Ian McEwan is treated to be one of the most important novelists

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Ian McEwan is treated to be one of the most important novelists writing in English. He studied with Malcolm Bradbury and August Wilson at the University of East Anglia, and he began winning awards early in his career. He won award for his historical novel Atonement. His book received the WH Smith Literary Award (2002), National Book Critics’ Circle Fiction Award (2003), Los Angeles Times Prize for Fiction (2003), and the Santiago Prize for the European Novel (2004). He was awarded a CBE in 2000. (CBE – Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) In 1935 briony lives in England in her family`s estate, she is 13 years old. She writes stories and for the celebration of her eldest brother homecoming she wrote the play Trials of Arabella and the thirteen year old girl want to performed the play at the family dinner together with her cousins. During that occasion starts the story atonement.Briony`s wrong way of understanding some events is the reason for the painful separation between Robbie and Cecilia, the wrong accuse of an innocent boy and the possible liberation of guilty. This is where the story opens on and describes the belated awareness for her destructive lie.At the beginning Briony is shown as an organized and neat girl, who wants to control everything. She wants to grow too fast, also her nurtured childhood is obvious when she gives so certain accusations that she really have seen Robbie raping Lola. Her opinion for Robbie became different when Briony came across at the lovers (Robbie and Cecilia) into the library. Earlier Robbie gave Briony a letter for Cecilia, the thirteen year old girl read it without permission and saw some inappropriate words, not understating that Robbie gave her the wrong one, make conclusions considering him a “maniac”. Based on these events Briony belives that she really has seen Robbie. Also by giving the accusations that was her attempt to feel important, in the limelight. She believes by giving the false information she had a chance to relive her dreams to be in the spotlight, just like in her play. Her crave for attention is also seen in the beginning when she thinks that she is the perfect fit for her play and don`t want to give Lola the main part of the play. This is confirmation for her need to feel older and mature enough to understand what is going on between Robbie and Cecilia, when in reality, she is nothing but a thirteen year old immature girl.In the years between Briony`s 13th year and 77th her life is shown to the readers as a story within a story. She choose to be a nurse to help the soldiers, over attending Cambridge and decided to become something more useful for the society, for the soldiers (Robbie is one of them). I think that Briony being a nurse is some kind of her atonement, a way to free from her guilty. She wrote the story Two figures by the fountain which is her attempt to tell the story and more importantly to admit to herself that she have done something destructive. She twisted the fate of two innocent and in love people, made their happy end impossible.In her book she made up the story about visiting her sister and Robbie In London, actually they both died in the war. In her story she gave them the “happy ending”, living by the ocean, in one charming “cottage in Wiltshire”(194). This act is her last attempt for atonement giving the two lovers a happy life which they deserve.