| Ian McEwan (1948- ) is a postmodern British author of eight novels and several collections of short stories, plays, screenplays, and an oratorio. McEwan utilized many techniques in the novel Atonement published in 2001 and the novel is recently recognized as the most honored novel of post modernism. Atonement (2001) of Ian McEwan testifies that life is the most uncertain and uncontrollable thing that anyone attempting to conquer it is doomed to fail. This dissertation explores the ways in which McEwan locates indeterminacy in Atonement on narrators, characters, plot, as well as structure. The first chapter deals with the indeterminacy of narrators. In Atonement, the author changes freely from third person to first person. Even in the text with the third-person voice, the point of view frequently shifts. The identities of the narrator, reader, and author are not clear. Chapter two describes the indeterminacy in plot. The author did everything possible to undermine the expectation of the reader in constructing a fictional universe. Chapter three illustrates the indeterminacy in structure. Atonement is not presented in the traditional chronological way and the places shift before readers realize it. Chapter three is an illustration of the structure of Atonement which is not linear or determinate. Through a complete fiction, Briony can not find atonement because she controls the happening of everything and no one is superior to her. Life is much more absurd and full of twists and turns which is just like the postmodern fiction in the sense that nothing is determined.
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