In Atonement, Ian McEwan suggests the dangers of confusing our fantasies with reality; that we are so accustomed to choosing to see what we wish to see rather than reality, which leads to the destruction of our lives. Our refusal to accept or want to see reality creates a cycle in which we alienate ourselves from others, just as Briony, Robbie, and Cecelia did. Briony lives in her stories, Cecelia lives in her mind, and Robbie lives in his memories. Eventually, they find themselves alone and yearn for a happy ending that is never offered to them. As human beings, we have a fundamental need for an answer. Even when we have limited information and perspective, we use our imagination to fill in the blanks to get an answer. Through gothic allusions and interchangeable points of view, McEwan highlights the damaging effects of getting lost in what we wish or hope to see while searching for an answer and ignoring reality. Imagination is wonderful to a certain extent: we must be able to recognize and accept reality, otherwise we will end up disappointed in situations with permanent consequences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay To begin, McEwan creates gothic allusions, notably with Briony, in which he reiterates the dangers of denying reality and always s 'expect a life that contains "hidden drawers, lockable diaries and cryptographic systems" or in this case, a constantly exciting and adventurous lifestyle. McEwan illustrates these dangers through Briony. Briony is apparently very mature and intelligent for her age, with a very wild imagination. While having imagination, goals, and desiring excitement isn't a mistake, Briony takes these qualities too far. As scholar Brian Finney puts it, “when she dramatizes her confusion between life and the life of fiction, the consequences are tragic and irreversible” (Finney, 69). This further suggests that Briony has taken her imagination too far and the reader is shown why this is catastrophic when she accuses Robbie of raping her cousin due to her overactive imagination. This calamitous event illustrates why we cannot depend too much on what we think or want to be real and deny actual reality. As human beings, it's in our innate nature to desire answers to everything, so naturally, when Briony sees her sister in a strange situation by the fountain, she searches for an answer. Even though Briony states, "It wasn't a fairy tale, it was the real world of adults...", we as readers can identify the irony in this statement as Briony allows her imagination to take over its logic (37). It is in this exact scene that McEwan shows readers how easy it is to get caught up in the thrill of a possible adventure or story. Life is not like a story in which a “woodcutter saved a princess from drowning and ended up marrying her” (36). If we constantly let our imagination and desire for excitement take over while searching for an answer, we will end up disappointed because life does not always offer excitement and adventure. Along with Briony, Robbie is an excellent example of the disappointment that can be experienced. if he becomes too immersed in what he wants to happen and ignores other possibilities. When Robbie is sent to war because of Briony's accusations, he spends his entire trip dreaming of seeing Cecelia again. He walks a great distance to the port of Dunkirk, convinced that once he reaches the beach his nightmares will be over. Thatexplicitly hints at gothic themes where there is always a happy ending. Robbie had “assumed that the stubborn spirit of the military…would prevail.” Without knowing it, it was the beach he had been walking towards for days” (233). This implies that we expect a happy ending; that, as humans, we deserve to be rewarded with a happy ending for going through a difficult time. McEwan is not suggesting that we should always expect worse or look at life through a very negative lens. Instead, he urges the reader to be careful not to put too much faith in what we desire and hope, otherwise we might end up very disappointed like Robbie. Robbie trusts his desires and ends up extremely disappointed – “He thought he had no expectations – until he saw the beach” (233). Through these gothic “happy ending” themes presented in both Briony and Robbie, McEwan shows us why we must be careful not to confuse life and fiction based on our desires and need for response. Atonement's vacillating narrators give the reader insight into most of the characters' lives but it does not provide details of all events, leading the reader to infer certain situations. As scholar Kathleen D'Angelo puts it, "readers are confronted with a multiplicity of interpretations" (D'Angelo, 92). By creating a shifting narrative, McEwan shows his readers how easy it is to infer something when we have limited information. This leads us to rely on our imagination, which is precisely what got Briony into trouble. To show the similarities between Briony and the readers, McEwan first uses Lola's "rape". McEwan never explicitly states that it was Paul Marshall who raped Lola. He never states that she was raped. We infer that she was raped, and we assume that when Paul wakes up "uncomfortably aroused" after dreaming about his four younger sisters and her strange behavior at dinner, that it is he who must have raped Lola (57 years). While McEwan provides the reader with many strange examples suggesting that it was Paul Marshall who raped Lola, the oscillating narrator ensures that the reader is never sure which character committed the crime. – McEwan allows the reader to use their imagination to form hypotheses. As the reader does this almost without thinking, he becomes even more like Briony. In "Part One" of Atonement, Briony is described as a girl who "wants a harmonious, organized world" and "chaos and destruction were too chaotic for her liking, and she didn't have it in her to do so." 'be cruel'. (5). Like Briony, most readers do not intend to assume and overuse the imagination – it happens unconsciously like Briony. Briony has a limited perspective, so she uses her imagination to fill in the gaps. She sincerely believes his version of events, just as the reader sincerely believes that Paul Marshall was the rapist. McEwan makes us hate Briony but also shows us that as readers we tend to do the same things as the flawed character. The wavering narrator not only causes the reader to make inferences about Paul Marshall, but the limited information also causes the reader to make inferences. exactly what Ian McEwan is warning against. As mentioned earlier, it is human nature to use one's imagination to infer answers when the information is not explicit. At the end of part three, Briony is finally happy because Robbie and Cecelia are together and in love, despite her false accusation. She claims that neither she nor "the war had destroyed him" (330), an end. 290-305.