Atonement or Lack There of

Although the title of Ian McEwan's novel is Atonement, many of the characters do not fully achieve total atonement for their past actions. Many characters, particularly Briony, try very hard to achieve total atonement, but in my opinion they do not. However, I do believe that the particular time period does affect their failure to achieve atonement. Briony, throughout her whole life, tries many different things to seek atonement for her terrible deed when she was only thirteen years old. She becomes a war nurse to seek justice for putting Robbie in jail and then in war. She is trying to give back for her many wrongs. She also writes a false ending to her book where Robbie and Cecilia are alive and still in love. She also visits them too in this ending. Although her book about writing is very well done, it is a weak attempt at atonement. She did not have the courage to go to her sister face-to-face and apologize, etc. She also did not have the courage to stop Lola and Paul Marshall's wedding when she truly knew what happened. I do realize that the time period does constrict her ability to truly seek total atonement. Paul Marshall was very high in society, and it would have taken a lot to pin rape on such a high societal man. It also would have taken a very long time for Briony to totally reverse her accusation of Robbie as a rapist considering the war at hand and the long process that would entail. Despite the setting constraints, all in all, she gave a weak attempt, and I think died knowing she was still at fault. Paul Marshall also does not achieve atonement by marrying the girl he used to regularly rape. Instead, he truly warped Lola's mind set into thinking raping her was not bad. He is a horrible character. Cecilia also does not achieve atonement regarding the arrest of her lover Robbie. She could have fought harder despite the circumstances and the particular time period at hand. I think her death in some ways led to her atonement. She deserved better, but accepted what was (during the war). Robbie dies in action from a fatal illness. He obviously did not deserve to go to jail or later war. But because of Briony, he did. He did not have atonement to seek. I do not have sympathy for Briony. Although she was young when she accused Robbie of rape, she still needs to pay for actions she committed and take the consequences along with them. She had to realize that throwing words around like rape is not a joke and that going to jail is not just going to your room and not having dessert after dinner. She in some aspects ruined Robbie's life. I do think she did pay, though. She was forced to live a life of guilt and was truly and constantly trying to seek atonement for what she had done. She turned to writing in order to vent her inner feelings. She suffered, and I believe that was her punishment. Her fatal illness, vascular dementia, also seemed fitting. This particular illness causes one to forget certain things, eventually leading to the culmination of forgetting everything in one's life. It was an effort to achieve atonement when she wrote the book, but not enough for me. It is ironic that she is the last to die out of everyone, too. However, when the book becomes published and she dies, it will be known to all who read it that she was at fault and suffered during her life with her past actions constantly haunting her. In a way, the final publishing of her book completes her atonement or efforts at atonement.

Pet Milk

I particularly enjoyed our recent reading of the short story, Pet Milk, by Stuart Dybek. It involves two lovers that seem to be on separate ways in their lives. Kate, the narrator's girlfriend is thinking on going to graduate school in Europe, and the narrator is thinking of joining the peace corps. I really liked the last scene, when the two characters are on the train embracing each other lovingly and the narrator sees a young passerby on a platform look up at them. "It was as if I were standing on that platform, with my schoolbooks and a smoke, on one of those endlessly accumulated afternoons after school when I stood almost outside of time simply waiting for a train, and I thought how much I'd have loved seeing someone like us streaming by. " This is the last line of the story and I can relate to it greatly. Going to high school in the city, I took the train to school and saw many interesting people. I would see some very happy people and some very sad people. Like the narrator, I often would feel good after seeing an extremely happy person or people conversing. I also thought of what and how people viewed me as I drove by. Did they think I was a happy person? I usually was and conveyed that pretty well. I wondered how I would view kids and such as an adult having experienced everything they were at that moment. I felt a great relation to this story and as a result thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I hope in the end of it all, I live a fulfilling life wherever I am and with whomever I am with.

"The Indian Uprising" by Donald Barthelme

I think Barthelme's writing is brilliant and true academic postmodernism. He did a great job, in my eyes, of producing a nameless narrator with a personal war describing the man's emotions perfectly. I would particularly like to focus on the plot of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and the character Blanche. Blanche obviously was fighting a personal war, yet it wasn't articulated like the man in "The Indian Uprising." Blanche would most likely use fantasy to show her personal war. She would have many suitors who are all fiction. She was often betrayed and I feel like she would re-encounter these men who have haunted her past. She would have conversations with these men, particularly, her ex husband, similar conversations to the nameless narrator. In the end, I feel like she would come to grips with herself and end up killing herself with all the commotion inside her head from her mysterious past.