McEwan, Ian. Atonement: A Novel. 1st ed., Anchor Books, 2003.
Mimesis and Theme
Ian McEwan’s Atonement is a historical fiction novel written in a third person limited omniscient point of view. It’s set in early 20th century England, and it follows the upper class Tallis family. Briony Tallis is the youngest daughter, a headstrong girl that’s obsessed with writing. Cecilia Tallis, the older daughter, is home from university for the summer. One of her classmates at university is Robbie Turner, the son of the Tallis family’s cleaning lady. Cecilia and Robbie bicker often, but they both secretly have feelings for each other.
This story begins on a summer day at the Tallis home. Robbie has written a letter for Cecilia expressing his feelings for her, and he gives it to Briony to deliver. However, he accidentally gives her a sexually explicit draft that he had planned to throw away, which Briony reads and is appalled by. When Cecilia reads the letter, she realizes her feelings for Robbie, and the two have an intimate encounter in the library. Briony walks in on them and mistakenly thinks that Robbie is attacking Cecilia. Later that night, Briony happens upon her cousin Lola being assaulted by a man in the bushes. The man quickly flees, and Briony isn’t able to see who it is. However, she tells everyone that it was Robbie, and he is subsequently arrested.
A few years later, Robbie is a soldier stationed in France during World War II. He communicates with Cecilia through letters in which she promises to wait for him. He’s headed to Dunkirk where ships are supposed to take men back to England. Robbie has a shrapnel wound in his side that continues to worsen, but his hope of being reunited with Cecilia keeps him going.
Meanwhile, Briony is training as a nurse and tending to wounded soldiers. She has now realized that family friend Paul Marshall was the one that assaulted Lola that fateful night. She goes to visit Cecilia and is shocked to find that Robbie is there with her. The couple tell Briony that they want her to officially confess her wrongful accusation, and then write a detailed letter about what actually happened. Briony happily complies with their requests, desperate to make up for what she did. However, it’s revealed that everything we’ve just read was a book written by Briony herself.
The final chapter takes place in 1999 on Briony’s 77th birthday. She discusses her book, the very book that we’ve just read. However, she reveals that her depiction isn’t all true. In actuality, Robbie died from his wound at Dunkirk, and Cecilia died in a bombing shortly after. Robbie and Cecilia were never reunited, and their conversation with Briony never took place. She remarks that writing this book was her attempt to atone for what she did.
I was quite excited to read this book. I had heard great things about it, and it was on my “to-read” list for a while. Despite the fact that I was reading for an assignment, I felt like I was reading for personal enjoyment. I became very emotionally invested in the characters, which was due in large part to the aesthetic emotion of the story. In “Structure and Meaning”, Robert McKee defines aesthetic emotion as the following:
But whereas life separates meaning from emotion, art unites them. Story is an instrument by which you create such epiphanies at will, the phenomenon known as aesthetic emotion.
McKee, 111
Aesthetic emotion combines thought and feeling, allowing a powerful, emotional charge to take place. The false accusation that occurs in Atonement is something that can easily be recognized as morally wrong. However, that wouldn’t necessarily cause the reader to care. The aesthetic emotion is found through the emotional journey of the characters who are affected by this accusation. Briony’s lie tears Robbie and Cecilia apart, preventing them from having a life together. As the reader, this was difficult to witness. I hoped to see Robbie and Cecilia get their happy ending, and I was crushed when they didn’t. The characters’ expression of their hope to be together helped to create this connection.
However appalling, the dinner would not last forever, and he would find a way to be with Cecilia again that night, and together they would confront the extraordinary new fact in their lives – their changed lives – and resume.
Atonement, 121
We see their romance bloom, watch them confess their love for each other, and then it all gets taken away from them. The false accusation and it’s consequences, coupled with the emotional tether to the characters, creates the aesthetic emotion. This gave the material a more powerful effect.
Another term discussed by McKee is premise. This is the idea that inspires the story, usually in the form of a question to be answered.
A Premise, however, unlike a Controlling Idea, is rarely a closed statement. More likely, it’s an open-ended question: What would happen if…?
McKee, 112
A premise that works for Atonement is, “What would happen if a young girl made a false accusation that forever altered the lives of those around her?” Briony’s accusation is the catalyst for the story, altering the lives of all the characters and changing the course of their futures. It has irreversible consequences that are then depicted throughout the rest of the novel. Examining these consequences is what the story sets out to do.
Controlling Idea is defined by McKee as a sentence that describes the story’s ultimate meaning.
Controlling Idea, the story’s ultimate meaning expressed through the action and aesthetic emotion of the last act’s climax.
McKee, 112
McKee also points out that the Controlling Idea contains a value and a cause.
The Controlling Idea has two components: Value plus Cause. It identifies the positive or negative charge of the story’s critical value at the last act’s climax, and it identifies the chief reason that this value has changed to its final state.
McKee, 115
Controlling Idea looks at the last act’s climax and determines the positive or negative charge that is present, as well as the cause of this charge’s occurrence. A Controlling Idea for Atonement is, “If you make decisions based on misconceptions and dishonesty, there will be horrible, life-altering consequences.” The dishonesty in Briony’s accusation is clear from the start. On the night of the assault, she expresses that she didn’t actually see Robbie attack Lola, and that she isn’t sure if it was really him.
Briony did not wish to cancel the whole arrangement. She did not think she had the courage, after all her initial certainty and two or three days of patient, kindly interviewing, to withdraw her evidence. However, she would have preferred to qualify, or complicate, her use of the word “saw.” Less like seeing, more like knowing. Then she could have left it to her interrogators to decide whether they would proceed together in the name of this kind of vision.
Atonement, 159
At the end of the novel, Briony feels the full weight of her actions. She knows that she shouldn’t have made the accusation, and that it ruined Robbie and Cecilia’s chance to be together.
She stood where Cecilia had stood, with her back to the sink and, unable to meet her sister’s eye, said, “What I did was terrible. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
Atonement, 318
Briony acknowledges the way her actions have hurt people, and she admits that Cecilia has a right to be angry with her. However, at the end of the novel we discover that this conversation with Cecilia never happened. Briony’s guilt may be real, but this interaction with Cecilia was fabricated. In the last act’s climax, we learn the true fates of Robbie and Cecilia.
It is only in this last version that my lovers end well, standing side by side on a South London pavement as I walk away. All the preceding drafts were pitiless. But now I can no longer think what purpose would be served if, say, I tried to persuade my reader, by direct or indirect means, that Robbie Turner died of septicemia at Bray Dunes on 1 June 1940, or that Cecilia was killed in September of the same year by the bomb that destroyed Balham Underground station. That I never saw them in that year. That my walk across London ended at the church on Clapham Common, and that a cowardly Briony limped back to the hospital, unable to confront her recently bereaved sister.
Atonement, 350
Briony’s dishonesty led to two innocent people being robbed of their chance to be together. She says that her fabricated ending was a way to give the couple a happy ending and create a sense of hope. It’s unclear if this is true, or if it was just a way to absolve some of her guilt.
McKee defines Counter Idea as the response to the Controlling Idea. The Controlling and Counter Ideas battle throughout the narrative, until one of these ideas wins in the end.
Sequence by sequence, often scene by scene, the positive Idea and its negative Counter-Idea argue, so to speak, back and forth, creating a dramatized dialectical debate. At climax one of these two voices wins and becomes the story’s Controlling Idea.
McKee, 119
A Counter Idea for Atonement is, “If you act based on your perception of reality and what you believe to be true, things will work out for the greater good.” On the night of the accusation, Briony continually tries to convince herself that she saw Robbie.
The truth was in the symmetry, which was to say, it was founded in common sense. The truth instructed her eyes. So when she said, over and again, I saw him, she meant it, and was perfectly honest, as well as passionate.
Atonement, 159
Of course, Briony didn’t actually see Robbie. However, she believes him to be a dangerous man, so she thinks she’s doing the right thing by accusing him. She reiterates her claim over and over, even though she’s lacking in any real proof. When everyone believes Briony, she takes that as proof that she’s right.
So many decent people could not be wrong, and doubts like hers, she’s been told, are to be expected.
Atonement, 159
Her behavior goes along with the Counter Idea because she’s acting in accordance with her perception of reality, believing that it’s for the greater good.
Close Reading for Genre
At first, Atonement can be viewed as purely a historical fiction novel. The story is set in the 20th century, starting out in 1935 and ending in 1999. A portion of it even takes place during World War II, which goes along with the genre’s characteristic of including historical events. The genre of a novel gives us preconceived ideas about what we can expect to find in the story. Jane Gallop says the following about genre expectations in “The Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters”:
Those things which conform to our expectations are things which resemble what we have read before, things where we have learned what to expect. English teachers call this similarity “genre.” Writings in the same genre will follow the same pattern; experienced readers of the genre will learn the pattern and know by and large what is coming.
The Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters, 10
However, by the end of the novel, the narrative starts to diverge from what is expected of a historical fiction novel. When it’s revealed that we have been reading Briony’s book all along, the narrative becomes a story within a story, or a frame story. This isn’t something you see in every historical fiction narrative, so it comes as a surprise to the reader. It also brings into question the reliability of everything that we’ve read. We know that the ending given to Cecilia and Robbie in Briony’s story wasn’t true. Therefore, it’s reasonable to believe that other elements of the story are made up as well, especially when Briony was writing from another character’s point of view. Briony would have no way of knowing what Cecilia was thinking on that day in 1935, or what Robbie was feeling while he was stationed in France. The reveal of this frame story shows us that we can’t treat what we’ve read as the full truth.
Throughout the story, one recurring element is Briony’s love of writing. As a child, Briony wrote a play called The Trials of Arabella.
The play – for which Briony had designed the posters, programs and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crêpe paper – was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch.
Atonement, 3
The play doesn’t actually get performed until the last chapter, on Briony’s 77th birthday. As Tara points out in her blog, Atonement opens and closes with a story written by Briony, which could’ve been a hint that she was the narrator all along.
Another recurring idea throughout the narrative is that of childhood and adulthood. As a young girl, Briony remarks that she feels her childhood is over, and that she now has an adult understanding of things.
“Her childhood had ended, she decided now as she came away from the swimming pool, the moment she tore down her poster. The fairy stories were behind her, and in the space of a few hours, she had witnessed mysteries, seen an unspeakable word, interrupted brutal behavior, and by incurring the hatred of an adult whom everyone had trusted, she had become a participant in the drama of life beyond the nursery.”
Atonement, 150
In actuality, Briony is still a child at this time. Although she has now experienced some “adult” situations, she still lacks the knowledge and maturity to understand them. This is evident in the way she misunderstands the relationship between Robbie and Cecilia, as well as the way that she accuses Robbie without considering the consequences. Briony has begun to regard herself as more adult, but she’s still very much a child.
As Tara mentions in her blog, Briony’s insistence that she no longer feels like a child doesn’t change the way that others perceive her, specifically Robbie. After the accusation, Robbie points out that Briony was a child dealing with matters she didn’t understand.
“They chose to believe the evidence of a silly, hysterical little girl.”
Atonement, 196
This deals with another theme in the book, which is different versions of reality. Briony presents her own version of reality to the reader in regards to Cecilia and Robbie’s relationship, as well as Lola’s assault. This differs significantly from the way these events actually played out. However, Briony’s insistence on her own reality leads to the dire consequences that unfold throughout the rest of the story.
In “Re-Writing the Classic Text”, Silverman says the following about the hermeneutic code:
The hermeneutic code inscribes the desire for closure and “truth.” However, this code provides not only the agency whereby a mystery is first suggested and later resolved, but a number of mechanisms for delaying our access to the desired information.
Silverman, 257
The hermeneutic code refers to an element that is not explained or exists as a mystery for the reader, which may or may not be solved. There are ten parts to this code that might appear in a narrative, although all ten do not always occur together. They are thematization, proposal of the enigma, request for answer, formulation of the enigma, snare, equivocation, jamming, suspended answer, partial answer, and disclosure.
The first part of Atonement deals with thematization. Silverman defines thematization as:
The definition of character, object or place in ways that signify mystery.
Silverman, 258
Some of the phrasing used to describe the characters and set the scene in the beginning of this novel signify mystery. Prior to any sort of mystery occurring, the text hints at what is to come. One such example of this is in Robbie’s thoughts on the night of the assault:
If he could not be with Cecelia, if he could not have her to himself, then he, like Briony, would go out searching alone. This decision, as he was to acknowledge many times, transformed his life.
Atonement, 135
At this point, we don’t yet know why this decision transformed Robbie’s life, but we have been alerted that something is going to happen. Later on, we get a similar type of statement, this time referring to Briony:
Within the half hour Briony would commit her crime. (146)
Atonement, 146
Once again, we don’t yet know what this crime is, but we know that it’s coming. The proposal of the enigma refers to the dawning of the actual mystery. This comes when Briony witnesses Lola being assaulted. Briony can’t see who the man is, so we as the audience are also left to wonder who it was.
The formulation of the enigma includes various supplementations that amplify the mystery, and the request for an answer is the desire to resolve the mystery. These two components arise when Briony makes her accusation against Robbie. Briony wants to name someone as the assailant, and she names Robbie because this act fits with her opinion of him as a perverted maniac. To the reader, this seems completely out of character for Robbie, and further amplifies the mystery because it’s doubtful that it was actually Robbie.
Snare is defined by Silverman in the following terms:
The snare can thus involve three types of deception, only two of which–those involving either a set of characters or the discourse and the reader–would seem to require deliberate evasion of the truth.
Silverman, 260
The first example of deception comes in the form of Briony’s false accusation. As I’ve previously mentioned, Briony has serious doubts about her accusation. However, she doubles down and continues to insist that it’s true. In this way, she deceives both her family and the police, subsequently getting Robbie arrested. The second example comes through Briony’s deception of the reader. We don’t find out that Briony has been our narrator all along until the very end, which is also when we find out that some of her narration has been unreliable. This act of deception spans the entire narrative, but it isn’t revealed until the very last chapter of the book.
The moment of closure is known as disclosure. One instance of disclosure is when we find out that Paul Marshall was the one that assaulted Lola that night. This was the first mystery presented in the novel, and it’s conclusion brings the reader a sense of closure. However, the reveal at the end takes away some of this closure. This is because we never truly figure out why Briony fabricated Robbie and Cecilia’s ending. It could’ve been a way of giving them the ending they deserved, or it could have been an attempt to absolve some of her guilt. This is one question that remains unanswered.
Close Reading for Intertextuality
Atonement makes many references to other texts throughout its narrative. This novel is largely about literature and writing, so it’s understandable that there would be so many works of writing mentioned. However, some of these mentions were just minor details in the story, whereas others actually speak to the broader themes of the text.
One such text is Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. Early on in Atonement, Robbie quotes something that the character of Malvolio says in Twelfth Night:
But that was what wretched Malvolio thought, whose part he had played once on the college lawn – “Nothing that can be can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes.”
Atonement, 122-123
This is a bit of foreshadowing for what was to come. In Twelfth Night, Malvolio is one of the only characters that doesn’t get a happy ending. When he leaves the stage after his final scene, he is unhappy and alone. This mirrors the way that Robbie’s future would turn out. Robbie never gets to see the realization of his hopes. His dreams of becoming a doctor and ending up with Cecilia are dashed.
In another passage, Robbie makes references to some well-known literary couples:
So they wrote about literature, and used characters as codes. At Cambridge, they had passed each other by in the street. All those books, those happy or tragic couples they had never met to discuss! Tristan and Isolde, the Duke Orsino and Olivia (and Malvolio too), Troilus and Criseyde, Mr. Knightley and Emma, Venus and Adonis. Turner and Tallis.
Atonement, 192
As the text points out, some of these couples have happy endings, such as Mr. Knightley and Emma who end up marrying each other. Others don’t end up together, like Duke Orsino and Olivia. Some of these characters are met with fairly tragic ends, including Adonis who ends up dead, and Malvolio who ends up alone. Robbie’s mentioning of these couples in Atonement is, first and foremost, an example of the character’s literary interests. However, it also speaks to the unknown future of Robbie and Cecilia. Will they end up like Mr. Knightley and Emma, or like Venus and Adonis?
Another text quoted in this novel is Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. A passage from this text is included in the epigraph at the beginning of Atonement:
“Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English: that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?”
They had reached the end of the gallery; and with tears of shame she ran off to her own room.
Atonement, epigraph
Having never read Northanger Abbey, I had to do some research in order to determine the ways in which it could relate to the narrative of Atonement. From what I learned, the main character, Catherine Morland, has read many books which often leads her to confuse fiction and reality. At one point, Catherine’s imagination leads her to believe that a man named General Tilney has murdered his wife (though he has done no such thing). General Tilney’s son’s response to her suspicion is shown in the passage above. As described, this confrontation ends with Catherine feeling embarrassed and crying “tears of shame”.
Briony’s actions in Atonement are reflective of this same behavior. Like Catherine, Briony has false suspicions that are built more on imagination than real proof. Briony also feels shame and embarrassment over her actions. However, where Catherine’s suspicions were debunked and put to rest without General Tilney suffering any ramifications, Briony’s suspicions destroy Robbie’s life. Therefore, I would say that Atonement takes this idea from Northanger Abbey and takes it a step further, showing the full ramifications that can come from making careless, false accusations.
Atonement also contains themes that are prevalent in the Bible. One of these themes is honesty. Lying is considered a sin, and it’s included in one of the Ten Commandments: “you shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” The Bible also contains the ideas of forgiveness, and even atonement. The Bible encourages people to show forgiveness, just as they have been forgiven by God for their sins. The Bible also tells how the Son of God atoned for the sins of the world by being crucified.
We see all of these themes appear in Atonement, which I will touch on more in a bit. This idea of themes, or codes, being shared between texts, is expressed by Silverman in “Re-Writing the Classic Text”:
A code represents a sort of bridge between texts. Its Presence within one text involves simultaneous reference to all other texts in which it appears, and to the cultural reality which it helps to define.
Silverman, 239
The cultural codes present in Atonement can help us gain a better understanding of its connection to other texts, as well as its connection to the “cultural reality”. Silverman says:
The writerly text comes into existence as an archaeological dig at the site of the classic text. It exhumes the cultural voices or codes responsible for the latter’s enunciation, and in the process it delivers multiplicity instead of consistency, and signifying flux instead of stable meaning.
Silverman, 246
One of the most prevalent cultural codes present in Atonement is honesty. This narrative shows us the power that honesty can have, and the consequences that can come from acts of dishonesty. Briony’s lie is the centerpiece of the novel. She makes a false accusation against Robbie while knowing that she isn’t actually sure of her claim. This false accusation gets Robbie sent to prison, serving time for something he did not do. Then, he is sent to France to serve in World War II. Robbie eventually dies on the beaches of Dunkirk, never to be reunited with his love, Cecilia. Briony’s dishonesty ruined Robbie’s reputation, changed the course of his life, and paved the way for a tragic outcome. One lie had enough power to ruin Robbie’s future and deprive him of the love that he so desired.
Robbie was the most impacted by this dishonesty, however he wasn’t the only one. Briony’s act altered Cecilia’s life as well. Not only did it destroy her chances of getting to be with Robbie, but it also affected her relationship with her family. When they refused to believe Robbie’s innocence, she cut ties with them. She also dropped out of University, eventually volunteering as a nurse. Cecilia is killed in a bombing not long after the death of Robbie. Once again, Briony’s dishonesty sent Cecilia down a path where she would eventually die without having been able to reunite with her love.
Another cultural code present in Atonement is, well, atonement, of course. Towards the end of the novel, Briony wonders if she can make up for what she has done. In the scene where she meets with Robbie and Cecilia, they give her a list of things they want her to do, including recanting her accusation and writing a letter explaining what really happened. Briony jumps at the chance to do these tasks that they’ve asked of her as a way of atoning for her crime:
She knew what was required of her. Not simply a letter, but a new draft, an atonement, and she was ready to begin.
Atonement, 330
However, once we learn that this interaction was fabricated by Briony, we realize that Briony was never able to have any sort of reconciliation with Robbie or Cecilia. She never actually took back her accusation. This made me wonder, if Briony felt guilty and wanted to make up for what she’d done, why didn’t she make more of an effort? Nothing was stopping her from taking back her accusation and explaining the truth to her family, nothing except herself.
Briony’s only effort made for atonement is the creation of her novel. Her novel ends after the Briony in the book interacts with Robbie and Cecilia and then goes off to complete the tasks they asked of her. She claims that the creation of this ending was her way of giving Robbie and Cecilia the ending they deserved. She sees this as her act of atonement.
I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair, to let my lovers live and to unite them at the end.
Atonement, 351
Personally, I think this isn’t the whole truth. I think this ending was Briony’s way of absolving some of the guilt she felt from separating Robbie and Cecilia. Briony was never able to make up for what she’d done, and she had to live with that fact for the rest of her life. By writing this happy ending, Briony can convince a part of herself that she has done some good to make up for the bad. However, I don’t believe that writing a book makes up for anything, especially a book that paints things in a false light. Robbie and Cecilia are already gone. They won’t gain anything from a fictional version of themselves getting to end up together. The truth of the matter is that Briony’s chance to make it up to Robbie and Cecilia is long gone. If Briony wants to share their story, as well as her part in it, the only noble thing for her to do is tell it honestly. By having everything turn out alright in the end, Briony is letting herself off the hook a bit. If Briony had used the real ending, which would show the full ramifications of her actions, I believe that this would be the closest she could get to atonement.
Rhetoric of Narrative
In “A Rhetoric of Narrative”, James Seitz discusses the rhetoric of reading, including the various narrators and addressees found in a text. Seitz points out that a text shouldn’t encourage its reader to be passive:
But a model which grants all activity to the text and reduces the reader to mere passivity does a serious injustice to the actual shaping of meaning which occurs in the dramatic exchange that constitutes reading.
Seitz, 141
Seitz goes on to discuss the idea of the “implied author”, someone that the reader connects with while reading:
The ‘implied author’, an author who possesses a system of values indicated by the text, addresses the ‘implied reader’, a reader whom the text needs to hold (at least temporarily) those same values and thereby ‘see eye to eye’ with the implied author.
Seitz, 142
The reader must assume this role in order to enjoy and connect with the text. If a reader can’t see eye to eye with the values presented by the text, they will reject the text.
Personally, I found myself agreeing with the values presented in Atonement. Although Briony acted dishonestly, these actions were criticized by the book. The full consequences of her actions were depicted, and she felt guilt for what she had done. The text presents the values of honesty, repentance, and love, which were all values I could very easily see eye to eye with.
Seitz then goes on to describe the “capable reader”, the reader that is able to make predictions about what is to come:
Paradoxically, a capable reader is one who not only has the ability to ‘follow’ the text but also the ability to jump ahead of it – to make what Eco calls ‘inferential walks’. Eco notes that during the course of a narrative, the reader is required to make ‘forecasts about the forthcoming state of affairs’, for the text ‘elicits expectations’ which function as hypotheses about the propositional content of the story (Eco 1979: 32).
Seitz, 146
I would say that I acted as a capable reader while reading Atonement. I made a variety of predictions throughout the book. Some of these predictions were false, or at least partly false, but they were still “forecasts”. I guessed that something would happen to separate Robbie and Cecilia. I also predicted that Paul Marshall was the man who assaulted Lola that night. However, I never expected to find out that the book was actually Briony’s novel. I also didn’t expect the reveal that Cecilia and Robbie had both died.
There are four types of audience roles that a reader can play, as defined by Peter Rabinowitz in “Truth in Fiction”. They are the actual audience, the authorial audience, the narrative audience, and the ideal narrative audience. He defines the actual audience as the “real” people reading the book. The actual audience is described as “the only one over which the author has no guaranteed control” (126).
The authorial audience is the audience that the author had in mind while writing. This means that the author writes with “certain assumptions about his readers’ beliefs, knowledge, and familiarity with conventions” (126).
The narrative audience is defined as an “imitation audience which also possesses particular knowledge” (127). This is the audience that can put themselves in the position of believing what they are reading. Rabinowitz describes it with the following question:
“What sort of person would I have to pretend to be – what would I have to know and believe – if I wanted to take this work of fiction as real?”
Rabinowitz, 128
The ideal narrative audience is one that believes everything the narrator says, and agrees with all of the narrator’s actions and judgements. Rabinowitz says:
This final audience believes the narrator, accepts his judgments, sympathizes with his plight, laughs at his jokes even when they are bad. I call this the ideal narrative audience – ideal, that is, from the narrator’s point of view.
Rabinowitz, 134
This is the narrator’s ideal audience because it is the audience that is fully on their side. This audience agrees with everything the narrator says or does, whereas the narrative audience is “called upon to judge him.” (135)
Most of this book is written in third person limited omniscient POV. The narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of all characters, but sticks most closely with Briony, Cecilia, and Robbie. During this portion of the book, I was heavily judgmental of Briony. I didn’t agree with many of her opinions, her actions, or her reasonings for those actions. I found myself agreeing more with Robbie and Cecilia and their interpretation of events. I trusted the things that I was told when the narrator was focusing on Robbie and Cecilia’s perspective, but I took Briony’s perspective with a grain of salt.
All of that changed after the big reveal. Once I learned that Briony had been the narrator all along, this really changed my interpretation of things. As Owen explains in his blog, this reveal completely changes the relationship between the author and the narrator, especially because the narrator is a character that the audience has contempt for. Anything I had read that represented the thoughts of other characters besides Briony could no longer be believed. All of the thoughts and feelings of Robbie and Cecilia, and even other characters like Lola, Mrs. Tallis, and Paul Marshall, were actually just Briony’s interpretation of events.
This realization went even further when Briony revealed that she fabricated Robbie and Cecilia’s happy ending. This acted as even further proof that Briony is an unreliable narrator, and that I couldn’t trust anything that I had read. This was a big wake up call for me. All along, I had been a much more submissive reader than I realized. I never considered the idea that the events I was reading could be untrue. I was being interpellated by the text to fill that submissive role, and I did it without even realizing. This was incredibly frustrating because I felt attached to some of the characters, specifically Robbie and Cecilia. I had grown to really love those characters, only to find out that what I had read was merely Briony’s novelization of them.
Although this revelation led to me feeling frustrated, I also enjoyed it in a way. It was a twist that I hadn’t seen coming, and I always enjoy a text that can surprise me, no matter how heartbreaking it might be.
Final Reflection
Prior to this course, I already considered myself to be a pretty strong reader. Reading, especially for school, has never been something I struggled with. In fact, I always considered reading and writing to be my best subjects. However, I still expected this to be a challenging course for me. I had heard that the methods and concepts would be complex and probably take a lot of practice.
Honestly, I was a bit nervous. I’ve always been someone that puts a lot of pressure on myself to do well in school. I hate when I struggle with a subject or feel like I just can’t wrap my head around a topic. So, taking a course that sounded so challenging felt scary.
I was right about one thing: this course was a challenge. Each of the methods that we learned about took me time to fully comprehend. Even after gaining a better understanding of them, I still didn’t always feel like I knew what I was doing. There was a lot of trial and error involved, as I’m sure is noticeable in my earlier blogs. While writing my blogs, there were many instances where I just stared at my screen, not knowing how to take what I’d learned and apply it to what I read. So, the challenging aspect definitely lived up to my expectations.
However, I was wrong about the scary part. As I moved further along in the course, I realized that the nervousness had faded. I discovered that I was capable of learning these difficult methods and applying them. Sure, I haven’t done a perfect job, but I also haven’t failed miserably which is what I was afraid would happen. The mistakes I made only helped me to improve upon these methods even more.
This helped me realize that my fear was largely based in the unknown. I was afraid of what I would experience in this class because it was all new and unfamiliar to me, and therefore I didn’t know if I would be able to do it. The only thing that could absolve this fear was just going for it, and that’s exactly what I tried to do. There was still plenty of hesitancy and second guessing on my part, but I did the work and continued to push forward. Once I gained some experience, nothing in this course felt so scary anymore.
I’m glad I pushed through that doubt and continued with this course because I’ve learned a lot of valuable skills. I feel as though I now have a better set of “tools” when it comes to reading and writing that I can continue to use going forward.
Our work has taught me about the thematic ideas that are at the core of a narrative, such as the controlling and counter ideas. I learned about the “codes” that can be discovered through close reading, including the semic code, the hermeneutic code, and the proairetic code. Intertextuality is something that I had a prior understanding of, but I gained a deeper understanding of this topic through learning about cultural and symbolic codes. Learning about the rhetoric of narrative was probably the most challenging for me. It took me some time to comprehend the distinctions between the different audiences and readerly roles. This is a complex topic, but I think I’ve now gained a much better understanding of it. I’ve also noticed myself becoming a much less resistant reader. Now, when I reach something in a text that is surprising or confusing, I lean in rather than pulling away.
In some ways, I feel like I still don’t fully comprehend these methods. I definitely don’t have them mastered, and there’s still a lot of room for me to improve. However, I believe that my familiarity with them is something that will grow even more as I continue to use these methods in the future. Overall, this course has allowed me to gain a great deal of knowledge and improve my writing and reading skills immensely, and I’m grateful to have had this opportunity to grow!
My Blogs
Works Cited
Gallop, Jane. “The Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (Fall, 2000): 7-17.
McEwan, Ian. Atonement: A Novel. 1st ed., Anchor Books, 2003.
McKee, Robert. “Structure and Meaning.” Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York: Regan, 1997. 110-131.
Rabinowitz, Peter. “Truth In Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences.” Critical Inquiry. 4.1 (1977): 121-141.
Seitz, James E. “A Rhetoric of Reading.” Rebirth of Rhetoric: Essays in Language, Culture, and Education. By Richard Andrews. London: Routledge, 1992. 141-55.
Silverman, Kaja. The Subject of Semiotics. New York: Oxford UP, 1983.
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