"Might she come between them in some disastrous fashion?" (302).

Briony's rejection letter is easily my least favorite part of the novel. While we don't really get to see Briony's original manuscript, from the author of the letter's description, I already despise it. It is criticized for being too much like Virginia Woolf's work - another author (like Austen) that I do not care much for. Her novels are much too long with much too little happening in them. There is too much description of how things look, how people feel, it's absolutely exhausting. Briony's first manuscript, which ends with the scene by the fountain, sounds a lot like this. In addition, there is absolutely no acknowledgement on Briony's part of what she did wrong, as the letter states, "Might she come between them in some disastrous fashion? (302). There is no acknowledgement of this at all in Briony's original manuscript, leading one to wonder why exactly she didn't include it. Was she too ashamed? Or, perhaps, did it even happen?

This rejection letter, especially the subtle inclusion of the letter's advice into the body of Briony's novel, leads the reader to seriously question the "truth" of the narrative. In Richard Robinson's article "The Modernism of Ian McEwan's Atonement" he addresses this issue:

"At the same time, however, we momentarily toy with the idea that that story has no foundational reality in Briony’s life, but actually originates in Connolly’s suggestions, including the changing of the vase (from Ming to Meissen [18]) and the piazza (from Navona to Barberini [24]). Thinking at this stage that Briony made it all up is, traditionally, an unhelpful fallback—though it will be rather useful in the long term. At the least a reminder, a proleptic warning about the novel’s formal status, is triggered here; we should not surrender too readily to the enchantments of realism. Aporetic questions will always haunt such moments. Was the “real” vase the un-lifelike Ming? Was there a vase? If not, was there a fountain? The furniture of realism can be changed or removed at a stroke." (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modern_fiction_studies/v056/56.3.robinson.html)

These changes definitely cause the reader to question the reality of Briony's narrative, especially in light of her highly imaginative nature as well as her need for secrets.


Robinson, Richard. "The Modernism of Ian McEwan's Atonement." Project Muse. 2010. Web. 3 Dec. 2011. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modern_fiction_studies/v056/56.3.robinson.html>.