Capital and Habitus in Ian McEwan’s Atonement in terms of Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Class Distinction

Subject Areas : Iranian Sociological Review

Fatemeh Azizmohammadi ¹ (Associate Professor of English, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran)

Received: 2022-04-16 Accepted : 2022-06-16 Published : 2022-06-01

Keywords: Atonement, capital, Class Distinction, Habitus, Ian McEwan, Pierre Bourdieu,

Abstract :

The present study aims at reading Ian McEwan’s Atonement according to Pierre Bourdieu’s (1930-2002) theory of class distinction. The novel depicts the society as a field in which autonomous forces function. The characters can be considered as agents of society whose strategic interactions define their social aspects. In the other words, they are affected by the power in society which can be transferred through what Bourdieu calls ‘habitus’. According to him, habitus refers to an individual system through which the subject sees the surrounding society. What affects this system is mostly the social background of the subject during his life. Accordingly, different and distinct social classes with their own unique capital and taste are shaped. Atonement depicts how two opposite poles symbolically reflected between Robbie’s and Cecilia’s intimacy fail to attract each other in the social field by different habitus of distinct social classes. The study attempts to account for different forces that have affected characters’ habitus and distinct classes.