Atonement - Reader Response Essay

1101 Words5 Pages
Reader Response: Paul Marshall Gap The Ian McEwing novel Atonement is a masterful work filled with numerous richly detailed characters. For me, the character of Paul Marshall piqued my interest because I did not know how he was going to fit into the plot of the story. My expectations for his character were the he would be a benign character written to give depth to a more central character, Celia. At first this assumption seemed to hold true, but then I read about Paul’s dream and everything starts to take on a different meaning and I felt the need to turn back to re-read the earlier passages about Paul to see if I missed anything. It is at this gap that my feelings about this character began to change and where I start to look at Paul with the much darker perspective that he is a possible pedophile. At the same time, it is interesting to note that although Briony’s characterization of Paul Marshall at the end of the novel is as a villain, McEwing cleverly leaves the Paul Marshall character open to interpretation by never truly identifying him as either innocent or a villain. I cannot convict him as because I still have doubts that he is a villain. I believe that his guilt or innocence is more ambiguous than that because the only real perspective given is by Briony, who spent her life trying to atone for what she did to Robbie. When the character of Paul Marshall was initially introduced my expectation was that he was either going to be an innocuous side character or a potential source of comic relief for the drama that is the focus of this novel. I knew from reading the back of the book that there was a lie that Briony told about a situation that she misinterpreted, but I never suspected that Paul would be involved in that situation. I think that is because when Paul Marshall is first mentioned by Cecilia she describes him as “the chocolate
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