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A* Atonement Exemplar Essay 2
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'Atonement offers us no heroes and no villains - only victims' To what extent do you agree with this view?
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Atonement practice essay 2'Atonement offers us no heroes and no villains - only victims' To what extent do you agree
with this view?
Plan
1. YES; Robbie is the ultimate victim, all of the characters commit crimes against
him, so terrible that Briony has to atone for the rest of her life, 'nothing that can
be can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes' accentuates his
position as the victim, not a hero because of urge to join in the suffering of the
RAF man
2. NO; Robbie is a hero, Briony presents him as being utterly perfect with his
masculinity, intelligence, and philanthropy in teaching the French kids and
helping the innocent on the Western Front, even feels guilty for things out of his
control, theme of guilt
3. NO; Paul Marshall is the villain, he has the evil physiognomy and predatory
qualities, he allows Robbie to suffer the consequences of his own actions,
manipulates Lola's desperation to make her seem villainous at the end also
4. YES/NO; Lola is a victim of Paul therefore, her life is ruined and mapped out for
her due to his crime, BUT is she not a willing partner in the sexual activity with
Paul, her age means legally she is not, link to Lolita
5. YES/NO; Briony's family, Leon initially seems heroic ('like the hero') but proves
completely ineffectual, Emily is more of a villain in that she makes Briony a
victim of her negligence, suddenly 'free of migraine' is very ironic, malicious
intent due to class
6. YES; Briony tries to make herself seem like a villain with atonement, but we can
forgive her honourable intentions at the end to a great extent
7. Conclusion: there are definitely villains but no complete heroes, even Robbie, but
he is certainly a victim like Lola, all comes down to Briony's narration
Response
Arguably, the layered and inter-connected transgressions of the vast majority of
the characters in Atonement make it incredibly difficult to designate 'hero' or 'villain'
status to anyone, and instead they often lie somewhere in between this somewhat
childish distinction. A better means of distinguishing between the characters would
perhaps be criminals and victims, given that we have clear victims in Robbie and Lola,
then one predominant criminal in Paul Marshall (and possibly Briony). Nevertheless,
Robbie's portrayal as a figure of philanthropy and integrity, juxtaposed with Marshall's
image as an unrepentant rapist, could be sufficient to warrant the distinction between
heroes and villains, especially if we consider Briony's endeavour to glorify Robbie's life
as part of her wider attempt to atone for her crime.
One could argue that our overall perception of Robbie's character is that he is a
likeable victim of a false accusation, but with the realistic flaws we would expect of all
characters in McEwan's works, with critics remarking on the author's 'macabre' style
and unsentimental depictions of reality. His position as a victim seems indisputable as
all of the characters (with the exclusion of Cecilia and his mother), including the
judiciary, commit a common crime against him; they are all completely ineffectual in the
prevention of Robbie's 'eternal damnation' by way of the sole testimony of a 13-year-old
girl. The injustice culminates in the harrowingly pitiful image of Grace Turner berating
them all as 'liars', and this word is repeated several times in an exclamative tone at the
end of Part One to emphasise the damning nature of the false imprisonment which will
come to doom Robbie's life forever. In McEwan's classic style (as seen also in Enduring
Love and The Child in Time), he provides an insight here into the way in which a man can
lose their dreams and happiness in just one day of their life due to crime, and so he
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