Archetypes In Atonement

In literature, an archetype is a character, situation, or experience that represents the recurring patterns of human nature. Loss of innocence, a well used archetype, tends to focus on young individuals and shows how their innocence fades away, but is replaced by experience and gained knowledge through it. In Ian McEwan’s Atonement, McEwan shows the loss of innocence through Briony Tallis, Robbie Turner, and Lola Quincey. These three characters show how one’s mistake, tragedy, or experience can cause the loss of their innocence, but other character’s futures and innocence as well. Through this archetype, Ian McEwan’s Atonement shows how the loss of innocence plays a major role in each of their lives and how it changes their future, showing

He took an immediate interest in Lola, watching her closely. When first meeting her, he offers her an Amo Bar and observes her as her “tongue” turned “green” because of the green sugar coating, but then “yielded to her unblemished incisors” as she bit harder into the bitter dark chocolate (McEwan 29). The Amo Bar is a symbol of Marshall’s success and power, yet also portrays how deceiving his character is. The outside of the chocolate is a candy casing, so it appears sweet on the outside, but bitter on the inside due to the dark chocolate, just like Paul Marshall. Also, the usage of the word “unblemished” showed how pure Lola is and foreshadows that she will soon become blemished by Paul Marshall’s future actions. This immediate interest on Lola becomes her tragedy as the night unfolds. The Tallis family realizes the twins have run off in the night, so they begin to search. Briony, while looking, noticed a figure “fade into the darker background” and saw the “dark patch on the ground” was a person slowly calling her name (McEwan 154). It was Lola, rocking back and forth from the trauma she experienced from being raped. Briony, met again with an issue or an occurrence that is sudden, quickly feels the need to create order in what had happened and realized it would be “her story” that was “writing itself around her” (McEwan 156). She accuses Robbie and Lola nods in agreement. Briony takes this opportunity as “she stumbles upon Lola” and “her rapist in the dark and decides to play the avenging angel for both her sister and her wronged cousin” (Quarrie). It is in this way that she more feels she will achieve more “legitimacy” in her writing as she “avenges Robbie’s unwelcomed advances” against her sister and cousin