Study guide
Atonement - Context
These notes cover the main contextual points which are important when looking at McEwan's Atonement, both historical, literary and McEwan's own personal influences.
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Atonement – ContextPublished 2001
Inter-war years
• At the book’s beginning, World War I is still a relatively recent memory
• Part 1 is set in an idyllic English summer in a country house which seems far from any external threat – 1935
• A modern reader knows that war is on the horizon and this type of privileged lifestyle is under threat
Women (university, marriage)
• Both Cecilia and Briony become nurses – a stereotypically nurturing female role
• Despite Cecilia going to university – she didn’t get a proper degree
• Paul Marshall protects himself from the crime when he marries Lola, as she couldn’t be made to testify against
her husband
• Briony assumes that Robbie is using his force against Cecilia as she is a weak and defenceless woman
Class
• In 1935, the year Atonement begins, people were either upper-class, middle-class, or working-class
• The Tallis’ have new wealth but still look down upon the working class
• Social mobility was rare – but Robbie is given the opportunity to move from the working class to the middle class
through the patronage of Jack Tallis and his ambition to become a doctor
• Paul Marshall gains the aristocratic title of lord because of his wealth and influence
WW2
• World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. An estimated total 70-85 million people perished
• With the passage of time, the Second World War can be ‘reduced to names and dates, to some version of ‘the
reasonable view’ and ‘it falls to the novelist to bring it fully back to life’
Dunkirk
• Many soldiers in the British army held the RAF responsible for heavy losses to German air raids
• Over 3m British and 6m French troops were killed in Northern France
• Operation Dynamo – the planned evacuation to be carried out by a fleet of destroyers and merchant ships
and over 700 little ships. 332, 226 men were rescued from Dunkirk. It was deemed to be a stunning success and
was known as ‘the miracle of Dunkirk’ but there were 68, 111 casualties
• Soon after the evacuation of Dunkirk, France fell to Germany
Nurses
• A Civil Nursing Reserve was set up - 7000 trained nurses, 3000 assistant nurses and also nursing auxiliaries
• The auxiliaries were given fifty hours training in hospital before they started work. 6,200 from the Civil Nursing
Reserve were working in hospitals in June 1940
Blitz
• Sep 1940-May 1941
• 40,000–43,000 civilians dead, between ~46,000 and 139,000 injured
• Balham station was bombed on 14 October 1940 – 66 were killed. The novel actually misidentifies the date of
this event as September 1940
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