Compare and Contrast the Ways in Which Alan Bennett and Ian Mcewan Each Suggest the Difference in Attitude and Apprehension Between the Generations.

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The History Boys and Atonement ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ “Youth and age regard each other with mutual incomprehension.” Compare and contrast the ways in which Alan Bennett and Ian McEwan each suggest the difference in attitude and apprehension between the generations. ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ The generational gulf can be difficult to overcome. In both Atonement and The History Boys we see how the young and the old misinterpret each other and find difficulty in understanding each other’s point of view. From Briony’s misunderstanding of Robbie and Cecilia’s interaction at the fountain, to Hector and Irwin refusing to attempt to understand each other, it is made clear the division of age is an enormous obstacle. Though more than that, it appears that people are simply too different and varied to reach a point of understanding and the difference between generations is amplified as people age making it more difficult still to make sense of the people around oneself. One of the clearest examples of this inability to understand another generation is Briony’s continued incapability to grasp the adult world she is on the cusp of entering. Briony is at a critical age in development, she is just old enough to believe she is “entering the arena of adult emotion” though, as is repeatedly illustrated, this could not be farther from the truth. For example, while observing Robbie and Cecilia at the fountain, and, more specifically, Robbie with his "feet apart and head held back," her immediate, and mistaken, reaction is that she is witnessing "a proposal of marriage," which the reader is undoubtedly meant to understand is the kind of story we would hear in fairy tales. After all, fairy tales are Briony’s point of reference. As a thirteen-year-old girl, her experiences of the adult world have simply been fairy tales and nursery rhymes, "she herself had written a story in

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