To Atone or Not to Atone? Wider Reading 3: Atonement

"On the hottest day of summer, 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge.

"By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone."

Many themes of an identity struggle can be identified here. One is that of the individual. Said crime will rob the three main characters of their identity, and for the whole book they will attempt to get them back. Another struggle is a social struggle. Robbie, being the gardener's son, was always far more likely to be blamed for the crime than its actual perpetrator; a well known chocolate magnate.

With the greater part of the story being set in wartime Britain, class struggle is also prevalent in this book and, in my opinion, the writer Ian McEwan narrates it perfectly. I enjoyed the ongoing mystery of the plot, as well as the shocking twist at the end. It's heartbreaking, and a superb achievement.

Atonement - Identity Quotations