Analyzing Emotional Responses of Readers to Ian Mcewan's Atonement: Insights from a Case Study on Wechat Reading Platform

Objective: This study investigates readers’ emotional responses to Ian McEwan’s Atonement to identify readers’ emotional experiences and emotional states when accepting this novel in a lifelong learning context. Theoretical perspective: Taking a perspective of reader-response criticism, the study reveals readers’ emotional experiences and emotional states in reading Ian McEwan’s Atonement by exploring their literary critical discourses. Method: Through a qualitative approach that applies thematic analysis, the study gathers 138 book reviews from the WeChat Reading Platform and analyzed the data using Nvivo. Results and Discussion: It is noteworthy that this novel leaves readers with strong emotional feelings of sadness, regret, heart-wrenching and anger, etc., while at the same time, it receives a high recommendation rate of 80.7%, revealing inclusive quality reading for readers of literary works. Research Implications: This research not only provides insights into how to further reader reception and reader response in literary studies in the context of lifelong learning but also offers valuable recommendations for advancing the studies of digital humanities and trans-cultural translation.