Perspectives

Literary perspective

Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement can be considered a postmodernist work of fiction. Postmodernist literature is highly experimental and often mixes genres and styles and plays with regular storytelling norms. This can also be seen in the novel Atonement in different ways.

Firstly, a characteristic of postmodernism is the use of metafiction. Metafiction is a stylistic device through which the author makes the readers aware that what they are reading is a fictional story. In Atonement, this is done mostly through the postscript in which Briony reveals that she is the real author of the autobiographical novel. Moreover, she also reveals that she has changed several aspects of the story from what happened in reality. 

This also proves that Briony is an unreliable narrator, which is also a feature of postm...