NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES OF POSTMODERNISM IN IAN MCEWAN’S ATONEMENT

Abstract

Ian McEwan is one of the best-known and controversial contemporary British novelists. Atonement, which is regarded as the best of McEwan’s novels and was shortlisted for Booker Prize in 2002, is a successful combination of traditional realistic narrative with modern experimental techniques. It displays features of modernism and postmodernism such as stream of consciousness, multiple voices, narrative montage and flashbacks. Te narrative possesses a characteristic of hybridity in that it combines different genres and styles of writing into the framework of metafction. Te article explores the above mentioned techniques applied in Atonement which reinforce the artistic beauty of the novel and render excellence to its narrative. Te ingenious hybridization of Atonement, the combination of multiple points of view with narrative montage makes it an outstanding novel and literary creation.