Literary References in the Film

Welcome back to the Connections blog and to our investigation into the adaptation of Ian McEwan's award-winning novel Atonement. In this short entry we will look closely at the literary references which exist in McEwan's novel, and how, if at all, they have been adapted and utilized in the film.

McEwan's novel, Atonement, contains intertextual references to a number of other literary works, including Virginia Woolf's The Waves, Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, Henry James'The Golden Bowl, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, and Shakespeare's The Tempest, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Twelfth Night. It also has a (fictional) letter by the literary critic and editor Cyril Connolly, addressed to Briony. These references lend themselves well to the plot of the novel, which focuses heavily on literature and writing. Briony and Robbie specifically make great use of literary references, and in the film as in the novel, both are seen as dedicated to the art of writing. A typewriter is also used in both the film and the novel as a symbol which represents this. 


Noting that there is such a great wealth of literary references in the novel, it is somewhat disappointing to see that the trend was not carried forward into the film. All of the above references were not written into the script and were not adapted for use in the film. My belief is that the producers and director came to the conclusion that the average viewer of the movie would not understand the references, and that they would instead stand to confuse their view of the overall plot. This reasoning is somewhat understandable, and it ultimately brings emphasis to the notion that film and literature are two very different mediums. Within the context of his novel, McEwan is easily able to connect the above literary references throughout his text; however when considering how to link these ideas into a plot which already stands to confuse, it is easy to see how the crew came to the conclusion of just bypassing the references all together.