A Study On Atonement From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

Atonement (2001) is a masterpiece of Ian McEwan (1948-), one of the most outstanding contemporary British writers. The novel epitomizes the situations of the British upper-middle class before and during the outbreak of the Second World War and the disastrous aftermath brought by the war. It arouses a heated discussion in the critic circle. Most of the critics are concerned with multiple perspectives of the same event, truth and fictionality, and intertextual and metafictional elements of the novel. Its peculiar writing techniques are discussed most frequently while its intention of social criticism that lies behind its writing techniques is often neglected. The thesis is aimed at analyzing the causes and influences of the traumatic events of the protagonists, further probing into the writer’s criticism of social problems and the measures people can take to cope with and survive traumatic events.In Atonement, McEwan gives a detailed description of the traumatic experiences of the protagonists. These traumatic events repeat compulsively in an unassimilated and incomprehensible way. The causes of these traumatic events are not only the characters’ personal factors but also their family issues and social problems. These problems, foregrounded by the novel, keep plaguing the British society for decades. Moreover, the individual traumas of the protagonists can be subsumed into the background of the Second World War, which worsens traumatic experiences. From what they have gone through, the collective trauma of the nation is made more obvious.Traumas are not merely limited to physical wounds. They also have terrible influences on the victims’ psychological intactness and human relationships with others. The collective trauma could even damage larger communities. In Atonement, the victims’ traumatic experiences, with their "belated appearance" and "compulsive repetition", keep invading the victims in forms of traumatic memories. The invasions also represent the inescapability of the traumatic history. The traumatic events influence not only the victims’ individual recognitions but also their basic human relationships with other people. Similar to the fact that individual trauma and collective trauma are closely linked, the traumatic influences on the individuals and the British society also intertwine and leave indelible imprints on the whole nation.How the traumatized ones recover from traumas is another important topic of trauma study. In Atonement, McEwan also depicts how the protagonists try to recover from their traumatic past. The traumatized ones spare no effort to understand the past, rebuild connections with the outside world, and connect the past with the present in a meaningful way through writing. In the face of the inescapable and inerasable traumatic past, the protagonists get rid of their previous views and attitudes and get a deeper understanding of themselves, their families and the whole society.Atonement can be regarded as McEwan’s criticism of the social problems of the British society. The "inaccessibility" and "incomprehensibility" of the traumatic events represent the seriousness of the social problems. These problems and the inescapability of the traumatic past further worsen the negative impacts on psychological fitness and human relationships. The measures taken by the protagonists are the approaches proposed by McEwan to get rid of the daily dilemma and gain a deeper understanding of the past and the surroundings.