Ian McEwan 1948 - now

Kees IJzermanJune 2014

Ian McEwan

• Early stories: grislyExample: The Cement Garden

• Later: ordinary lives affected Example: Enduring Love

• “Open the wrong door and you step into a nightmare”

• What if? What if people made different choices?

Atonement, part 1

• Tallis family; Briony: 13 yrs old; writes playCecilia (“Cee”): older sister

• Robbie = Son of housekeeper, in love with Cee• Fountain scene

Atonement, fountain scene

• Fountain scene

Atonement, part 1

• Briony (vivid imagination) sees scene• Interprets it romantically, perhaps erotically• Robbie writes Cee a letter, telling her he loves

her. • He asks Briony to deliver it for him• But: WRONG letter! A very dirty one! • Briony of course reads it and finds it perverse.

Atonement, part 1

• Robbie comes to the house.• He and Cee make love in the library.• This too is witnessed by Briony.• She mistakes the love-making for rape.

Atonement, part 1

• Robbie has turned into an evil pervert in Briony’s mind

• When she goes out of the house at night, she sees her cousin Lola being raped. She accuses Robbie, who had nothing to do with it.

• Robbie is arrested.

Atonement, part 2

• Five years later• Robbie in the army after prison• Dunkirk• Robbie severely wounded• Goes home to Cecilia

Atonement, Dunkirk

• Dunkirk

Atonement, part 3

• Still during the war:• Briony is a nurse. She does this mainly to

atone for her sin of wrongly accusing Robbie• Briony visits her sister.• Cee and Robbie instruct her on how she can

clear Robbie’s name

Atonement, Instructions

• Briony begs sorry and gets instructions

Atonement, part 4

• Almost 60 years later, 1999• Everything we have read till now was told by

Briony.• She is dying• Briony made up the part about visiting Cecilia and

Robbie• In reality Robbie had died on the beach of Dunkirk• Cecilia died while hiding for an air-raid in a tube

station.

Atonement, the ending

• Ending

Atonement

• All of a sudden the book turns out to be a frame-story.

• Briony seeks atonement, forgiveness– From the reader?– From her sister and Robbie?– From herself?

• The book is ultimately about storytelling.