In the novel Atonement, Ian Mcewan depicts a rape which remains ambiguous until the very end of the novel. The reader is not enlightened by the details, so such a spectacle remains vague. Readers can't help but be curious that rape, the event that started all this chaos, is never so highlighted and understudied. From the start of Atonement, we realize that Paul Marshall is attracted to Briony's work. cousin, Lola Quincy. In his eyes, she is “almost a young woman, calm and imperious, a real little Pre-Raphaelite princess”. Crucially, readers never find out what happens between her and Marshall in the playroom in the afternoon; the reader constructs this from the “small, abruptly stifled burst of laughter” heard by Emily and the “two-inch scratch” seen by Robbie as dinner begins. Presumably Lola is enjoying the attention until Marshall goes too far and she fights him. How the "rape" scene happens is a mystery, as is what's going on in Lola's mind behind her ambiguous words as she desperately searches for a way to ...