Coming of age as a writer/during war: Atonement

 This week we talked about what it meant to come of age as a writer during war. Our book, Atonement was about a writer coming of age as a writer during World War II. I think coming of age as a writer during war gave you so much to write about, there was so much emotion, and tragedy happening all around you as a writer it would have been hard to not record or escape the world in which you were living.




This bust of Anne Frank in the British Library,
really shows a girl who embodied what it meant to come of age as a writer during war. During World War II she kept a diary talking about her everyday life in hiding from the Nazi Regime. She also talked about the world outside of her hiding spot and about her beliefs on many subjects. She offers insight into a world many of us would not know about, without her diary.

This piece of the Berlin Wall that was outside of the Imperial War Museum visibly shows the barriers that war can bring to countries and to people. I like that this piece says, "Change Your Life".  I think for many writers that is what writing does for them- it changes them. In our book Briony writes about how she hoped  her life would have turned out, given a few changes. 

This letter from the Imperial War Museum, seemed to be the most direct connection to our book. It is a letter from a Captain describing his experiences of evacuating Dunkirk. This letter could have easily been a letter that would have been exchanged by Cecilia and Robbie.

 These illustrations with captions show a young writer in the early stages, trying to get her point across as best she can. The little girl, Dorthy King, is an evacuee writing to her mother to tell her that she is safe. The first P.S. explaining that she as not been hit by a bomb; the second that she has not been gassed; and the third that she has not come in contact with a gun. This shows how writers coming of age during war had to draw from events we would not expect young writers today to draw from.

 These journals of children kept during World War II show young writers practicing there skills, through diary entries and short stories,  often meant to entertain other members of there family.

Even during times of war children still had to go to school and learn what it meant to be a writer. For many this was probably a great way to spend their days, since playing outside was not as much of an option due to things like air raids. 

At the Florence Nightingale Museum we learned that Florence was extremely well read and could write very well. She came of age as a writer moving from short stories as a child to books, pamphlets, articles, and letters.  She was meticulous in her notes on patients and her attention to detail helped her improve the medical world.

 Out of all the short stories and letters that I observed this week the most heartbreaking were the letters from The Holocaust exhibit. People would throw letters off the cargo trains to try and get word to there families about there location and condition, hoping someone would walk along the train tracks pick it up and mail it.  Unfortunately many of them did not get to experience what it meant to come of age as a writer because of the high death tolls. It is sad that so many actual and potential writers couldn't share there gifts with the world.