The first stage is the English pastoral period of 1935. Briony tallis, the heroine who loves writing, is the daughter of a 13-year-old farmer. She is smart and imaginative. On a hot summer day, she witnessed her sister Cecilia take off her skirt and jump into the pool in front of the housekeeper's son Robbie.
Later, she secretly opened Robbie's love letter about marriage and was shocked by the vulgar content during the period. Until one night, she saw her sister and Robbie intertwined and mistakenly thought that Robbie raped Cecilia. It happened that her cousin Lola was raped that night, and Brioni identified Robbie as the criminal of the accident, which eventually led to Robbie's imprisonment.
In the second stage, 1940 During World War II, Robbie and Cecilia announced the cross-class like eyes. In order to wash away his shame, Robbie resolutely joined the army, and Cecilia also joined the army. In the cruel war, the two men lost their precious lives one after another. Briony also fell into deep remorse and guilt.
In the third stage, the last 20 pages of the novel, Briony tells her feelings about atonement and self-salvation.
Extended data:
Ian mcewan's novels are influenced by the British female novelist Jane Austen. In an interview with Jeff Giles, McEwan called Atonement "my Austen novel", and he said that he had wanted to write a novel to pay tribute to his predecessor Jane Austen for ten years.
At the time of conception, Catherine Moran, the heroine in northanger abbey, haunted him all the time. So, at the beginning of the novel, I quoted a passage from Jane Austen's northanger abbey.
In narrative style, Austin is considered to be the first person who skillfully uses "free indirect speech" in the history of modern English literature, and McEwan also uses a lot of free indirect speech in his works.
A theme of Austen's novels is class and love. Atonement is also about the love between young people of different classes, but the ending is not as happy as that in Austin's novels.
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