“I put it all there as a matter of historical record... We will all exist only as my inventions. No one will care which events and which individuals were misinterpreted to make a novel…How can a novelist achieve atonement when…she too is God? In his imagination he set the limits and terms” (Atonement 2001 p.369-371). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The reader's interpretation of prose is fundamentally influenced by the narrator's perception; thus, an unreliable narrator has literary, theoretical, and moral consequences for the meanings that can be read from a text. Mistaking an omniscient third-person narrator, who provides a seemingly complete and truthful account and encourages a willing suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader, for a focused, subjective perspective, significantly informed by ideologies and ethics, casts a shadow of doubt and ambiguity about man. the narrative. In the coda to Ian McEwan's Atonement, the manipulative narrator, Briony Tallis, outlines that this novel is her last chance to provide "satisfaction or reparation for [the] wrong [and] harm" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary 2015) that she has caused to Cecilia, her sister, and her lover, Robbie Turner, by misreading their interactions and motivations. His reaction was, with catastrophic results, based on Victorian class consciousness and the horror of sexuality, and he egocentrically subordinated the reality of others to his fiction. The section “London, 1999” reveals Briony's failure to reach the meaning of the novel's title in its theological sense, but also describes the maturation of her literary imagination, which allows her to atone through empathy. Yet the postmodern techniques infused into this prose narrative suggest that it was always about the nature and process of storytelling. McEwan's adult work is characterized by a “private and psychological component” linked to a “public and historical component” (Finney 2004 p.68) which defines the characters of Atonement as ideological products of the twentieth century British context. Briony's direct voice equivocates the coda, thus questioning her moral realization of the meaning of the novel's title, in its theological sense and through her imagination. Her character is steeped in her parents' late Victorian Puritan beliefs and her reading of Gothic literature. Briony's first work, a Gothic fairy tale, ends with “a beautiful wedding” – “an unacknowledged representation of the as yet unthinkable – sexual happiness” (9) – to which her mother, whose husband's deception was “a form of tribute to the importance of their [strategic] marriage” (148), responds with “wise nods of affirmation” (4). However, in the coda he reveals that he never confessed his sin nor sought forgiveness from his victims: "it is only in this last version that my lovers end well...as I depart" (370). In the final draft, Briony states that she will withdraw her evidence after apologizing to Cecilia and Robbie, the reunited lovers in London; in the epilogue, he reveals that this is a fabrication: he "never saw them that year" (370) before they died and Lord and Lady Marshall are legally untouchable. Nurse Tallis' penance was also motivated by a desire to construct herself as selfless and compassionate. “Sometimes, when a soldier… was in great pain, he was touched by an impersonal tenderness that detached him from the suffering, so that he could do his job efficiently and without horror. That's when she saw what nursing could mean... She could imagine how it couldabandon his writing ambitions and dedicate his life in exchange for these moments of euphoric and generalized love. (304) The oxymoron “impersonal tenderness” and repetition of “power” subvert his pretense, while the divine adoration he craves is unusual for someone compelled by guilt and shame. According to the Puritan doctrine of limited atonement, Jesus' death ensured the salvation of the elect, those blessed by the grace of God (Woodlief), among whom Briony would have counted herself, as an upper-middle-class British author. Briony constructs Turner as a metaphorical Christ figure in the second part through biblical allusions and imagery (Culleton 2009): he shares his 'last supper' with Nettle and Mace and later "puts his arms around the corporals' shoulders and... leaves fall your head" (244). However, in Briony's tale, Robbie is not dead and so Briony forgoes redemption. Nonetheless, Briony achieved atonement through empathy. McEwan believes that “imagining what it is like to be someone other than oneself is at the heart of our humanity” and therefore “cruelty is the failure of imagination” (McEwan 2001). Briony originally committed her crime because she ironically forgot that “other people are as real as you” (40) and ruthlessly subordinated reality to fiction – “the truth was in the symmetry” (169), and in the coda Briony admits, “everyone the previous drafts were merciless” (370). Therefore, the imaginary ending of his victims demonstrates that he has learned to empathize, to imagine others, as autonomous entities, in an authentic way (Finney 2004 p.81). The contradiction of a theological and moral reading of the coda thus subverts the titular meaning of the novel. The metafictional and metafictional elements of the epilogue are intertwined with a reflection on the literary movements and genres parodied by the novel to discuss its nature and the “making of fiction” (Finney 2004 p.69). First of all, Briony refers to the first part: “I love these little things, this pointillist approach to verisimilitude, the correction of details which, overall, are so satisfying.” (359) Classical realism derives its quality not from the authenticity of its subject, but from the accuracy of its representation (Watt 1957 p.11). Briony used this technique to convince readers of the truthful narrator of the first part and the fairy-tale ending invented by Robbie and Cecilia. Because of the ambiguity of the epilogue, it is debatable whether it is cowardice and immorality or “reason [and] hope” that drives an author to hide an unsatisfactory resolution, because “who would want to believe it, if not in the service of the most squalid realism?” (371) Second, Briony includes Lola and Marshall in the epilogue because they symbolize the modernist belief that corruption and decay lie beneath beauty (Rahn 2011). there was a health farm air about her, and an indoor tan" (357), yet both rose above the others by exploiting them. Reviewing Parts Two and Three in light of this suggests that behind the modernism's own aesthetic – prioritizing style and innovation over character and plot (Wolfreys 2001 p.121) – artificiality and depravity are found, because it allowed Briony to “drown her guilt in a stream – three streams – of conscience” (320). Third, Briony connects her work – “the drafts are tidy and dated, the photocopied sources labeled… everything is in the right folder” (353) – to her childhood – “the model farm… consisted of the usual animals, but all facing one direction... her straight-backed dolls... seemed to have strict instructions not to touch the walls; various thumb-sized figures…suggested by their ranksequal and distancing the army of a citizen awaiting orders” (5) – through the similarity of visual images. But his self-reflexive reflection, “I've always liked to end neatly” (353), reminds readers that this novel satirizes the Bildungsroman genre; Briony never matures into a reliable narrator, with the ability to abandon her reality and fiction to “disorder” (9) instead of imposing “symmetry” (169). Furthermore, it confirms the evidence of a drafting process from Part Three: “the first version [of Atonement], January 1940, the last, March 1999, and in between, half a dozen different drafts.” (369) In his letter, Cyril Connolly asks: “Wouldn't it help you if the girl watching didn't actually notice that the vase was broken? (313) Rereading the first part, readers discover that Briony followed his advice. She also criticizes the modernists for ignoring what lies at the heart of prose: a reader's “childlike desire to be told a story” (314), which in turn calls into question Briony's artistic license. Finally, "The Trials of Arabella" is performed in honor of all Atonement lyrics that reference "implying productivity" (Finney 2004 p.73), particularly Richardson's Clarissa, used to foreshadow Lola's rape and explain ideologies who supported the indictment of Robbie and that of Marshall. escape thereof. The blatant manipulation of various literary periods, genres, and techniques, revealed in the coda, reminds readers of the dangers and construction of fiction. According to Geoff Dyer, "McEwan uses his novel to show how the subjective or internal transformation" of his characters and characters. the revision of its symbols “can now be seen to have interacted with the broader sweep of twentieth-century history” (Dyer 2001), particularly the declining influence of Victorian ideologies on class and sexuality, and the traumatizing impact of the war on Great Britain. Victorian morality arose primarily from the nouveau riche merchant class; they were driven to control their growth of libido above the natural order proposed by Charles Darwin and the corrupting promiscuity of the aristocracy (Ping). Underlying Briony's misinterpretation was the same snobbery and puritanical sexuality of the British upper-middle class in the early 1900s. She wishes to "spare herself the sight of her sister's shame" (38) (to be seen by a man in underwear); reads Robbie's letter as “brutal” and “disgusting” (113); and describes him as “enormous,” “wild” (123), and bestial, due to his pure and chaste attitudes toward love. Emily is a product of the naturalization of the Victorian social hierarchy, and therefore “opposed Jack when he proposed paying for [Robbie's] education” because it “reeked of meddling” (151) with the status quo. Tallis's Meissen vase represents the fragility of Cecilia's virginity (Finney 2004 p.77), just as her romantic relationship with Robbie embodies the beginning of a more modern and liberal era of sexuality, and Briony's false testimony, with a “glazed surface of conviction… not without blemishes and hairline cracks” (168), but also foreshadows the fracturing of the Tallis family, their class, and British society. This is supported by Cecilia's impression of her home: an “unchanging calm, which made her more sure than ever that she would soon move on” (19). The effect of the Second World War on the British psyche and empire was devastating: before the Second World War, having profited from the First World War and dominating almost a quarter of the world, England was an empire at the height of its power ; after World War II, the humiliating conflict of.