Atonement - Authorial Methods

Question 1

What is the narrative structure of the book?

Answer 1

4 parts- settings, time and focus shift between them.

Question 2

Where is the first part of the book set?

Answer 2

Part 1- summer 1935, Tallis country house

Question 3

Where is the second part of the book set?

Answer 3

Part 2- Normandy, May 1940

Question 4

Where is the third part of the book set?

Answer 4

Part 3- London April-May 1940 (overlaps w/ part 2)

Question 5

Where is the fourth part of the book set?

Answer 5

Part 4- London 1999- time and place for grounded in the title.

Question 6

What does this narrative structure create?

Answer 6

• 4 parts are chronological but within them there is analepsis and prolepsis
• creating fluidity and instability of time and place

Question 7

What are the narrative perspectives in the book?

Answer 7

Narrative perspective fluctuates - 3rd person in parts 1-3,

Question 8

How do the narrative perspectives in the book fluctuate?

Answer 8

Varies in perspective eg fountain incident, Robbie as focaliser in part 2. Sudden shift to first person in London 1999.

Question 9

What is the significance of the narrative perspectives in the book?

Answer 9

McEwan’s ‘trick’ is revealed at the end of part 3 - that Briony is the author of the book we have been reading. Foregrounds the concepts of narrator reliability and of fiction itself.

Question 10

What are the settings in the book?

Answer 10

Tallis house, Normandy in WW2

Question 11

What is the significance of the Tallis House?

Answer 11

Represents apparently idyllic state of England, which in reality is crumbling and decaying. Also represents rigid social order.

Question 12

What is the significance of the setting Normandy?

Answer 12

A chaotic, lawless place where death is everywhere. Class divisions present in military rank but comradeship too - Nettle, Mace, Robbie.

Question 13

Where is symbolism in the book?

Answer 13

• The ‘house’ on the lake as a show of the decaying upper class systems that Briony and the Tallis’ themselves are part of
• The vase as a symbol for the Tallis family/ reputation- its breakage signifies the break up of the family

Question 14

What is the significance of the epigraph?

Answer 14

Foregrounds the importance of storytelling and the imagination in the novel. Taken from a Jane Austen novel so makes explicit connection to classic novels and the canon.

Question 15

What is proslepsis in the book?

Answer 15

When the narrator references the future, eg: ‘Within the half hour Briony would commit her crime’

Question 16

What different genres does McEwan draw from?

Answer 16

McEwan draws on conventions from a range of genres, Romance, Crime and mystery and War Story

Question 17

What different literary techniques does McEwan use?

Answer 17

Uses techniques from different periods of literature - the realist novel in Part 1, stream of consciousness and Modernist techniques in Part 2, postmodern in Part 4.