Abstract: In his Atonement, Ian McEwan not only adopts and innovates the genre of historical novel, but also sets up a metafictional ending to stage a tug-of-war between concealment and revelation, thus touching off a heated debate within the academia over such binary oppositions as fiction vs. fact and story vs. history. Although a few scholars touched upon the ethics of novel writing in their studies, the scene where Briony, the novelist, strikes up a “dialogue” with a historian has seldom, if ever, attracted any attention. This dialogue, however, actually discloses the ethical responsibility that McEwan expects the novelist to fulfill. In light of this dialogue, the way Briony orchestrates focalization in representing two literary events and the ethical implication beneath this strategy serve to highlight the singularity of literary writing. By embedding a novelist's manuscript as well as a historian's feedback for its revision in his novel, McEwan intends to stress that a novelist's primary duty is to lay bare the moral truth of human life, rather than restore the true details of certain historical scenes.

Key words: McEwan, Atonement, novel and history, focalization, ethical responsibility