“Atonement” by Joe Wrights is an exploration of the sociological class structure of pre-World War II England. By this I mean that through different scenes in the movie we are able to see not only the class structure of that time period, but also how upper and lower classes interacted with each other and social expectations in the different social classes. Certain scenes that the audience could interpret in this way include Garden scene, Danny bags scene and apartment scene. Joe Wrights seems to have a strong opinion against the class structure of the time judging by the way in which its faults are pointed out in the movie.
Scene 1 garden-
The first scene where we see the first real comparison and interaction between the lower and upper class …show more content…
These aspects include the relationship between different classes, difference in quality of living between the classes and the social expectation in the behaviour of the classes. Through this contrast between the lives of the higher and lower classes of England we get a clear image of the class structure and specifically the director’s disgust for this social class structure. The audience also would also feel disgust for this class structure as we we see the bad treatment of the Tallis household servants and the prejudice against them. This helps our understanding of the movie as we realise that Robbie’s and Cecilia’s love does not have a real chance as Cecilia would have to marry below her class and this was not socially respectable, especially for women. Joe Wright actually expresses a very similar idea in one of his other movies “Pride and Prejudice” except that in this movie the roles are reversed and a man, Mr Darcy, falls in love with a woman, Elizabeth Bennett, who is below his class. “Pride and Prejudice” could be interpreted in a very similar way to “Atonement” as in both movies we see two people that love each other being kept apart by social class structure. This affects society as the audience can see just because something is a social convention that does not mean it is necessarily the right thing and that is why society is always changing to become more open. This can be seen by the fact that western class structure is now very different and although there are still different classes mast people see each other as equals and there is not a strict code of conduct when it comes to interaction between people in different
Scene 1 garden-
The first scene where we see the first real comparison and interaction between the lower and upper class …show more content…
These aspects include the relationship between different classes, difference in quality of living between the classes and the social expectation in the behaviour of the classes. Through this contrast between the lives of the higher and lower classes of England we get a clear image of the class structure and specifically the director’s disgust for this social class structure. The audience also would also feel disgust for this class structure as we we see the bad treatment of the Tallis household servants and the prejudice against them. This helps our understanding of the movie as we realise that Robbie’s and Cecilia’s love does not have a real chance as Cecilia would have to marry below her class and this was not socially respectable, especially for women. Joe Wright actually expresses a very similar idea in one of his other movies “Pride and Prejudice” except that in this movie the roles are reversed and a man, Mr Darcy, falls in love with a woman, Elizabeth Bennett, who is below his class. “Pride and Prejudice” could be interpreted in a very similar way to “Atonement” as in both movies we see two people that love each other being kept apart by social class structure. This affects society as the audience can see just because something is a social convention that does not mean it is necessarily the right thing and that is why society is always changing to become more open. This can be seen by the fact that western class structure is now very different and although there are still different classes mast people see each other as equals and there is not a strict code of conduct when it comes to interaction between people in different