The Inheritance And Innovation Of Traditional Initiation Story In Ian Mcewan’s Atonement

Ian McEwan,as one of the most distinguished contemporary British novelists,earns worldwide critical acclaim and is hailed as "Our National Author" by English critics.Atonement is regarded as the best work of Ian McEwan which earned him many prizes.Atonement tells a story of a13 year-old girl who learns the meaning of atonement.In terms of literary genre,Atonement can be defined as an initiation story.Compared with traditional initiation story,it is evident that Atonement contains not only many conventional features of the genre,but also many innovations.Through the comparative method,the thesis analyzes Ian McEwan’s inheritance and innovation of traditional initiation story on the basis of the theory of European initiation story.This thesis consists of five chapters.The first chapter introduces Ian McEwan’s life experiences,the major plot of Atonement,current research status of Atonement at home and abroad and the significance of this thesis.The second chapter briefly introduces the theory of European initiation story from its origin,definition and typical features.The third and the fourth chapter are the main body of the thesis,giving separate analyses the inheritance and innovation of traditional initiation story in Atonement.The third chapter deals with McEwan’s inheritance of traditional initiation story in Atonement.This chapter examines the features of the growth pattern and autobiographical elements in the traditional initiation story and explores how McEwan adopts this tradition in Atonement.The fourth chapter analyzes McEwan’s innovations of traditional initiation story in Atonement.This chapter deals with how Atonement transcends the traditional initiation story on writing background,characters,narrative structure and ending.The last chapter is the conclusion of the thesis.Atonement is a typically initiation story about the growth of adolescents.Because of its special writing background and the writer’s personal experiences,Atonement not only inherits traditional initiation story on growth pattern and autobiographical elements but also makes innovations on narrative structure and ending,reflecting its unique artistic charm.The European initiation story offers a new perspective to study Atonement and the study further proves Ian Mcewan’s important contributions to modern English literature.