An Analysis of the the Mutual Construction of Individual Memory and Collective Memory in Atonement

Abstract

Atonement is one of the masterpieces of British author Ian McEwan, which has attracted a lot of attention since its publication, and this novel won him the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. The novel’s protagonist, Briony, makes a big mistake as an adolescent by indulging her imagination, breaking up her sister Cecilia and Robbie, and sending Robbie to prison. Robbie goes from being an Oxford student to a prisoner, and then he goes to the front line in the midst of World War II to get out of prison early. Cecilia, on the other hand, after known this terrible news, breaks with her family to become a nurse. Cecilia and Robbie are finally reunited at last. Briony finds them and repents deeply, telling the truth and apologizes to her sister and Robbie. It seems like an old fashioned happy-ending novel, except none of this reunion is reality. Just as the readers are immersed in the sense of redemption and happiness, the author ends the book with a meta-fictional message telling the readers that the previous happy ending is just a made-up one by Briony in her head, and she writes it down as if it is truly happened , in order to atone for her own sins. She changes the fate of two people and spends fifty-nine years in penance.

Previous research angles of scholars at home and abroad mainly focus on narrative art, metafictional ending, war and trauma, the theme of atonement, etc., and what exactly makes Briony made a big mistake, and how she carries out self-salvation, this will take Briony, the main character of the novel, as the object of study, and use Halbwachs’ theory of individual and collective memory to explore her existential dilemma and her self-salvation through the freedom of choice to her self-rescue from her predicament, aiming to reveal McEwan’s use of memory theory and his thoughts on human nature.