Atonement Essay

The writer of this critical essay is Charles Pastoor, he argues that atonement is absent in the novel Atonement. The reason is throughout the story, whenever crisis unfolds (Briony accuses Robbie of raping Lola), no one in the Tallis household display any kind of redemption. For which he states, "No one in Atonement exhibits any inclination to rest his or her hope in a benevolent providence". Pastoor portrays Briony as the God of this novel, because she is the one who narrates the entire story, the one who knows about Cecilia and Robbie's "secret romance", and the one who falsely accuses Robbie for raping Lola in the woods. On certain levels, Pastoor suggests that Briony isn't the best choice to be the narrator. In the book, other than being the narrator, Briony introduces herself as a 11 years old girl who

In addition, never in the first place did Briony consider Robbie as a family member. She believes that he is not fit to be in the same social status as her, especially when his mother works for her family. Then later on in the book, she then proceed to work as a nurse, hoping to atone for the lies that she implies on Robbie, because "this seems like the ultimate act of self-abnegation" says Pastoor. The novelist, Ian McEwan, provided the readers with two different endings; one being Briony went and apologize to Cecilia and Robbie and they lived happily ever after, while the other ending (the actual ending) Briony did not go and see Cecilia because she died in an underground bombing and Robbie died battling at war. Briony hopes to show her repentance towards Robbie by writing the truth behind her accusation into a book, she hopes to achieve redemption through her novel. But the way Pastoor sees it, "the novel fails, along with every other attempt on the part of its characters, to bring hope, atonement, or