AN OBJECT RELATIONS PERSPECTIVE ON IAN McEWAN’S ATONEMENT: BRIONY’S CREATIVE APPERCEPTION IN LIGHT OF ATTACHMENT THEORY GENRE, AND NARRATIVE FORM

Abstract

The general focus on Atonement has been on Briony’s attempt to dominate the reality that surrounds her. However, there is a gap in respect of Briony’s motive for subverting reality in such a way that she can recreate herself as the heroine of her writing, consequently allowing her to “dispel her insignificance” (McEwan 2001; 72). The argument put forth in this article will be based around the suggestion that by subverting reality, Briony directly leaves the ground of the romance genre and enters the Bildungsroman genre. Thus, although Ian McEwan claims this to be his “Jane Austen” novel, no heroine of that genre would come to the conclusion that Robbie is a sex maniac and thus follow that narrative trajectory to its tragic conclusion. It is the very tedium of her own “romantic” big-house existence, which indeed resembles that of a Jane Austen novel, that leads Briony to subvert the romance genre and thus assert her independence from her environment. For a reader in a small urban house, the Tallis/Jane Austen existence seems romantic, but for Briony in her large romantic house, it represents the tedium of daily life, which she thus subverts to create some measure of differentiation from her mother and her home context. As well as subverting conventions, Briony’s projection of the “sex maniac” theory onto the narrative can be interpreted as her urge to be creative and imaginative. She thus plays with the conventions of the genre to demonstrate her primary creativity that will allow her to gain control of her own narrative.