Abstract：Atonement is a full-length novel written by a modern English famous writer Ian McEwan in 2001. This novel mainly tells a story about atonement. This thesis studies Atonement on the basis of Rene Girard’s Scapegoat Mechanism, and tries to analyze the character of Robbie, namely the image of Robbie as a scapegoat. This thesis will analyze Robbie’s image from three prospects. The first part is about Robbie as a victim to Briony’s guilt. Briony gives the officer wrong testimony due to her rich imagination and her misunderstanding of Robbie. The second part will analyze Robbie’s character from the social hierarchy in the United Kingdom. Robbie, as the son of a housekeeper, belongs to the low social class in Britain. Robbie’s image is a scapegoat for the low social class. The image of Robbie as a sacrifice of the war will be discussed in the last part of this thesis. The thesis explores Robbie’s image with the aid of Rene Girard’s Scapegoat Mechanism, which tries to give another angle to have a better expression of the guilt in Atonement and to awaken readers’ self-reflection about offences that we all inadvertently commit in our day-to-day life.

Keywords: Ian McEwan; Atonement; Scapegoat Mechanism; Robbie

“替罪羊”罗比——浅析《赎罪》中罗比的替罪羊形象

摘  要：《赎罪》是英国现代作家伊恩·麦克尤恩于2001年发表的长篇成长小说。该小说主要描写了女主人公布里奥尼在年幼时由于无知及想象力丰富而犯下了一个错误，改变了她姐姐塞西莉亚和管家的儿子罗比的命运，长大后的布里奥妮为自己的错误而赎罪的故事。本文运用勒内·吉拉尔的替罪羊理论，对文中男主人公罗比的“替罪羊”形象进行解读。本文主要从三个方面对其进行解读，第一部分是关于罗比作为布里奥妮所犯下的错的替罪羊的分析，第二个方面是从罗比作为英国严格的社会阶层制度的替罪羊来进行解读，第三个方面是从罗比作为在世界上影响最大的全球性战争——第二次世界大战的牺牲品来进行剖析。本文借助勒内·吉拉尔的替罪羊理论对罗比在文中的悲惨角色进行分析，希望能为探讨《赎罪》中的罪恶提供另外一种视角，能引起人们对于在自己成长过程中无意犯的错误进行自我反思。

关键词：伊恩·麦克尤恩；《赎罪》；替罪羊机制；罗比

Contents

1. Introduction....1       

1.1 Ian McEwan and Atonement...1

1.2 Literature Review....1

2. Scapegoat Mechanism...3       

2.1 “Scapegoat” in the Holy Bible3

2.2 “Scapegoat” in René Girard’ theory.3

3. Robbie as a Scapegoat in Atonement5

3.1 Robbie: Scapegoat and Jesus Christ5

3.2 A Scapegoat of Briony’s Guilt... ……………6

3.3 A Victim to the Social Hierarchy in the United Kingdom..7

3.4 A Sacrifice for the Second World War..8

4. Conclusion....10

References.11

1. Introduction

1.1 Ian McEwan and Atonement

Ian McEwan is an English writer and screenwriter. McEwan gains literary fame in his 50s with the creation of Atonement. The Times put Ian McEwan on the list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”. Ian McEwan is mentally alert with a forever pursuing spirit and he is good at depicting the disturbance and fear of modern human beings in a subtle and careless style. He is so attached to the description of violence, death, good and evil. Many of his works reflect the dominant power of sex in human nature and the distortion of human nature because of sex.