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AQA A-level English Literature: 'Atonement': To what extent is Robbie Turner a victim of circumstance?
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To what extent is Robbie Turner a victim of circumstance?On one hand, it can be postulated that Robbie Turner is a victim of
circumstance. Whilst on the other hand, it seems as a postmodern
metafictional novel, Briony exploits and victimises Robbie and he suffers
as a result of her being overpowered by her overactive imagination and
her misreading of the ‘fountain scene’. Alternatively, Finney argues that it
is a ‘succession of misinterpreted facts’ that lead to Robbie’s downfall, not
the malevolence of a neglected child. To explore this, we must ignore the
actions of Briony and perhaps, her mother, Emily Tallis, in addition to the
ineptitude of the police and the passivity of the other characters within
the novel, which may elucidate him as a victim of conspiracy. Despite this,
Briony’s position as a child and McEwan’s craft of determinism which lead
to the injustices of Robbie in 1935 and during the war, it is still plausible to
argue that Robbie is overall a victim of circumstance.
In part one of the novel, it could be argued that McEwan exploits the
theme of fate and the subsequent feeling of inevitability, culminating in
circumstances which make Briony’s crime inevitable. First, we must
question the protagonist’s age as we are initially told ‘Briony inhabited an
ill-defined space between the nursey and adult worlds which she crossed
and recrossed unpredictably’. Perhaps, McEwan points to the innocence of
Briony and lack of judgement that the misinterpretation promulgates,
resulting in Briony branding Robbie ‘a maniac’. With themes of adulthood
versus childhood playing an instrumental role in McEwan’s novels, for
example, ‘The Child in Time’, the readership can extrapolate how Briony’s
position on the brink of adulthood leads to her crime. Arguably, desperate
to be placed at ‘centre stage’, Briony incriminates Robbie in order to
impress adults. Furthermore, her motivations for accusing Robbie of
raping Lola are founded on a chain of misunderstandings. Initially, her
misinterpretation of the events at the fountain, involving Robbie and
Cecilia, ‘only chance had brought her to the window’, supports the notion
that Robbie is a victim of circumstance. In Briony’s ‘readerly’ writing style,
according to Barthes, she attempts to shape our reaction to Robbie in her
description, ‘raised his hand imperiously’. The positioning of the adverb
indicates Briony’s misunderstanding which catalyses her view of Robbie as
a ‘maniac’ making her crime possible. The potential avoidance of the
crime and underlying sense of chance gives credence to the view that
Robbie is a victim of circumstance.
Alternatively, it is also arguable that Briony’s apparent need to incriminate
Robbie presents him as a victim of conspiracy. Viewing Robbie as a victim
of Briony’s grudge against him is propounded by the pejorative epithet
‘maniac’ to label him as what she deems predatory. Perhaps, Briony
genuinely saw his actions as sadistic and callous due to her lack of
understanding. Moreover, Briony’s allusion to her protecting her sister,
‘she must first protect her sister’. The craft of the modal verb ‘must’
suggests her hero-like facets of character in an attempt to protect her
sister. However, as critic Lockney argues, Briony possesses a ‘serious
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