What Is The Tallis Family In Atonement

During the early to mid-1900’s, class is defined by wealth, social status, level of education, and the ownership of an estate. In the novel Atonement, the very wealthy Tallis family undoubtedly captures the essence of high class. With their notably extravagant estate and abundance of money, the Tallis family is recognized for their class and wealth. Acting as a type of antagonist character to the Tallis family is the significantly lower class son of a clairvoyant, Robbie Turner. As the sexual tension begins to increase between pretentious Cecilia Tallis and common man Robbie Turner, their potential relationship is highly improbable. In his novel Atonement, author Ian McEwan illustrates the conflict of class through his characters’, Cecilia
Robbie is wrongly accused of raping Lola, a cousin of the Tallis family, just as his relationship with Cecilia begins to blossom. He only enters the war in order to reduce his sentence so he can eventually be reunited with Cecilia. Robbie’s low class continues to haunt him as he becomes a soldier fighting in World War II. Although Robbie has always been of low class, he never portrays himself in this light; by keeping his composure in difficult situations, he exhibits leadership and intelligence. In order to continue this idea of leadership despite class, McEwan chooses to include that Robbie, “acted like an officer, but he didn’t even have a stripe” (181). Robbie ultimately leads the pack of soldiers and they seem to have respect for him despite his obvious lack of rank. Although he often portrays the leadership skills of an officer, he does not come close to receiving the same privileges as an officer. While at war, Robbie is unable to have physical contact with Cecilia, so they communicate through letters. Their relationship is extremely hard to maintain due to their separation, and his inability to receive time off from his army duty due in part to his low