Memory And Redemption:on The Doubling In Ian McEwan’s Atonement

Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement has been a research hotspot for critics since it was published in2001. Reviewers and critics of various literary schools at home and abroad analyzed it widely from different perspectives by employing different theoretical approaches. However, there were few studies conducted on the phenomena of doubling implied in the novel. This paper is based on a series of literary theories about "double", doing research on two categories of doubling in the text of Atonement:character-doubling and textual doubling, combined with Bakhtin’s theory of chronotope and Genette’s narratology.On the one hand, there are many characters of distinct personalities in the text, which form pairs of potential doubles in terms of identity, disposition or experience and sufferings. These paired characters can be roughly divided into three categories. In the first category, characters who own the ties of kinship form the double. The interior relations of doubles lie between fathers (Jack and Ernest), between mother and daughter (Emily and Briony, Hermione and Lola), between sisters (Briony and Lola). The second category is composed by characters from different social strata. The master and the servant (Leon and Robbie), the dignitary and the civilian (Marshall and Robbie, Danny), the individual and the community (a short soldier wearing glasses and the RAF) are doubles. The third category is special in that "the double" is not the real person. Arabella, the protagonist in the drama is the double of Briony and the French boy whose leg hangs on the tree is the double of Robbie.On the other hand, doubling in Atonement is also embodied by "textual doubling" and the following three aspects are chosen in the respect of their importance from the minor to the primary. To begin with, McEwan reveals the doubtful points of the chocolate magnate Paul Marshall who is ignored by everyone through multiple perspectives at a slow narrative pace as detective fiction usually does, thus leading the readers to observe, listen, cogitate and judge independently in order to identify the rape suspect instead of exposing the real culprit directly. As the war isn’t merely the background of the novel, it reinforces the sin of Briony and the others and leads to the tragic fate of Robbie and Cecilia, McEwan depicts the cruelty of the Second World War through experiences of different characters in the first three sections (the long monologue of Paul Marshall and the official documents of Jack; Robbie’s witness of appalling scenes on the French battlefield; Briony’s experience as a probationer nurse in the London hospital), in which McEwan mocks the blind patriotic "Dunkirk Spirit" and edifies the masses on treating the history rationally. Furthermore, the redemption Briony seeks all her life originates from the lie she fabricated at the age of13in her memory. She doesn’t do so out of malice but she is trapped in the fever of enthusiasm of secret, order and writing. And the overactive literary imagination makes no contribution to helping her interpret the subtlety of the adult world but causes great danger ("the fountain event";"the obscene letter";"the sexual attack in the library"). McEwan represents textual doubling by using narrative repetition, making important scenes and events recur from various perspectives of different characters and form a temporal echo and spatial mapping.Through a detailed analysis and interpretation of the two aspects of doubling above, the author not only tries to provide a new perspective to explore the profundity of human psychology and human nature which are revealed in Atonement but also manages to prove McEwan’s power of artistic creation and his strong sense of social responsibility.