Atonement (novel) Atonement (novel) Atonement is a 2001 British metafiction novel written by Ian McEwan concerning the understanding of and responding to the need for personal atonement. Set in three time periods, 1935 England, Second World War England and France, and present-day England, it covers an upper-class girl's half-innocent mistake that ruins lives, her adulthood in the shadow of that mistake, and a reflection on the nature of writing. Widely regarded as one of McEwan's best works, it was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize for fiction. In 2010, "TIME" magazine named "Atonement" in its list of the 100 greatest English-language novels
The Sacred and Profane Love Machine as a schoolmaster, while Blaise wants to become a doctor. The theme of doubleness extends to the two types of love, sacred and profane. Blaise feels "that Harriet was his sacred love and Emily his profane" He sees himself as leading "a double life" and as "a man of two truths, since both these lives were valuable and true". "The Sacred and Profane Love Machine" is one of four Murdoch novels that take male adultery as a major theme. Harriet, Emily, and Blaise are all given narrative focus, and are all treated somewhat sympathetically by the author. However, Blaise's egotism