Allusions In Atonement

In this essay I will discuss the effects of W. H. Auden’s poem ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ upon the tone, and the foreshadowing of plot line of Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement. The poem and the novel are both elegiac- it is the contribution of the poem to Atonement at the crucial point before the deaths of the characters Robbie and Cecilia that begins to set the tone of elegy within the novel. This acknowledgement of death and mourning brings a sense of impending doom; the love expressed from Cecilia to Robbie by the inclusion of lines from ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ is matched by the element of tragic loss it also insinuates. The poem, set at a time of great impending disaster within Europe (Norton)

Atonement by Ian McEwan 1. Some key events of Atonement are- • Briony sees her sister and her sister’s boyfriend out the window. Briony thinks something bad is happening, but her sister is only swimming into the pond to find parts of a broken vase. • Briony realizes that she doesn’t want her play to be performed so she rips up the poster of her play and stops rehearsing it. • Robbie accidently gives Briony the letter for Cecilia that tells of his sexual desire for her instead of the one that tells how sorry he is for breaking the vase.

Bloom, Harold. "The Story Behind the Story." Jan. 2004. EBSCO. Literary Reference Center. Paul VI

The Canterbury Tales, written and narrated by Geoffrey Chaucer, explores manipulation and dishonesty in the Catholic Church. The Nun in “The General Prologue” exemplifies improper qualities to which a Prioress should have. Along with the Nun, The Friar in “The General Prologue” uses false information to gain customer. In “The Pardoner’s Tale,” the Pardoner uses greedy tactics to wield other pilgrims into buying his relics.In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses the Nun and the Friar in “The General Prologue” and the Pardoner in “The Pardoner’s Tale” to show the hypocrisy in the Church.

Atonement, by Ian McEwan, explores the theme of love through a variety of techniques such as symbolism, metaphors and repetition delve into various aspects of love, such as misspent, newfound and unavailable love. Uniquely, McEwan intertwines these techniques with foreshadowing and imagery to convey complex emotions such as love, guilt and jealousy. Additionally, the theme of reality and the imagination is established through repetition and Cecilia’s characterisation.

The conclusion of this story suggests the ultimate loneliness for a devout Catholic, the absence of God; the impact of this event should have been further scrutinized and explored to convey understanding of its implications. In the section of the text dedicated to stylistic exploration, the author provides a competent analysis of the diction and methods used in the story that show understanding of the text. Blake describes the effect of the stream-of-conscience technique in this writing by equating the reader’s experience to one who is able “to enter Granny Weatherall’s mind, to share her memories, and to experience the pain of her rejection” (3). Analysis that is also of interest is Blake’s point of view on the use of floating images that are replaced by images of falling towards the end of the story. Granny goes from “float[ing] around in her skin” to being “curled down within herself” (Porter). Furthermore, his insight into this aspect of Porter’s writing and its effect on the conveyance of the story’s message are illuminating and well-supported. Overall, this article is well written and insightful in reference to stylistic analysis, showing understanding of the text, but lacks perspicacity into the the theme as it relates to the end of the

Uhlman makes accusations confronting the controversial issue, debating whether Margery Kempe was able to write her book on her own, or whether the publication included multiple other authors. With many different actions performed by Margery Kempe, linking to the questioning of her own book, it is fair for readers to analyze these actions in order to conclude an answer to their question. Firstly, Diane R. Uhlman makes a reasonable claim when she writes, Margery Kempe “lacked ready clerical support, the support of those literate and educated in the ways of making books” (52). Moreover, readers get the understanding that Margery Kempe did not write her book all on her own. After going into analysis of her odd relationships with priests and friars, it is important to make the connection that these relationships were formed to help further her publication.

Barbara W. Tuchman examines the crisis of the Late Middle Ages in her parallelistic, historical essay A Distant Mirror, where she states “corruption of society’s central institution, the Church, whose loss of authority and prestige deprived man of his accustomed guide in a darkening world”

The manipulations of the Bible and other texts aren’t an uncommon thing at all. Cult leaders can make use of the Bible for their own selfishness; however, unlike many other manipulations, the book “Malleus Maleficarum” focuses on women and witchcraft in the society during that period of time. Witchcraft has always been a concern during the early century as it is consider to be connected to evilness; people would judge this problem with prejudice viewpoints. Women aren’t being compared to men, but they are being used as a subject that is related to the Devil. Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger use the Bible in the “Malleus Maleficarum” to manipulate and accuse women to be witches under the spell of the Devil.

By contrast, the pagan-humanist tradition, with its pantheon of capricious and often morally suspect gods, upheld a highly public ideal of honor, whereby behavior could be regulated. Whereas guilt can be either private or public, shame is necessarily a public affair. Guilt, as much a theological as ethical construct, requires appropriate punishment, but shame requires simply appropriate action to eliminate its source. Without dwelling on these distinctions, however, Williams argues that in the early modern period these contradictory sets of values operated simultaneously, and it is this tension that informs the often contradictory treatment of rape in such texts as Titus Andronicus and Lucrece.

When a Catholic thinks of sin, the following questions come to his or her mind: Are my actions morally right? Am I disobeying God? Defying God’s rule is a sin, and seeking forgiveness is pivotal, mainly because it shows that one is aware that he or she has committed a sin, and therefore, he or she must seek redemption. For example, consider the following seven deadly sins: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth (“The Seven Deadly Sins,” 1). In Saint Augustine’s Confessions, readers get the chance to learn about sin through Saint Augustine’s experiences of sin confrontations and temptations. For instance, in Confessions, the pear tree is depicted as a sin, a symbol of pleasure—Saint Augustine’s original sin. How so? Well, stealing the pears with his friends is Saint Augustine’s first memory of sinning. Saint Augustine sees a parallel connection between the pear tree and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—the original sin. In this paper, the idea of sin in Saint Augustine’s story of the pear will be applied to Chaucer’s “Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale.” Thus, allowing readers to realize that the Pardoner embodies sin as Augustine defines it.

Arcangela Tarabotti, a Venetian nun and Early Modern Italian author, spent the vast majority of her life in an Italian convent writing texts centered on issues of forced enclosure and the patriarchy. Throughout her lifetime, she published five works, but one of her most poignant, Paternal Tyranny, spoke to these issues in a uniquely powerful way. Indeed, Tarabotti focused on three significant main points: the hypocrisy of putting daughters in convents, the problems with male patriarchy as a whole, and her own interpretation of the Bible. These points were presented with the help of several rhetorical strategies throughout the novel, such as, her ability to turn around popular claims about women and apply them to men, her strong use of references to the Bible and popular literary works, and her use of parables throughout the work to clearly give examples of her arguments, and many more. By exploring each of her arguments , we can see how she used these various rhetorical strategies to her advantage.

“It is worth pausing to consider why Jesus Christ chooses to use a church, His Church, to carry out His and His Father’s work.” – Elder D. Todd Christofferson

This subsequently allows audiences to understand the role of gender inequality in society and how it has historically permeated into literature. However, Atwood later acknowledges the restricting role feminism also played in the depiction of female characters in more modern literature. Atwood uses hypophora in order to direct the audience, “is it not today - well somehow unfeminist - to depict a woman behaving so badly? Isn’t bad behaviour supposed to be the monopoly of men?”, “Were women to be condemned to virtue for life, slaves in the salt-mines of goodness?”. This continued use of questioning catalyses a reflection upon the ironic idea that feminism, a movement created to equal the sexes, has supported a similar one-dimensional view of women as being solely good. In doing so Atwood ultimately challenges the audience’s view upon how female characters should be represented within literature, ultimately arguing for a barrierless approach which enables writers to explore the complex nature of female

John Jay College Research Team. (2004). The nature and scope of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests and deacons in the United States, 1950-2002. Washington, DC: United States Confer-ence of Catholic Bishops.