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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Metaphors
Explanation and Analysis—The Word:
Throughout Atonement, characters put substantial stock into the use and meaning of individual words. This motif is especially associated with Briony, who fixates on the power that specific words can have on the people who read and hear them. Throughout the first part, the narrator alludes to certain words by actively avoiding using them. Combining the motif of forbidden words with personification and metaphor, McEwan reproduces children's view of language.
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Metaphors
Explanation and Analysis—On the Beach:
At the end of the second part, the narrator describes the beach at Bray Dunes with a collection of similes and an allusions. After the dramatically depleting and seemingly endless trudge towards the coast, during which Robbie is barely able to remain conscious, this outburst of figurative language simulates his relief and hope at having made it to the Channel—but also his disorientation and struggle to make sense of everything around him.
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Metaphors
Explanation and Analysis—Divorce:
Over the course of the novel, particularly the first part, McEwan describes the world through the perspective of young people. In certain instances, the narrator abstracts ideas and concepts that children do not fully understand. McEwan describes one such concept—divorce—through layers of metaphor and personification in order to simulate how children might conceive of it. Through this figurative language, divorce becomes both a forbidden word and an abstract idea.
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Part 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Order and Disorder:
Early in the first part, McEwan develops Briony and Cecilia as foils for one another, which foreshadows their impending rift. The differences between the Tallis sisters—cemented through imagery, metaphors, and similes—fuel the motif of order versus disorder. Whereas Briony loves tidiness and regularity, Cecilia feels at home in the very opposite. McEwan connects Cecilia's cluttered room to her distaste for familiarity and her desire to break free from her family.
McEwan uses descriptions of the sisters' bedrooms to emphasize their differences. In the first chapter, the reader gets an impression of Briony through her personal space.
Unlock with LitCharts A+Whereas her big sister’s room was a stew of unclosed books, unfolded clothes, unmade bed, unemptied ashtrays, Briony’s was a shrine to her controlling demon: the model farm spread across a deep window ledge consisted of the usual animals, but all facing one way—toward their owner—as if about to break into song, and even the farmyard hens were neatly corralled.
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Part 1, Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Animal Migraine:
As the sixth chapter begins, the narrator follows Emily's thought patterns, taking the reader through a series of interrelated reflections and associations as the character skirts one of her chronic migraines. Throughout these reflections and associations, the narrator metaphorically presents Emily's migraine as an animal. It becomes clear that Emily herself understands this familiar pain as an animal and that she does everything in her power to keep from rousing it.
The animal comparison is first introduced through a metaphor:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She felt in the top right corner of her brain a heaviness, the inert body weight of some curled and sleeping animal. [...] It was important, however, not to provoke it; once this lazy creature moved from the peripheries to the center, then the knifing pains would obliterate all thought.
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Part 1, Chapter 13
Explanation and Analysis—Being Wrong:
When Lola is raped in the 13th chapter, Briony immediately steps in as the storyteller of the crime. Certain that Robbie did it, she gives herself the responsibility of making others think so too. As Briony experiences waves of doubt in the weeks and months that follow, a range of metaphors and similes capture the feeling of being wrong.
In one metaphor, McEwan describes Briony's conviction as a glazed surface and her uncertainty as blemishes and cracks:
Unlock with LitCharts A+As early as the week that followed, the glazed surface of conviction was not without its blemishes and hairline cracks. Whenever she was conscious of them, which was not often, she was driven back, with a little swooping sensation in her stomach, to the understanding that what she knew was not literally, or not only, based on the visible.
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Part 1, Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Being Wrong:
When Lola is raped in the 13th chapter, Briony immediately steps in as the storyteller of the crime. Certain that Robbie did it, she gives herself the responsibility of making others think so too. As Briony experiences waves of doubt in the weeks and months that follow, a range of metaphors and similes capture the feeling of being wrong.
In one metaphor, McEwan describes Briony's conviction as a glazed surface and her uncertainty as blemishes and cracks:
Unlock with LitCharts A+As early as the week that followed, the glazed surface of conviction was not without its blemishes and hairline cracks. Whenever she was conscious of them, which was not often, she was driven back, with a little swooping sensation in her stomach, to the understanding that what she knew was not literally, or not only, based on the visible.
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Part 3
Explanation and Analysis—Hospital as Battlefield:
The third part follows on the heels of a drawn-out and intense account of Robbie's experiences during the British retreat from France. As a result, the war is front and center in the reader's mind when the narration jumps into Briony's experiences at the hospital. Although the Battle of Britain has not yet begun and the direct violence of the war has not yet made it to England, the reader can't help but recognize military traces in Briony's training and work. McEwan gives rise to this by using metaphor and simile.
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