An Interpretation Of Atonement From The Perspective Of Psychoanalysis

Ian McEwan(1948-)is a very remarkable writer in contemporary British literature forum.Atonement is Ian McEwan’s ninth work which was published in 2001.In 2002,this novel was given to many literary awards such as National Book Review Award and the Losangeles times Award.Atonement narrates the story about the lifetime repentance of the protagonist,Briony.McEwan describes how she commits a serious mistake at the age of thirteen,and then how she spends all her life to repent.Most of abroad and domestic scholars adopted theme,style and narrative perspectives to carry out their studies.However,they hardly analyzed this novel from psychoanalysis viewpoint.To further study the protagonist of this novel from the perspective of Freudian psychoanalysis,this thesis is born.To study the psychological changes of the character at different stages,Briony’s psychological activities,the process of ideological changes and the process of her hard atonement are analyzed in this study.This thesis is made up of three sections.The first part firstly introduces the author,Ian McEwan,and his main works,the presentation of the novel,Atonement,and then gives a brief analysis and general literature review of domestic and abroad researches.The second section is made up of four chapters.Chapter one fully states related theories: Freudian personality structure,the defense mechanism and the feasibility of these two theories in this paper.Chapter two provides an elaborate analysis of Briony’s id,that is,the inhibition of id and the release of id.Briony has to repress the love which is not accepted for all kinds of reasons.However,under the influence of her jealousy and revenge,she commits the unforgivable error.Briony’s superego is discussed in chapter three,which analyzes how her conscience affects her mentality and behavior,as well as the impossibility of atonement.Chapter Four elaborates the coordination capacity of Briony’s weak ego,meanwhile,the defense mechanism used by Briony is also explained in this chapter.The final part gives a summary about the whole thesis,which expounds the importance of keeping healthy personality structure as well as points out how to train and strengthen the ability of coordination.Through digging out Atonement from the perspective of Psychoanalysis,we can find and understand the weakness of our personality structure at different growth stages.The discoveries about weakness can stimulate us to better balance the relationships among id,ego and superego,which also help us gradually develop a kind of strong ego and keep a type of healthy and harmonious personality structure.So that we can go through our life happily.