Compare and contrast how McEwan and Fitzgerald make use of
intertextuality in the creation of ‘Atonement’ and ‘The Great Gatsby’. In
the course of your writing, make clear how your interpretation of the
texts has been influenced by other readers’ views as well as
consideration of relevant contextual factors.
Both F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ian McEwan take advantage of intertextuality to
unequivocally add nuance meaning into their novels, allowing the reader to explore
the power of the author’s words and what they represent. Intertextuality refers to
‘the relationship between texts and the conscious or subconscious reference or
application of a literary text’. That being said, both novels include a reference to
other literary texts that they have been influenced by on the prefix, each drawing
upon systematic ideologies and concepts yet to be discovered in the novel.
For instance, a letter from Jane Austen’s debut novel ‘Northanger Abbey’, written by
a character named Catherine Morland, is placed at the beginning of Atonement
reading:
‘Dear Miss Moreland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have
entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and age in
which we live. Remember that we are English: that we are Christians. Consult your
own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what
is passing around you.’
McEwan uses this extract to enforce the focal concept of the novel, the danger of
assumptions and, partially, disillusion along with the damage it incites. The plot of
this novel runs parallel with Atonement as Austen places a naïvely curious young
girl, similar to Briony, named Catherine Morland. The ‘dreadful nature of the
suspicions’ suggest her suspicions were implausible as they stemmed from an
unreliable observation where she knew just enough to draw a sudden conclusion. As
Catherine reads the letter from the extract above, she sheds ‘tears of shame’ similar
to how Briony does as she becomes more aware of the crime she commits, which
takes her a perilously long time to do so. It is evident that McEwan took inspiration
from Austen here, as the quote hints to the suspicions of the literary imagination as
Briony’s novelist mind claims ‘A world could be made in five pages’. Briony’s
imaginative ‘world’ insinuates that her love for writing could never dissipate as she
‘could not have held back from her writing’. The lexical syntax of ‘held back’
suggests physicality, signalling Briony’s passion for writing, and perhaps
foreshadowing the assault on Lola Quincey, executed by the diabolical character of
Paul Marshall in chapter eleven. The issue surrounding the attack is not heavily
weighted on Briony’s powerful imagination or her act of jumping to sudden
conclusions, but more so on the 20th century’s societal attitudes towards social class.
That being said, McEwan initially introduces the importance of social class using the
character of Robbie Turner. His working-class status results in him becoming the
, prime suspect of the assault on Lola, despite rescuing Jackson and Pierrot after their
escape.
Likewise, Briony’s childhood is described by McEwan as ‘in the dark’, which critics
believe to be a reference to the ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’, in particular the
poems ‘the lamb’ and ‘the tyger’. These poems juxtapose with each other as
metaphors of the innocence of childhood and the dark corruption that adult life
entails, which directly relates to the circumstances that Briony experiences. The
social status of Robbie is used to highlight the ignorance of the adults in the
situation, as they disregard the need for sufficient evidence to convict Robbie as they
readily accept the fact that a young, working-class boy committed such a heinous
crime, rather than accepting the prospect of alternative suspects. The conviction of
Robbie may have been premediated by those of a higher social status, and it can
even be argued that McEwan strategically placed this scene in his novel to critique
the state of the legal system leading up to the War. This method of thinking is
reinstated by Cecilia and Robbie, despite being two of the most educated and
rational characters, having both graduated from the University of Cambridge. They
are both convinced that Danny Hardman was the culprit; when Briony visits Cecilia
in part three, Cecilia insists ‘and if you [Briony] can remember anything at all about
Danny Hardman, where he was, what he was doing…’. The pronoun ‘anything’
suggests a tone of desperation, as Cecilia and Robbie have been waiting for their
time to pass the blame to Danny, an opinion formed by shamefully blaming the
proletariat, but ironically Robbie is one himself, before any just evidence is found.
In 2006, a literature professor named Peter D. Mathews of Centenary College
claimed a structural intertextual link within Atonement, ‘references to
Dante…scattered throughout the novel’ within his publication: ‘The Impression of a
Deeper Darkness: Ian McEwan’s Atonement’. Here he is alluding to Dante
Alighieri’s ‘The Divine Comedy’, which is a poem that recounts a journey through
the afterlife from Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise). An
interpretation of this view entails the progression of Robbie’s life; from ‘Inferno’ in
part one where he must bear the consequences of being accused of being a rapist
through, firstly imprisonment, and then being drafted into the War. Part two models
the idea of ‘Purgatorio’ where Robbie is forced, by the War, to reflect on his thoughts
and cleanse the attachment to the sin he was wrongfully accused of. The final
element of this structural link may have multiple interpretations, one being that
Robbie finishes his life in the romanticised ‘Paradiso’ with Cecilia that Briony
fabricated in the novel, or that his death from septicaemia would reunite him with
Cecilia in ‘Paradiso’ as she dies in the Balham Station bombing during the Blitz.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, on the other hand, refers to an intertextual quote from Thomas
Parke D’Invillers, a character from Fitzgerald’s ‘This Side of Paradise’. It reads:
‘Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
