Ethical Literary Criticism On Atonement

In2002, Ian McEwan published Atonement which attracted a lot of attention from readers and critics. It presents us Briony’s atonement in all her life for her false accusation at the age of thirteen.Ethical literary criticism is put forward by Chinese critics, which aims to explore the beauty, truth, virtue and sublimation in human’s relationships with society, others and oneself respectively. The thesis analyzes Atonement from the view of ethical literary criticism, which offers us a much broader mind in studying modern British literature.The thesis is mainly divided into four parts.Chapter One gives a brief introduction of the background and significance of the topic; a presentation of Ian McEwan, including his life, writing history, and literary achievements and the research on Atonement at home and abroad.Chapter Two analyzes three relationships of ethical literary criticism:the relationship between human and society, the relationship between human and others and the relationship between human and oneself. The basic theory will also be referred to in this part.Chapter Three focuses on the three relationships presented in Atonement. Firstly, truth in the relationship between human and society is shown by the author’s description about war and social class system. Additionally, love and hate entanglements among Briony, Cecilia and Robbie puts emphasis on the kindness in relationship between human and others. Finally, by analyzing Briony’s own atonement experience, the author intends to discover the holy existing in relationship between human and oneself.The last part is the conclusion which concludes main characters’ pursuits of truth, kindness and holy in three relationships respectively and discloses the implied ethical literary relationships under the veil of love tragedy which provides us a new perspective to research into the main characters’ growth. The thesis aims to awaken more people’s reflection on their own ethics as well.