Atonement - The Unrealiable Narrator

Atonement - Analytical Essay

Ian McEwan's ambitious and prize-winning novel, Atonement follows the actions of a young girl, Briony Tallis, who witnesses an event which she knows holds some kind of significance. Yet her limited understanding of adult motives leads her to co¬¬mmit a crime that will change the lives of everyone involved. As she grows older, she begins to understand her actions and the grief that has been caused. The entire novel is an attempt of reconciliation that Briony undertakes, yet the reader does not realize this until the closing twenty pages. As one begins to understand the implications of this revelation, the credibility of her story is considerably weakened. However, is the power of the story diminished by the shadow of a possibly unreliable narrator? In context of the novel, which is written as an atonement (the making of amends for a mistake or a sin), Briony would, perhaps, have a tendency to lie or, rather, avoid the truth in an attempt to disguise her responsibility for the crime and proceeding events and, more prominently, to satisfy her grieving and somewhat selfish conscience; one could even go so far as to say it is a confession and an impersonal account told to the memories of her deceased sister, Cecilia, and the wrongly accused, Robbie.

A certain question plagues Briony's mind throughout her life: "How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her" (P.350, Atonement). Briony knows that her atonement cannot be attained through writing a novel yet she still understands that her actions were wrong. Therefore, it is quite conceivable that her aim may not necessarily be to recount her story with absolute accuracy, rather, she is attempting to describe what happened from her perspective and feelings, using a third person narrator from the point of view of different people. And this really does diminish the power of the story. How can one believe her mother's thoughts about Lola, "...that Lola... [is] precocious and scheming" (P.62, Atonement), when it is actually a figment of Briony's imagination? How is one to able to judge anything she writes as the truth? We can't, and this greatly undermines the story being told. Yet a more sinister and selfish motive is most likely pushing her: a need to be cleansed of the shadow of doubt and guilt that clouds Briony's mind.

Briony's guilt is the principle reason driving her to write her atonement and this would strongly influence her retelling of the events. It is understandable that she allows the lovers to survive: how could she possibly murder them again, even in fiction? Yet when Briony reveals, in the most offhand and indirect fashion, the death of Robbie and Cecilia, one is taken aback by this revelation. However, she feels that a service is being done towards the deceased lovers by allowing them to live on in her novel. "It is only in this last version that my lovers end well. All the preceding drafts were pitiless." (P.350, Atonement). Perhaps she really does feel a surge of affection towards them, but it stands more to reason to believe that a more selfish motive is driving her. Briony never managed to redeem herself in the eyes of Robbie and Cecilia, and her longing to be forgiven would have overruled her wish to tell an impersonal story. She allows them to live to make it possible for her to convey a confession to the lovers. And, although they don't quite forgive her, Robbie most definitely hints at it:

"Robbie said softly, "Just do all the things we've asked. [Briony's confession]"

It was almost conciliatory, that "just" but not quite, not yet."

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