AN OBJECT RELATIONS PERSPECTIVE ON IAN McEWAN’S ATONEMENT: BRIONY’S CREATIVE APPERCEPTION IN LIGHT OF ATTACHMENT THEORY GENRE, AND NARRATIVE FORM

Year 2018, Volume: 20 Issue: 1, 253 - 266, 28.06.2018

Gamze Sabancı Uzun

https://doi.org/10.26468/trakyasobed.437687

Abstract

Ian McEwan'ın Atonement adlı eserinin odağı, Briony'nin onu çevreleyen
gerçekliğe hakim olma çabası üzerinedir. Bununla birlikte, Briony'nin
gerçeği, kendini romanın kahramanı olarak yeniden yaratmasınin nedeni
açısından bir boşluk oluşmuştur. Bu makale, gerçekliği ortadan kaldırarak
Briony'nin doğrudan romantizm türünün zeminini terk ettiğini ve Bildungsroman
türüne girdiğini öne sürürek, yazın türünün geleneklerini yıkmasının sebebini
kendi anlatılarını kontrol etme arzusu olmasını tartışacaktır. Makale aynı
zamanda romanın genelinde görülen bu kontrol takıntısının sebebinin de ise
Briony’nin kendini kahraman olarak yaratma isteği olduğunu savunacaktır.

Keywords

Atonement, Nesne ilişkisi, Yaratıcılık, Bildungsroman

AN OBJECT RELATIONS PERSPECTIVE ON IAN McEWAN’S ATONEMENT: BRIONY’S CREATIVE APPERCEPTION IN LIGHT OF ATTACHMENT THEORY GENRE, AND NARRATIVE FORM

Abstract

The general focus on Atonement
has been on Briony’s attempt to dominate the reality that surrounds her.
However, there is a gap in respect of Briony’s motive for subverting reality in
such a way that she can recreate herself as the heroine of her writing,
consequently allowing her to “dispel her insignificance” (McEwan 2001; 72). The
argument put forth in this article will be based around the suggestion that by
subverting reality, Briony directly leaves the ground of the romance genre and
enters the Bildungsroman genre. Thus, although Ian McEwan claims this to be his
“Jane Austen” novel, no heroine of that genre would come to the conclusion that
Robbie is a sex maniac and thus follow that narrative trajectory to its tragic
conclusion. It is the very tedium of her own “romantic” big-house existence,
which indeed resembles that of a Jane Austen novel, that leads Briony to
subvert the romance genre and thus assert her independence from her
environment. For a reader in a small urban house, the Tallis/Jane Austen
existence seems romantic, but for Briony in her large romantic house, it
represents the tedium of daily life, which she thus subverts to create some measure
of differentiation from her mother and her home context. As well as subverting
conventions, Briony’s projection of the “sex maniac” theory onto the narrative
can be interpreted as her urge to be creative and imaginative. She thus plays
with the conventions of the genre to demonstrate her primary creativity that
will allow her to gain control of her own narrative.

Keywords

Atonement, Object relations, Creativity, Bildungsroman

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