A tone analysis on Atonement In the novel, Atonement, Ian Mclean tells the tale of a young girl, Bryony Tall’s, and her efforts to live with a lie she told when she was 13 years old about her older sister’s boyfriend being involved with the raping of Briton’s cousin. This then sends Robbie, the accused, to prison and 3 years later, into the army. All this time Bryony is suffering with the consequences of her Jealousy stuck lie. Through Britons lie, Mclean demonstrates a tone of condemnation toward the family environment- irritating parenting in the sass’s.
While crafting the life of Bryony before the reader’s eyes, Mclean left a tone of condemnation toward Britons parent’s. Though the suffering of Bryony throughout the novel and her hardships personally on the subject of her lie, Mclean is internally critiquing the parenting style of the families in the sass’s. He is suggesting that without the child coming first with in the home and learning by the teaching of the parent’s, the child does not learn the moral and social values required to live a respectful and responsible life.
In this case, it is suggested the Bryony was not showed how to deal with her feelings and instead used her anger and Jealousy to formulate a lie. Mclean is demonstrating his distaste for the lack of teachings done in the homes of that sass’s. During this time, money was tight for most families and instead of thinking about the child’s moral and social tendencies they were concerned with health and wellbeing foremost. This led to a generation lacking the ability to act socially acceptable in society.
Thus contributing to Briton’s lie overall. The act of the lie itself is another critique toward the parenting of the sass’s. The fact that Bryony felt she needed to lie was a parenting problem. Bryony should have felt able to go tell an adult what she saw (the rape and other sexual activities) before she told a lie about the situation, changing many lives. Britons confused feels drove her to lie about something serious and it should have been handled at the adult level before a 13 year old got involved.
Mclean constructed this story to show that because of the lack of constructive parenting, children of this enervation will be lacking moral values and behavior. Britons immaturity toward the grave situation was caused by the lack of good parenting thus leaving the whole blame of the lie on her parent’s shoulders. With the lack of moral indecency from Bryony the novel’s plot took a turn for the worse. With Robbie in Jail and his innocence only being trusted by his girlfriend and mother, it was apparent that Bryony affected his life for the worse.
The use of Briton’s lie to add a tone of a tone of condemnation as laid out before the reader and used to criticize the parenting of the sass’s. Mclean wanted to show this to prove that the lie was not totally Britons fault, but the collective fault of her parent’s and the time she was raised in. Having never been taught how to manage her feelings, Bryony reacted in the only way she knew, the morally inapt.