Thursday, December 1, 2011

"She was one of those children possessed by the desire to have the world just so" (4).

In reading Peter Matthew's article "The Impression of a Deeper Darkness: Ian McEwan's Atonement "I found a passage that not only endorsed my earlier observations of the plot of the novel coinciding with the atrocities of WWII, but went a step further, likening Briony's obsession with order and her subsequent guilt at her crime to the rise and fall of Nazi Fascism:

In considering these economic relationships, the reader must also take into account that Briony's "debt," her "crime," as McEwan calls it throughout the novel, is framed by the context of World War II. McEwan brilliantly interweaves the family drama with the movement of history, making each set of crimes reflect on the other. In terms of sheer atrocity, the war easily dwarfs Briony's misdeed, but the reader never loses sight of her shameful action. For a novel that draws from some of the key historical events of the twentieth century, however, there is surprisingly little discussion of the Nazis or the rise of fascism. McEwan implies, instead, that the fascist mindset has pervaded modern culture at a much deeper, unconscious level...Briony's interest in writing, to provide a further example, is tied to a fascistic obsession with order. McEwan writes: "She was one of those children possessed by the desire to have the world just so" (4). The point is not that Briony simply reflects the fascist mindset, even though her childish but calculating nature would seem to fit the stereotype. Instead, the narrative of Atonement ends up being an account of Briony's lifelong struggle with her internal attraction to fascism—the "fascism in us all," as Michel Foucault calls it—with its external patterns of order and symmetry (xiii). [End Page 154] (https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/esc_english_studies_in_canada/v032/32.1mathews.html)
I found this comparison extremely interesting, yet slightly horrifying at the same time. It is difficult to compare the crime of a silly naive little girl to the Nazi atrocities committed during the war, however, Matthews does make a good point. Briony's thoughts and actions do parallel fascistic beliefs, and her actions in regards to Robbie could certainly be construed as such. Matthews even goes so far as to liken Briony's horror at Lola and the twins' portrayal of her play that was contrary to her expectations to the Nazi hatred of "impure races" and their subsequent "cleansing" of them through the final solution of mass murder. While I think this view may be a bit extreme, I suppose these parallels found by Matthews are accurate. In addition to likening the personal problems of these characters to the problems of the war, Matthews also explores the possibility of the unreliable narrator, Briony, changing the events of the story to placate her selfish interests - her need for secrets where in reality, none are to be found. I hope to return to this rather upsetting possibility at a later point.

Matthews, Peter. "The Impression of a Deeper Darkness: Ian McEwan's Atonement."Project Muse. 2006. Web. 1 Dec. 2011. <https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/esc_english_studies_in_canada/v032/32.1mathews.html>.

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