Some reflections on Ian McEwan's atonement: enactment, guilt, and reparation.
Recognizing that enactments have been discussed in psychoanalysis primarily as occurrences in the treatment setting, the author proposes a new application of the term enactments: that it may pertain to the actions of some individuals in their efforts to cope with bad things that they have done to others. That is, enactment can be a substitute-for-atonement mechanism. The author illustrates this view of enactment through a discussion of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement (2001), and in particular by examining the behavior and motivations of one of its central characters, Briony Tallis. Included are explorations of the relationships between enactment and guilt and between enactment and reparation.
Training Analyst of the Israel Psychoanalytic Society.
Ilany
I
Kogan
D000184:Acting Out; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D004645:Empathy; D005195:Family Relations; D005201:Fantasy; D005260:Female; D061347:Forgiveness; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D008093:Literature, Modern; D008297:Male; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D011678:Punishment / Q000523:psychology; D013359:Sublimation, Psychological; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology; D047789:World War II
Enactment; Ian McEwan; World War II; atonement; creative writing; false accusation; family dynamics; forgiveness; guilt; primal scene; reparation; sublimation; triangularity