Atonement Essay

512 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: An essay on the idea of atonement

While a love story set amongst war is a commonplace plot in Hollywood, Atonement (Joe Wright, 2007) outshines most with its sense of realism in both romance and battle. Set just before World War II, the film chronicles the consequences Briony Tallis faces after making a wrongful accusation and sending her sister’s true love into war. Underneath the focus on forgiveness and attempts to compensate, Atonement introduces an interaction between knowledge and responsibility and how it contributes to the loss of innocence that continues throughout the film. Despite the sense that cousins Briony and Lola are much older than they seem, their exposure to sexual violence at such young ages combined with their lack of understanding lead to their blind accusations. Briony …show more content…

Raised as a worker for the Tallis family, Robbie (James McAvoy) is portrayed as a gentle, loving man in the exposition of the film. While he is already in the adult world, he does not experience anything traumatic until he chooses to leave prison and enter the army. During his time serving in the military, he rapidly deteriorates into an easily angered, dejected man, except when around Briony’s sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightley). His only grounding point seems to be when Cecilia requests for him to “Come back to [her]”, a statement repeated throughout the film. It is the exposure to the barbarity of battle and the frustration of separation that corrodes Robbie’s once innocent self. Atonement suggests that there are multiple ways for one to lose one’s innocence, and that age isn’t an influence. Even more so, the film seems to show that there is no way to regain innocence once it is lost, specifically because Robbie perishes in the war, never “[becoming] again the man who... made love to [Cecilia] in the library” and Briony never gets to apologize for her

Show More
Related

  • Social Class Issues In Danny Hardman's Atonement

    1918 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ch. 14 Pg. 171". This highlights Briony's thoughts of how Robbie could never be forgiven for the crime she thinks he has committed. The next time Briony thinks about guilt is when she sees Cecilia's forgiveness of Robbie before he is taken away. She witnesses her sisters act and before that day, forgiveness had "never meant a thing before" (Ch 14, Pg 173).

    Read More

  • The Crucible Sacrifice Essay

    1315 Words  | 3 Pages

    In today’s society, sacrifices play a big role in our everyday lives. They range from small, such as sacrificing that piece of cake to keep you feeling healthier and a little better about yourself, to big sacrifices such as a firefighter sacrificing his life for a complete stranger. At the end of the day, they all all make a difference for better or for worse. In the play “The Crucible”, many various sacrifices were made during the process of exposing the possible witchcraft that was going on in Salem. These sacrifices were a result of fear. People were afraid that they would be accused of witchcraft and would do anything to avoid being pinned. A few of the sacrifices that were made were people 's lives, the happiness

    Read More

  • The Consequences Of Conflicts In Atonement By Ian Mcewan

    1458 Words  | 3 Pages

    Referring to the novel Atonement by Ian McEwan, 13-year-old Briony Tallis faced these challenges and unfortunately ended up making the mistake of falsely accusing Robbie Turner of rape, which alters his life, hers, and others around her

    Read More

  • Nicholas Lezard's Critique of McEwan's Atonement

    954 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Nicholas Lezard's critique of McEwan's Atonement he states that, "…the novel is itself the act of atonement that Briony Tallis needs to perform; yet we are very much in the land of the unreliable narrator, where evasion and mendacity both shadow and undermine the story that is told." To atone is to seek forgiveness for one's sins. The novel is Briony's attempt to be forgiven for the crime she committed as a naïve girl of 13, during the summer of 1935 heat wave. The narrator delivers the story from different points of view; she bases the other characters thoughts and reactions upon her own knowledge of their persona. While retelling the story the narrator has the tendency to lie, or rather avoid the truth, to improve her novel. After Briony admits that her atonement was not entirely truthful, the reader may question the reliability of the narrator.

    Read More

  • A Sense of Desperation in Atonement

    994 Words  | 2 Pages

    How does McEwan capture a sense of desperation in Part 2 of Atonement? The title ‘Atonement’ hints at a dark secret, a need for retribution and weighty themes, which McEwan duly delivers. The desperation in the narrative format of Robbie the soldier is paralleled by Briony’s increasing desperation to obtain penance for her crime. It is a desire further complicated by her omnipotent narrative role; McEwan steps in and out of his characters' minds with unfettered confidence and in Part 2 he provides Briony with the same gift so that she might assume the mind of Robbie. This can therefore provide her with only a fabricated atonement, of which she is subconsciously aware will never fully purge her of her sin.

    Read More

  • Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards

    1187 Words  | 3 Pages

    Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Bastards entails a Jewish revenge fantasy that is told through a counterfactual history of events in World War II. However, this story follows a completely different plot than what we are currently familiar with. Within these circumstances, audiences now question the very ideas and arguments that are often associated with World War II. We believe that Inglourious Basterds is a Jewish revenge fantasy that forces us to rethink our previous understandings by disrupting the viewers sense of content and nature in the history of World War II. Within this thesis, this paper will cover the Jewish lens vs. American lens, counter-plots with-in the film, ignored social undercurrents, and the idea that nobody wins in war. These ideas all correlate with how we view World War II history and how Inglourious Basterds muddles our previous thoughts on how these events occurred.

    Read More

  • Saving Private Ryan

    1057 Words  | 3 Pages

    N.Cull’s assessment of the film Saving Private Ryan in that it portrays “a realistic depiction of the lives and deaths of G.I’s in the European theatre in World War II” is an accurate one. Director Stephen Spielberg brings to the audience the “sheer madness of war” and the “search for decency” within it. That search ends for a group of soldiers whose mission it is too save Private Ryan. Although the film shows horrific and realistic battle scenes along with historically correct settings and situations with weapons and injuries true to their time, the film’s portrayal of war goes a lot deeper than that. The expressions and feelings of soldiers along with their morals and ideology are depicted unifyingly with the horror of war. The lives and deaths of American soldiers in the immediate part of the invasion of Normandy are illustrated more realistically than ever before. Saving Private Ryan captures the “harsh reality of war as authentically as possible”.

    Read More

  • Maturation Of Love In Atonement

    736 Words  | 2 Pages

    The coming of age novel, Atonement by Ian McEwan, discusses guilt, forgiveness, and the complicated nature of love through the struggles of growing up. The novel begins in England during World War II, where 13-year-old Briony Tallis is part of a family with dysfunctional dynamics. Her older sister, Cecilia, experiences true love with the family’s gardener, who is the son of their housekeeper, but their relationship is riddled with many obstacles. Most troubling is that Briony naively imagines their intimacy as something more aggressive towards her sister. Her innocence and shielded view of the world causes an unfortunate series of events that tears the family apart and alters the course of the rest of Briony’s life. In Atonement, McEwan demonstrates the maturation of love and how prosperous, yet destructive love can be between lovers and family alike.

    Read More

  • Will God Forgive Us Essay

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    When life is sweet, it is not hard to decide what we want our life to be. Say thank you and celebrate life.

    Read More

  • Loss of Innocence

    1482 Words  | 3 Pages

         Knowing a victim of an unforgettable and unforgivable crime will cause a person to lose a type of innocence. However, witnessing the heinous violation of the victim is much stronger. After the witness sees and hears the exact event, it is nearly impossible to disregard his or her memory. This is true in the short story “In the Shadow of War.” The protagonist of the literary work, a young boy named Omovo, witnesses the killing of a woman.

    Read More

  • Briony's Point Of View

    1013 Words  | 3 Pages

    Not only that, Briony treats the dead as if they are no longer in control of their own would-be decisions: that power falls squarely on her own two shoulders. She imagines a scenario in which she has the opportunity to say her final piece to the couple, but doesn’t pretend that the two would have forgiven her. This is likely a realistic depiction of what would have happened – that doesn’t change the fact that it didn’t, couldn’t and won’t. Briony praises herself for not being too self-involved in her re-imagining. “I gave them happiness, but I was not so self-serving as to let them forgive me,” she says (351). No matter what she wrote, the entire conceit is entirely self-serving. It exists to benefit nobody other than herself. This work of metafiction on her part does not equate to atonement. As nice as it would be to imagine that Cecilia and Robbie lived long and full lives together, able to feel in some ways free from Briony’s past condemnation of Robbie’s character, it is not reality. The real story of Atonement is that some mistakes are unforgivable and irreparable, no matter how much the individual at fault may wish

    Read More

  • Retribution Essay

    823 Words  | 2 Pages

    Retribution is a justification for punishment and not a theory about substantive criminal law. But what justifies also limits. Retribution offers solid moral bases for opposing overcriminalization. Retribution is the type of punishment that indicating the vengeance or revenge. It is the idea of an ‘eye for an eye’ or ‘tooth for a tooth’ basis. The punishments given are for the response to the offender to the crime that he had done. For example, the death penalty to the crime of murder. It is a form of ‘striking back’ . Basically, there are two rationales in this theory of punishment are first, for the victims or their relatives in the case of death, that the state represent for their dissatisfaction towards the offender. Besides, this also protect from they having private retaliation to the offender. Second, is for the public at large that the public has a need for revenge. Punishment is considered an expression of justified anger by the victim due to the violation of trust demanded by society .

    Read More

  • How Does Briony Change In Atonement

    1727 Words  | 4 Pages

    Napoleon. Hitler. Caesar. Briony. Like all of these historical figures, Briony takes on a God-like persona in Atonement. Throughout the novel, Briony attempts to atone for the sin she made in her youth- accusing an innocent man of raping her cousin. This specific sin, however, has grave implications on Robbie’s life. However, in the narrator’s description, one can see the God-like qualities seep into the story. At the end of the novel, McEwan reveals that Briony has been narrating the entire novel. She also reveals that she changes the ending of the story in order to keep Cecilia and Robbie alive and together. In the novel Atonement, Ian McEwan uses Briony’s character to represent a God-like figure who assumes multiple qualities of a God such as omnipresence and

    Read More

  • Atonement Theme

    1483 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel, Atonement, by Ian McEwan, it is spilt into three vital parts with the final completion, a letter from the author. The first part of the novel happens all in two days starting from the point of view of a thirteen-year-old girl named, Briony Tallis, the youngest of Jack and Emily Tallis. Briony has two older siblings, Leon and Cecilia; Cecilia is connected to Robbie Turner, a son of the family’s charwoman. The second part of the novel has Robbie in prison on account of false accusation and also his experience through the war in France. Flash forward five years to Briony as an eighteen-year-old woman and in complete guilt for her actions she has caused. Then the final conclusion is on Briony’s older life along with the other characters life and then the letter from the author. In each part of the novel Ian McEwan illuminates the themes of guilt, perception, and innocence, which affects the characters in relation to one another.

    Read More

  • Self-Reflection And Morality Essay

    1026 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are multiple studies and articles that have supported the fact that there is a clear relationship between self-reflection and morality. Like other studies, Gino and Mogilner have established this link. In their study, the level of moral behaviour was recorded after priming ‘money’ and ‘time’ to trigger self-reflection, or self-interest, within individuals. This was demonstrated in a series of four experiments involving constructing sentences, finding music, questionnaires and counting money/days. Thus, it can be concluded that the given study’s main link is between self-reflection and morality, rather than the independent variables, themselves. It is interesting to note that the three variables are not clearly defined in the study’s paper, raising questions of uncertainty due to the breadth and lack of distinction of ‘time’, as it can be interpreted as minutes, months or years, for example. While the study has clearly shown a link between different variables, there are issues of external validity, internal validity and generalizability, which need to be considered.

    Read More

More about Atonement Essay

Open Document