THE MORAL CRISIS IN IAN MCEWAN’S ATONEMENT | ||
| AL-AMEED JOURNAL | ||
| Article 1, Volume 5, Issue 3, May 2017, Pages 19-30 | ||
| Author | ||
| Asst. Lecturer. Hameed M. Daikh | ||
| Abstract | ||
| Abstract Ian McEwan's Atonement (2001) is a metafictional work in the best sense; a study of the mystery of creativity and the morality of literature, it grasps the psyche of the artist. Morality is at war in this stimulating novel. The word "atonement" refers to a crime, and a crime is committed against life and its moralities. The catastrophic consequences, both personal and political, are felt throughout this historical chronicles. The novel is a turning of the pages of before and after, and of crime and punishment. McEwan attempts to dive deep in the psyche of the characters to take snap shots of their reaction and response towards different issues, mainly the moral commitment, the focus of the paper. The most crucial incident in the girl´s realizing maturity is, however, her unintentional observing of the scene by the fountain. Briony sees the affair taking place between her sister and Robbie Turner. She tries to interpret it according to the structures she knows from the fictional world of the fairytale stories, as a proposal of marriage. This paper focuses on the moral dimension of the novel, and the sense of guilt which is felt by Briony, and her attempts to atone her biggest guilt against her sister Cecilia and Robbie, the son of the cleaner in Tallis house. In the end of the novel, we realize that the narrator is the author of the novel rather than the real author, and writing The Trials of Arabella is one of the ways that Briony uses to atone herself and to get salvation of her nightmarish guilt, which she causes for her sister. | ||
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