Narrating Identity: “Former Selves” and Metafiction in Ian McEwan’s Atonement
-
Olaya López Muñoz
Abstract
From the very beginning of history, the quest for identity has been a recurrent topic for human beings and it has been consistently woven into stories and narratives. This paper attempts to prove that the narrative form and the characters’ identity are two themes closely related in Ian McEwan’s Atonement, so it studies the development of some characters throughout the different parts of the novel. It argues that Dan P. McAdam’s six principles about ‘narrative identity’ can be applied to the character of Briony Tallis and her understanding of herself, which is the reason why the characters she creates as an author have the same approach towards their identity. The article also proposes a narratological analysis about the conflict between the story and discourse, the different layers of fiction imbricated within the work and the effect that the last chapter has on the implied reader. It thereby aims to combine both narratology and personal psychology development to understand the effect created by the partial breaking of the fiction agreement at the end of the novel.
Works Cited
Beswick, David. 2007. “Identity: A Psychological Perspective”. Introductory Paper Presented at the Christian Identity and the Public Square Seminar, 17 March. Melbourne: Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne. <https://www.beswick.info/psychres/IdentityPsychIntro.htm> [accessed 03 February 2023].Search in Google Scholar
Birke, Dorothee. 2016. Writing the Reader: Configurations of a Cultural Practice in the English Novel. Berlin: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110399844Search in Google Scholar
Carlson, Rae. 1982. “Studies in Script Theory: II. Altruistic Nuclear Scripts”. Perceptual and Motor Skills 55.2: 595–610.10.2466/pms.1982.55.2.595Search in Google Scholar
Chatman, Seymour. 1978. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. New York: Cornell University Press.Search in Google Scholar
D’Angelo, Kathleen. 2009. “‘To Make a Novel’: The Construction of a Critical Readership in Ian Mcewan’s Atonement”. Studies in the Novel 41.1: 88–105.10.1353/sdn.0.0058Search in Google Scholar
Denzin, Norman. 1989. Interpretive Biography. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.10.4135/9781412984584Search in Google Scholar
D’Hoker, Elke. 2006. “Confession and Atonement in Contemporary Fiction: JM Coetzee, John Banville, and Ian McEwan”. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 48.1: 31–43.10.3200/CRIT.48.1.31-43Search in Google Scholar
Eco, Umberto. 2009. “On the Ontology of Fictional Characters: A Semiotic Approach”. Σημειωτκή-Sign Systems Studies 37.1–2: 82–98.10.12697/SSS.2009.37.1-2.04Search in Google Scholar
Finney, Brian. 2004. “Briony’s Stand Against Oblivion: The Making of Fiction in Ian McEwan’s Atonement”. Journal of Modern Literature 27.3: 68–82.10.1353/jml.2004.0073Search in Google Scholar
Fludernik, Monika. 1996. Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge.10.1515/jlse.1996.25.2.97Search in Google Scholar
Fludernik, Monika. 2009. An Introduction to Narratology. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203882887Search in Google Scholar
Gallagher, Catherine and Stephen Greenblatt. 2000. Practising New Historicism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 10.7208/chicago/9780226772561.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Gregg, Gary. 1991. Self-Representation: Life-Narrative Studies of Identity and Ideology. New York: Greenwood Press.Search in Google Scholar
Holy Bible: New American Standard Bible. 2020. LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.Search in Google Scholar
Hutcheon, Linda. 1989. “Historiographic Metafiction Parody and the Intertextuality of History”. In: Patrick O’Donnell and Robert Con Davis (eds.). Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press. 3–32.Search in Google Scholar
Iser, Wolfgang. 1978. The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. London: Johns Hopkins University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Kehler, Barbara. 2011. “Ambivalent Ambivalence: Cecilia’s Monological and Dialogical Subjectivity in Ian McEwan’s Atonement”. In: Ada Raev, Margarete Wagner-Braun and Iris Hermann (eds.). Kolloquium 2011: Beiträge Bamberger Nachwuchswissenschaftlerinnen. Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press. 67–111.Search in Google Scholar
Martinez, Matías. 2020. “Authenticity in Narratology and in Literary Studies”. In: Monika Fludernik and Marie-Laure Ryan (eds.). Narrative Factuality: A Handbook. Berlin: De Gruyter. 521–532.10.1515/9783110486278-036Search in Google Scholar
McAdams, Dan P. 1996. “Personality, Modernity, and the Storied Self: A Contemporary Framework for Studying Persons”. Psychological Inquiry 7.4: 295–321.10.1207/s15327965pli0704_1Search in Google Scholar
McAdams, Dan P. 2008. “Personal Narratives and the Life Story.” In: Oliver P. John, Richard W. Robins and Lawrence A. Pervin (eds.). Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research. New York: Guilford Press. 242–262.Search in Google Scholar
McEwan, Ian. 2014. Atonement. London: Everyman’s Library.Search in Google Scholar
Meretoia, Hanna. 2014. “Narrative and Human Existence: Ontology, Epistemology, and Ethics”. New Literary History 45.1: 89–109.10.1353/nlh.2014.0001Search in Google Scholar
Phelan, James. 2017. “Narrative Theory, 2006–2015: Some Highlights with Applications to Ian McEwan’s Atonement”. Frontiers of Narrative Studies 3.1: 179–201. 10.1515/fns-2017-0011Search in Google Scholar
Ramin, Zohreh and Fatemeh Masoumi. 2014. “In Search of True Identity: The Mutual Relationships of Human Beings in Ian McEwan’s Atonement and Enduring Love”. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences 33: 92–100.10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.33.92Search in Google Scholar
Ricoeur, Paul. 1988. “L’identité Narrative”. Esprit 7–8: 295–304.Search in Google Scholar
Ricoeur, Paul. 1991. “Narrative Identity.” Philosophy Today 35.1: 73–81.10.5840/philtoday199135136Search in Google Scholar
Sedláková, Eva. 2016. “Introduction and Identification Chains in Ian McEwan’s Novels”. In: Gregory J. Bell and Katarína Nemčoková (eds.). From Theory to Practice: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Anglophone Studies. Zlín: Univerzita Tomáše Bati ve Zlíně. Search in Google Scholar
White, Hayden. 1980. “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality”. Critical Inquiry 7.1: 5–27. 10.1086/448086Search in Google Scholar
Worthington, Kim L. 2013. “Creative Confession: Self-Writing, Forgiveness and Ethics in Ian McEwan’s Atonement”. In: Claudia Holler and Martin Klepper (eds.). Rethinking Narrative Identity: Persona and Perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. 147–169.10.1075/sin.17.09worSearch in Google Scholar
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- ‘I Am the King Himself’: Lear, Seneca and the New Augustus
- Gertrude Atherton’s WWI Propaganda to the Home Front: Mrs. Balfame, The Living Present and The White Morning
- Times Out of Joint: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
- Narrating Identity: “Former Selves” and Metafiction in Ian McEwan’s Atonement
- “The Famous Republic of Shepherds” (Hall 2015: 382–383): Sarah Hall’s Alternative Pastoral Trajectory in Haweswater (2002) and The Wolf Border (2015)
- Playing on the Expectations: Seth’s It’s a Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken (1993–1996) as Graphic Autofiction
- Reviews
- Juliette Vuille. 2021. Holy Harlots in Medieval English Religious Literature: Authority, Exemplarity, and Femininity. Cambridge: Brewer, 297 pp., 3 b/w illus., £ 65.00 | $ 95.00.
- Harry Parkin (ed.). 2021. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, xxx + 1010 pp., ₤ 80.00 / $ 125.00.
- Elaine Auyoung. 2018. When Fiction Feels Real: Representation and the Reading Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 164 pp., £59.00.
- Mireia Aragay, Cristina Delgado-García and Martin Middeke (eds). 2021. Affects in 21st-Century British Theatre: Exploring Feeling on Page and Stage. London: Palgrave Macmillan, xi + 288 pp., 1 illustr., € 58.84/£ 52.03/$ 63.32.
- Ralf Haekel (ed.). 2017. Handbook of British Romanticism. Handbooks of English and American Studies 6. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, x + 715 pp., 25 illustr., € 250.00.
- Stefan Helgesson, Birgit Neumann and Gabriele Rippl (eds.). 2020. Handbook of Anglophone World Literatures. Handbooks of English and American Studies 13. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, ix + 580 pp., 2 fig., € 240.00/£ 211.00/$ 241.99.
- George Gissing. 2022. Veranilda, A Story of Roman and Goth. Edited and Introduced by Markus Neacey. Grayswood: Grayswood Press, 416 pp., 1 illustr., 2 maps, £17.50.
- Jens Beutmann, Martin Clauss, Cecile Sandten and Sabine Wolfram (eds . ). 2022. Die Stadt: Eine gebaute Lebensform zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft. CHAT Chemnitzer Anglistik/Amerikanistik Today 10. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 315 pp., 39.50 €.
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- ‘I Am the King Himself’: Lear, Seneca and the New Augustus
- Gertrude Atherton’s WWI Propaganda to the Home Front: Mrs. Balfame, The Living Present and The White Morning
- Times Out of Joint: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
- Narrating Identity: “Former Selves” and Metafiction in Ian McEwan’s Atonement
- “The Famous Republic of Shepherds” (Hall 2015: 382–383): Sarah Hall’s Alternative Pastoral Trajectory in Haweswater (2002) and The Wolf Border (2015)
- Playing on the Expectations: Seth’s It’s a Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken (1993–1996) as Graphic Autofiction
- Reviews
- Juliette Vuille. 2021. Holy Harlots in Medieval English Religious Literature: Authority, Exemplarity, and Femininity. Cambridge: Brewer, 297 pp., 3 b/w illus., £ 65.00 | $ 95.00.
- Harry Parkin (ed.). 2021. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, xxx + 1010 pp., ₤ 80.00 / $ 125.00.
- Elaine Auyoung. 2018. When Fiction Feels Real: Representation and the Reading Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 164 pp., £59.00.
- Mireia Aragay, Cristina Delgado-García and Martin Middeke (eds). 2021. Affects in 21st-Century British Theatre: Exploring Feeling on Page and Stage. London: Palgrave Macmillan, xi + 288 pp., 1 illustr., € 58.84/£ 52.03/$ 63.32.
- Ralf Haekel (ed.). 2017. Handbook of British Romanticism. Handbooks of English and American Studies 6. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, x + 715 pp., 25 illustr., € 250.00.
- Stefan Helgesson, Birgit Neumann and Gabriele Rippl (eds.). 2020. Handbook of Anglophone World Literatures. Handbooks of English and American Studies 13. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, ix + 580 pp., 2 fig., € 240.00/£ 211.00/$ 241.99.
- George Gissing. 2022. Veranilda, A Story of Roman and Goth. Edited and Introduced by Markus Neacey. Grayswood: Grayswood Press, 416 pp., 1 illustr., 2 maps, £17.50.
- Jens Beutmann, Martin Clauss, Cecile Sandten and Sabine Wolfram (eds . ). 2022. Die Stadt: Eine gebaute Lebensform zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft. CHAT Chemnitzer Anglistik/Amerikanistik Today 10. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 315 pp., 39.50 €.
