As a result of Briony’s lie or half-lie, Robbie’s life is ruined: arrested, found guilty and sent to prison, he joins the army in exchange for an early release and dies of septicaemia during the Dunkirk retreat. Gradually realizing her mistake, she nevertheless does not say anything to exonerate him. In Atonement by Ian McEwan, the title refers, or so is the most immediate explanation, to the young heroine’s ‘crime’ as, still a child, she more or less clearly identified an innocent young man, Robbie, the cleaning lady’s son, as her cousin’s rapist. Ruination is therefore something that cannot be atoned for. We cannot make amends for what we ruin’ (Ginsberg 287, my emphasis). 1In his very personal book on ruins, The Aesthetics of Ruins, Robert Ginsberg notes that ‘uin is no mere injury or reparable damage, not minor error or temporary setback.
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