however it also links
to the theme of guilt. War has destroyed the relationship between both Briony and Cecilia and
Robbie and Cecilia. This has torn family and lovers apart and there was nothing that they could do to
stop this from happening. I believe that McEwan has made the theme of war prominent in his novel
in order to show how things that are in our control that may be taken out of hand, can lead to
consequences that are not in our control. He has used the destruction of war to show how these
consequences can lead to the breaking up of relationships and in the most extreme cases loss of life.
However war shows that the destruction is not limited to those at fault, it can spread to wider
society. As a reader I can relate to this as I can see that when faced with opportunities of accusation
you should take care in what you say, as if you get it wrong it can affect people’s lives and send them
in to unnecessary destruction.
Many characters in ‘Atonement’ have the right to feel guilt, some more than others
however. With her false accusations wrecking the lives and relationship of her sister and Robbie
Briony feels guilt in her later life. As she matures and gathers more understanding of the situation so
many years ago she develops this guilt towards her sister and Robbie. However in Briony’s defence
the forces which made her jump to conclusions were completely out of her control. At the time she
was of a young age and so her maturity and innocent motives were out of her control despite the
destruction it caused. Her accusation of Robbie “yes I saw him” were four words that sent her and
Robbie down a path of consequences they could not control which led to destruction. When it
comes to the rape of her cousin however, Briony is not the only one to be blamed for Robbie being
wrongly accused. Marshall and her cousin Lola are largely to blame. Marshall is guilty of committing
the crime of raping Lola, yet staying silent when someone else falls under the blame, and Lola
equally as guilty staying silent about who raped her and letting him go free. Lola found Briony
accusing Robbie as an escape to the difficulty and humiliation of having to accuse Marshall, this
action is most definitely morally questionable as one would think she would rather have justice run
its course and save the innocent. These two characters let Robbie pay for a crime he did not commit
and sent him in to the destruction willingly, and so I believe that these two characters are guiltier
than Briony. They knew for a fact that Robbie was not guilty, yet let him take the blame whereas
Briony believed Robbie was guilty and so tried to reach false justice. Lola and Marshall were not
faced with forces beyond their control; however they misused the power of knowledge to send
others in to uncontrollable destruction and guilt. Although the most guiltless, Robbie reflects on his
guilt in war. As his duty in war he is forced to kill those against him and he develops guilt about
taking another person’s life. The war causes ‘first his own life ruined, then everybody else’s.”
McEwan uses guilt to show how even the innocent can be guilty and how guilt is a force which we all
face when we do something morally questionable. McEwan made it that Briony spent her life felling
guilty about her actions and this was uncontrollable for her due to her actions as a child. I believe he
used this to show that we can spend our lives feeling guilty about something we do with completely
innocent motives. McEwan also showed how people who carry out questionable actions such as
Marshall and Lola can also live lives that do not necessarily have guilt, although responsible for
someone else’s destruction, but then again “what was guilt these days? It was cheap.”
Briony’s role as a novelist links with the theme of atonement. Briony’s action as a novelist is
more metaphysical. We realise throughout the novel that we have been reading Briony’s
reconstruction of events including Robbie’s experiences in the war. Everything is all carefully created
in her mind. Her careful reconstruction of Robbie’s efforts in the war and his experiences through
the wanting to be reunited with Cecilia are all acts of Briony trying to atone for what she had done in
the past. Briony also tells the story of her realisation of the real rapist of Lola and shows how no
matter what her efforts are, she is unable to atone. As her accusations had been a story created in
her mind, and destruction caused in fiction is often only limited to fictional reparation, whereas the
destruction caused in the real word is unfixable. She discovers through her storytelling that “a
person, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.”As all past events have
been created in her mind, as fiction she does not have the control to fix what happens in the real
word. It seems that in the final section Briony has reached atonement and that her atonement is
complete as Robbie and Cecilia are reunited. However we then learn that Robbie died at war and
Cecilia in the Blitz. Briony had no real control over the fate of her sister and Robbie and could only
control the fictional characters created in her mind. A novelist is like God, “how can a novelist
achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes she is also God?” McEwan
has used Briony as a novelist, and the narrator to explore the role of imagining and storytelling in
order to escape the uncontrollable feelings of reality and escape isolation. However in storytelling
people’s reactions can be morally questionable although reading this novel I wonder if this matters
as there is “no atonement for God or novelist.”
‘Atonement’ is a novel that is filled with uncontrollable forces, but also many controllable
ones that lead to destruction. Morally questionable actions can lead to those that send people in to
uncontrollable situations. War, guilt and atonement all uncontrollable when it comes to fiction, all
tied in with storytelling. However although faced with uncontrollable situations due to questionable
actions in terms of her struggle for atonement “the attempt was all.”
-Lauren Southon