An Analysis Of Atonement From The Perspective Of Historiographic Metafiction

British novelist Ian McEwan ascends himself into a rank of eminent contemporary novelists.He excels at utilizing exquisite writing strategies,graceful languages and a profound discernment to explore humanity.His eighth novel Atonement,published in2001,which won him a considerable acclaim.The novel was awarded by the Booker Prize and was recognized as an effective influence in the literary world.Besides,it was praised as the bestseller in 2002 by Times magazine.This dissertation aims to analyze Atonement on the basis of historiographic metafiction to reveal Ian McEwan's narrative techniques and writing strategies.Meanwhile by analyzing historiographic features and metafictional features to add up“literariness” and permanently artistic glamour of Atonement.In Chapter I to Chapter III,it respectively describes a general introduction of Ian MacEwan and his works,literature review in Atonement from abroad and at home,and the theoretical framework about historiographic metafiction.In Chapter IV and Chapter V,the main body of this dissertation.The dissertation focuses on the historiographic features in Atonement from three aspects by adapting detailed textual analysis.Firstly,Atonement puts forward the challenge to the authority of history by deconstructing the life before the WWII and reconstructing history.Secondly,processing of and fleeing from history reflect characters' various attitudes toward history.Thirdly,in order to disclose the inherent defects in the traditional novels,the dissertation sets forth the reassessment of history and deals with some unsolved contradictions which are not answered by prior researches.Then,the metafictional writing strategies are expounded from three aspects.One,multiple narrative perspectives to interpret fabrication and authenticity,the old saying “seeing is believing” cannot be true in Atonement.Two,the inter-textuality,it compares three characters in Atonement with three biblical archetypes in The Holy Bible.Three,the dissertation probes into a “Chinese-box” structure —mise-en-abyme and disclosure,which aims to expose Ian McEwan's exquisite narrative techniques.And the last part summarizes the major findings.In Atonement,Ian MacEwan combines the narrative techniques and writing strategies of historiography and metafiction in an original way.The novel,with plenty of historical material,presents the possible world which is close to history.The use of these strategies not only provides readers with a broad reading space but also shows the plentiful expressive force of the text.This dissertation analyzes Atonement from theperspective of historiographic metafiction.It gives prominence to reveal the post-modern narration which is characterized as the combination of the fictionality and narrativity of history by interpreting the use of self-reflection,self-disclosure,and other skills in metafiction,as well as the way of revisiting and reconstructing history.Meanwhile,this dissertation finally puts forward its limitations in the process of researching and lists some suggestions and thoughts for future researches.