The End of the World as We Know It

In the first half of Part 1 in Atonement, Ian McEwan describes the trivial events of a seemingly innocuous day at the Tallis Mansion.  Insignificant events of domestic life are illustrated in full detail; a typical day depicted in slow motion through several vantage points.  Key players and their roles around the house are presented– the visiting cousins, Lola and her twin brothers, tainted by their parents divorce; the ineffective Matriarch (if she can even be called so) Emily;  the idealistic youngest daughter Briony engulfed in a world of fantasy and fairy tales; the older  rather rebellious sister (in terms of etiquette in Britain at the time) Cecilia; the worldly elder brother Leon; the guest Paul Marshall; and Robbie who had grown-up with the Tallis’, but still, more or less, the maid’s son.

As the story begins to unfold, it is clear that McEwan’s stylistic approach for the point of view of his narrator(s) serves a greater purpose, a detail in the larger theme of his novel.  Each perspective is one’s own version of their reality.  The facts become skewed, and the truth altered by perception.  As we near the end of Part 1, we are introduced to the real action of the novel. Two crimes are presented:  the rape of a young girl and the sentencing of an innocent man to jail.  The narrative is in search of the truth, which comes in the form of an adolescent girl with a vivid imagination, while McEwan questions whether truth exists at all, or is it as subjective as one’s memory.

After encountering Lola as she is being sexually assaulted amidst the chaos of the missing twins, presumably for the second time that evening, Briony is quick to condemn Robbie for this offense.  Like a child forcing the pieces of a puzzle to fit, she recalls the events of the day that she could not previously interpret (how could she have been so naive, she pondered): Robbie’s power over Cecilia by the fountain, his crude letter to her, and his attack in the study.  Aha! For these reasons alone, the figure over Lola MUST have been him.  Thus the blurry image she had of the shadow becomes sharpened by the pressing “evidence” against Robbie Turner.

“The truth was in the symmetry, which was to say, it was founded in common sense.  The truth instructed [Briony’s] eyes. So when she said, over and again, I saw him, she meant it, and was perfectly honest, as well as passionate…she would have preferred to qualify, or complicate, her use of the words “saw.”  Less like seeing, more like knowing.” (159)

But what exactly did Briony know?  McEwan suggests that only through hindsight will she acknowledge the repercussions of her accusation.  However, at the tender age of 13, she is hardly to blame.  In this instance, it was her truth.  When she had recounted her version of reality to the police, she was telling the truth as she had seen it, as she had believed it to be. Who could argue with the conviction of a young girl, the only witness to the crime? Even so, that fact hold no credibility.

In the 2006 op-ed by Steven Duke, his article Eyewitness Testimony Doesn’t Make It True from the Hartford Courant,proposes a not-so-startling statistic: eyewitness accounts are not only unreliable, but largely affected by one’s memory or knowledge of the case. “Studies have shown, for example, that if the police who conduct the identification procedures have knowledge of the case and its suspect, they will inevitably influence the eyewitness’s memory of the perpetrator in the direction of identifying the suspect”.  Clearly, there is something to be said about what society accepts  as truth, when truth is something that can be easily altered by perspective and memory.  Thus, truth as McEwan presents it, is not matter of fact, but rather obscure and up for debate.

Atonement Trailer *Spoiler Alert* After 1:20, the clip illustrates Parts 2-4 of the novel

I have included a short clip of the movie Atonement, which in a little over a minute presents Part 1 of the novel, clearly and concisely.