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Atonement Comparative Essay

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A critical analysis and comparison of the movies: Atonement, written by Ian McEwan, directed by Joe Wright, starring Kiera Knightly and James McAvoy, and A Streetcar Named Desire (ASND), written by Tennessee Williams, directed by Elia Kazan, and starring Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh by looking at the culture, societal attitudes, politics, economy, and the biographies of the respective writers. Both movies are set in similar time periods, ASND, being set and produced in the 1950’s in America and Atonement being set in the 1930s, 40s and 50s in England, but written in 2001. The American culture during the time of ASND was the start of the “American Dream”, which popularised the rags to riches story. Having come out of World War II (WWII) victorious and restoring …show more content…

Freedom of speech was being promoted by the rise of social media and hip hop was one of the most popular music genres of the time. Musicals and romantic comedies were still crowd favourites and sitcoms were gaining popularity. Ian McEwan wrote the novel Atonement in 2001 and it was adapted for the big screen in 2007. The distance from wartime made it possible for audiences who had not directly experienced war, to receive Atonement with critical acclaim. The changing politics of 1950s America made the right wing values of government stronger as it brought some semblance of structure to the country, which was recovering from WWII and starting the cold war against the Soviet Union, which would continue for decades. America during the war had overtaken Britain as the leading world power. Ambitious plans for highways and infrastructure across the US, and the space program contrasted with the witch hunt of the McCarthyism. There Civil rights movement was born and suffrage battles were being fought in the western

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