Atonement

• Briony Tallis is the protagonist of the story and is thirteen years old at the beginning of the novel.
• Briony is a precocious and talented child, but is also stubborn, self-centered, and arrogant.
• Upon spending time with her slightly older cousin, Lola, Briony longs to be more grown-up.
• Briony has been writing stories since the age of eleven, and attempts to make sense of the world through the lens of a story.
• As an adult, Briony gives up her plan of going to Cambridge to work as a trainee nurse to punish herself for her crime.
• Briony eventually becomes a successful novelist.
• Cecilia Tallis is Briony’s older sister by ten years and has recently graduated from Cambridge but is unsure of what her next step should be.
• Cecilia feels frustrated by her own aimlessness but does not want to do much more with her days than read literature and smoke cigarettes.
• Cecilia is fond of her siblings but feels burdened by the need to care for her family due to her mother’s illness and her father’s frequent absences.
• Cecilia loves Robbie and vows to wait for him after he is wrongfully arrested.
• Robbie Turner is the son of the Tallises’ charlady and Cecilia’s childhood friend.
• Despite Robbie’s lower social class, he is content with his life, comfortable moving between social circles, and confident about his future at the beginning of the novel.
• Robbie is extremely kind and tries his best to help others.
• Robbie is passionately in love with Cecilia, but wrongfully imprisoned when accused of rape.
• Lola Quincey is Briony’s fifteen-year-old cousin and gives off an impression of sophistication, treating Briony like a child and taking care of her nine-year-old twin brothers.
• Lola is manipulative and has a streak of cruelty, though she is still very much naive at the beginning of the novel.
• Leon Tallis is Briony and Cecilia’s brother and is known as an easygoing optimist who is likely to only see the best in people.
• Emily Tallis is the mother of Leon, Cecilia, and Briony and is self-absorbed and hypocritical, often unable to perform any parental duties, leaving them to Cecilia.
• Jack Tallis is the father of Leon, Cecilia, and Briony and is often absent from the Tallis house, carrying on affairs in London under the guise of his work as an important government bureaucrat.
• Paul Marshall is a friend of Leon Tallis and is heir to a chocolate manufacturing fortune, but is seen as dull and stupid by Cecilia.
• Pierrot and Jackson Quincey are Lola’s nine-year-old twin brothers who are traumatized by their parents’ divorce.
• Corporal Nettle is one of the men with whom Robbie travels to Dunkirk and Briony communicates with him to learn about Robbie’s time during the war.
• Corporal Mace is another of the men with whom Robbie travels to Dunkirk.
• Fiona is a friend of Briony while working as a trainee nurse and comes from a privileged London family.
• Sister Drummond is Briony’s strict supervisor at the hospital where she works during the war.
• Grace Turner is Robbie’s mother and the Tallis family’s maid and never doubts her son’s innocence.
• Betty is the Tallis family’s cook who is tough on the Quincey twins.
• Give a short summary of Atonement.

  The novel ”Atonement“ , written by Ian McEwan and published in 2001, deals with themes of guilt, regret and redemption. In it, the young girl named Briony Tallis falsely accuses her sister’s lover, Robbie Turner, of raping her cousin. After he is wrongfully imprisoned and later dies during the second world war, shortly followed by Briony’s sister Cecilia, Briony dedicates her life to atoning her crime. By writing about their story, she attempts to give them a happy ending in a fictionalized rendition.