The Impossible Salvation

Ian McEwan’s Atonement is a very good novel and it is nominated the2001Booker Prize. It is selected for “one of the top ten books in2002” by the New YorkTimes and the Times, moreover, it has the access to the National Book Award forPeople in the next year. However, many people study this novel from the angle ofmeta-fiction, narrative theory and historical novel. It is rare to analyze the novelfrom the perspective of aesthetics of reception, so it should be a new interpretationfo analyze the novel by readers criticism method. Atonement is a novel whichconsists of one novel and it is also a sad melody full of regret soul. In the fiction,Ian McEwan applied with unique narrative methods for the construction ofBriony’s imaginative world, so it is so attractive to readers and full of challenge. Inhis work, Briony’s imaginative world and real world are not only the epitome ofthe whole story, but also suggesting the return or the human nature, and all of theseare mysterious and rich in the eyes of readers. This paper mainly explains Briony’sroad of salvation which the author describes and analyzes that readers constructBriony’s atonement. In addiction, it discusses how readers unscramble the novel inthe call of the implied reader and on this basis explains the reason why the novel ispoplar with readers with the theories of the aesthetics of reception.This paper is divided into five parts: the first chapter of the text brieflyintroduces the author, the novel and the acceptance conditions of readers at homeand abroad to the novel. The second chapter focuses on response-inviting structurewhich the author sets up in the construction of Briony’s atonement. Readersactively participate in reading the novel, and finish the realization of the meaningby the use of content repository and textual strategy. Therefore, the third chapteranalyzes the uncertainty in construction of indeterminancy, and readers have ahand in fill in the “blanks” in the guidance of the implied reader. Thus, the fourth chapter dissects in depth reading process and implementation procedure of thesignificance when the when the author constructs Briony’s atonement. Finally, thelast part sums up that the construction of Briony’s atonement is completed underthe joint efforts of the author an readers, and the road of Briony’s atonement bringsabout people’s thought about human nature.