Comparing Atonement And Mountain Standard Time By Paul Horgan

In the passages from Ian McEwan’s Atonement and Paul Horgan’s Mountain Standard Time a group of people form into a mob in order to target someone who they believe has wronged them. While both passages have a lot in common, there are also many differences such as the behavior of the mob and the events that lead to the scenes of violence. Mountain Standard Time is set during the First World War in New Mexico and the people accuse a man of being a German spy, eventually leading to the proposal of a lynching before the town which, fortunately, never takes place but the man is still publicly shamed. The second excerpt, Atonement, takes place during the Second World War and a group of British soldiers uses physical violence to injure a member of …show more content…
In comparison to the leaders of the mob, the man is small and vulnerable with no form of defense because everyone is against him. Horgan utilizes negative diction in calling the man a “victim” and the mob leaders “captors” and “tormentors” in order to demonstrate how the boy viewed the people and the seriousness of the event. Next, the man is dragged through the crowd and up the front steps of a building so that all the townspeople have a clear view of him, and one of the mob leaders holds up an American flag, provoking the mob to determine the fate of the man. When someone proposes the idea of making him kiss the flag the crowd roars its approval and the ceremony begins. The townspeople are blindly following one another and without thinking twice they agree with this proposition. The mob mentality is overpowering and any and all self-control is forgotten. Moreover, the crowd enjoys seeing this man tortured in front of the entire town because the power of the mob takes away the ability to determine if something is moral or immoral. The boy says that the “tormented creature” was forced to kiss the flag over and over as commanded by the mob and he decides that he is “...in the presence of visible evil” (line 66). Unlike many others, this young boy has the strength to turn away. He concludes that the man may have been a spy, he may not have been, but that does not give anyone the …show more content…
They are officially a mob and the mob mentality is gaining control of the soldiers to the point that they do not care about the effects their actions will have on the pilot. Turner says that “They hated him and he deserved everything that was coming his way...His slight frame contained every cause of an army’s defeat” (lines 42-47). Here, the accusation escalates from the death of one soldier’s friend to all of the troubles in the war. In their minds, this man alone is responsible for every soldier killed, every battle lost, every army defeated. Unlike the other scene of violence which was conducted by a few leaders who had power because they had a crowd supporting their actions, this situation is lead by an angry mob of soldiers still traumatized from battle willing to do anything to avenge those who were killed. Unfortunately, the pilot was in too much shock to defend himself, and Turner knew full well that if he got himself involved he would not be able to overpower the mob. He believed that “It was madness to go to the man’s defense” (lines 68-69) without being dragged into the matter and beaten up as well. He “understood the exhilaration among the tormentors and the insidious way it could claim him. He himself could do something outrageous with his bowie knife and earn the love of a hundred men” (lines