In consultation with the teacher students, choose two texts.

The texts
for independent study cannot be a text studied as part of the Shared
Text studies. Critical Essay as well as a collection for supporting
material used in preparing the critical essay should be submitted for
verification purposes.

Essay Topic
Hope of ill gain is the beginning of loss (Democritus). Explore the ways in
which Ian McEwan and Jodi Picoult have explored the theme of loss in
Atonement and My Sisters Keeper respectively.
At the mercy of fate, loss controls the experiences that mould our lives the way
only time can sculpt the scars on a stone surface. Revolving around the loss of
significances in life, Ian McEwans Atonement and Jodi Picoults My Sisters
Keeper manipulates their characters in a ploy to envisage the affects of
underlying loss. Each loss signifies the approach of a new threshold, where the
pending future is learning to cope without what once was. With narration
alternating between its characters, McEwan and Picoult allows for the
confessional conveyance of each personalitys loss. Annas past, present and
future is a constant sacrifice to prolong the life of her dying sister in My Sisters
Keeper whilst Briony faces a life of self-imposed atonement for her role towards
the loss in the lives of her sister Cecilia and Robbie in Atonement. For those
immersed in their loss discover innocence, love, life and idealism once lost is
near impossible to recover.
The world of innocence ensures the child an observational position, where
interpretation is entirely open to the childs imagination. Those years as an
innocent child are the purest in a humans lifetime assuming a child is capable of
no moral wrong. McEwan and Picoult throw this conception into question as their
respective protagonists, Briony and Anna, wander the ambiguous line between
right and wrong. Both though sharing the common age of thirteen are opposites
in terms of maturity. Briony as the creation of McEwan is a manifestation of a
child whose aspiration resides in transitioning into the elusive adulthood whilst
Picoults Anna embodies a maturity true to someone of her circumstance entitles
herself to possess. Annas sense of innocence is long since lost accepting truth
is, I was never really a kid. To be honest, neither were Kate and Jesse not since
Kates leukaemia diagnosis drew an end to the life of an ordinary family.
Introducing Annas character as the great disbeliever in spun tales of adult
mysteries, whose impeccable medical vocabulary would put some paid
experts to shame instils sympathy for her absence of childhood. The sacrifice of
Annas innocence in an attempt to possibly prolong or save her sisters life puts
whether the forfeit was worthwhile. In comparison, Briony recognising her cousin
Lola donning the guise of the adult she considered herself to be hence
describes her own situation unbeknownst to herself. The budding author in her,
assuming a playwright penning the play, The Trials of Arabella, though able to
write truth in the lines My darling one, you are young and lovely, but
inexperienced, and though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and
tread on you is not able to heed its message. Briony s intact inner world of
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which writing was no more than the visible surface, protective crust, a loving
mother could not penetrate blinds her from her evident innocence. She wishes
only for a self-purification, (of) childhood, having no further need for it. Brionys
strive for recognition by the adults as their equal became unknowingly so
purposeful and malign, so consistent over time, never wavering, never doubted
as to send a man to prison with a lie. Though she hadnt intended to mislead,
she hadnt acted out of malice she could not deny the familiar guilt pursue her
with a novel vibrancy. Only beginning to get the full grasp of what she did and
what it has meant by being a child who couldnt tell real life from the stories in
her head sealed away her innocence forever as she committed her crime with
falsehood. Here the ambiguous line between right and wrong has stripped away
the innocence of a child grappling at deciphering their differences whilst also
creating the very lack of innocence itself.
People live by ideals thus becoming the source of life, however when idealism
is lost life is subject to change be it good or bad. This idealism stands for an
illusion of the appearance of truth, which in fact shatters the reveal reality.
Those who believe in that ideal are subject to the consequences of the
deception. Both McEwan and Picoult use the contrasting of reality and
appearance so to convey, that which cannot be realised through either one
alone. McEwans use of the technique assures the meaning of life is
compromised. Briony as the author of Atonement entwines her ideals with
fact to create an obscured version of life as she wishes it to be, an alternate
ending to the tragedy created by her hand. Her refusal to service of the
bleakest realism is a digression back to (her) starting place. The
revelation of Robbie Turner and Cecilia never meeting again, never fulfilling
their love instead to die asunder within months of each other is a purposeful
dexterity by the author. By her own belief, retribution was indifferent and
granted no special favours to children became the reasoning behind her
pursuit of atonement. Thus becoming her resolution these past fifty-nine
years only to realise it as an impossible task for novelists like herself,
playing God over her creations. Compensating to fashion a final act of
kindness to let my lovers live and to unite at the end. Similarly Picoult
unveils her own clandestine with the truth behind Annas lawsuit, filed at the
request of Kate to Anna. Without the loss of the idealism of Anna, being the
sole opposition, the continual of the trial would have been a meaningless battle
causing more harm than help. Sara, mother to both Kate and Anna, lives by the
one idealism of saving her daughter Kate believing it the best only to have it
revoked when Anna reveals of Kates involvement in the case and her being
sick of something thats going to happen anyway her own death. This new
detail having been initially hidden is a twist on Saras belief; changing her
whole perception of everything, she had once believed the cause behind her
decisions. Loss of idealism can be both a blessing and a betrayal as provided
by the both authors, its yield emphasises the importance of truth in how
something is perceived.
Life and death run parallel to each other yet intersect at some point in time,
drawing the living to deaths doorstep. Without the looming reminder of death,
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the power life holds on us loses its importance becoming meaningless. To signify
the preciousness of life, both Atonement and My Sisters Keeper uses death in
contrast, where one is a means of existence the other is a means to an end.
Establishing Kates condition being an accepted truth in the daily life of the
Fitzgerald family allows for the presence of death as customary that there is
practically a place for Death at the dinner table. Kates acknowledgement of
her own fate announcing, Im dying. Youre dying. I just happen to be more
gifted at it than you are is the blunt admittance of someone living with her own
acceptance of death her whole life saying, she was ready. Ironys role in
reversing the outcome to have instead Anna take Kates place in dying proves
there are no guarantees about anything, least of all one's future. Anna
ultimately realises the purpose she was initially given life from little embryonic
me, specifically, because I could save my sister, Kate who goes into remission
because of Annas kidney donation after her death. McEwan uses the death of his
star-crossed lovers Robbie and Cecilia to punish Briony into comprehending her
lies impact in the ascertaining their fate. Seeing the direct consequences of her
crime bring about death, by breathing life into the lovers and their happy ends
for them to survive and flourish if not in truth, than at least in a
misrepresented novel. The ultimatum of death seldom leaves without a trace
of how fickle life can be whether it is anticipated was the certain death in the
Fitzgerald household or the unforeseen of Robbie and Cecilia.
Life is never constant. As you begin to accept the normalcy of your life a shift in
the current of life changes everything you ever believed you knew. It takes the
moment something is lost does the fragility of life register that nothing lasts
forever. All the calm enveloping the world revolving on its axis is no more than a
moment before cracks tear away at its constancy. McEwans and Picoults Briony
and Anna from Atonement and My Sisters Keeper are mere tools in the scheme
to allow the communication on the significance of loss to the human condition.
Innocence to a certain degree prized for its temporary nature is mourned when
lost as Anna does, but is also as Briony learns a dangerous state, wishing herself
less innocent, less stupid at her young age. Idealism in the form of a belief
cannot be forever upheld when in fact another reality exists as Sara discerns
from Kate and the readers of Atonement from Briony confession. Life
synonymous with death allows clarity on the value of the definitive loss of
everything enlivened by Robbie and Cecilia as well as Anna.

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Word Count:

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1511