Purloined Letters in Ian McEwan's Atonement

This essay probes the intertexts of Atonement, in particular the links it shares with E.A. Poe's "The Purloined Letter." By drawing on the psychoanalytical context of Lacan's "Seminar on 'The Purloined Letter,'" the essay shows how the theft of a letter affects the novel's protagonist-narrator's writing, leading to a compulsive attempt to hide her shame.