FICTION AS REALITY OR REALITY AS FICTION IN IAN MCEWAN’S “ATONEMENT”
FICTION AS REALITY OR REALITY AS FICTION IN IAN MCEWAN’S “ATONEMENT”

Summary/Abstract: “Atonement” definitely strikes as a complex, intricate narrative structure. Ian McEwan –the narrator, in fact - constantly plays with the readers, manipulating, deceiving, misleading them until the very end of the novel. Briony Tallis, an ailing, aged novelist finally owns having been the author all along. As a last, surprising ‘stratagem’ she even gives two completely different endings to her story, the fictitious one but also the ‘real’ one. Thus, “Atonement” is no longer just the story of guilt and expiation but a masterfully wrought novel about misinterpretation. This article endeavors to trace back the two threads: the fictitious and the ‘real’ one, which, in fact, is fiction as well.

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