atonement quotations

• "possess by a desire to have the world just so...controlling demon" 


  B is an innately compartmentalising figure who seeks to impose order on vicissitudes of reality.
• "A passion for secrets"


  B has a desire to hide things for her own secrecy state. We are never truly resolved that she is not hiding something from us as readers.
• "her effective status as an old child, as well as the relative isolation of the Tallis household" 


  B is socially isolated and starved of affection. In some circumstances, her 'crime' can be seen as a desperate plea for attention.
• "this was the projects highest point of fulfilment" 


  Briony craves her mothers attention at her mothers insincere reaction. As we see her motives entirely not self-serving.
• "her sandal revealed an ankle bracelet and toenails painted vermillion"


  Lola is dressed in a manner that suggests sexual availability
• "how the tilt of a skull could change a life!"


  Briony is motivated by a petty desire for revenge because of Lola's dismissal of her play
• "but her father remained in town...her mother...seemed distant" 


  Potential motivating factor for her 'crime' because she lacks any sort of any adult upbringing
• "other tokens of maturity included a velvet choker...and the fact that whenever she moved, the air about her tasted of rose water..." 


  Lola is dressed to pretension of adulthood and a sexualised one at that.
• "She knew this, but only in a rather arid way: she didn't really feel it" 


  Briony appears inherently unable to act upon others humanity. though she recognises it, she is unable to fully live with its pretence and uncertainty that it brings. There is something arguably psychopathic about this.
• "warmonger" 


  We dislike Marshall because he crudely puts personal profit above human misery.
• "...as she passed she felt him touch her lightly on the forearm. Or it may have been a leaf" 


  Marshall is physically invasive towards others. This reflects his complacent and entitled nature that sees him act in a way that denies the validity of others' feelings.
• "Uncomfortably aroused" 


  Incestuous dream before meeting Lola and the twins. At the same time we only have Briony's word that this dream had happened
• "almost a young woman...Pre-raphalite princess"


  Marshalls perspective on Lola is one of sexual intent and possession.
• "they had always called her by her first name" 


  impersonal detachment from children
• "something elemental, brutal, perhaps even criminal..."


  Briony is unable to recognise her sister and Robbie's sexual desire. She reads the letter as evidence for a crime, which is not.
• "no one...had ever referred to the word existence, no one not even her mother" 


  Briony lives in a sexually repressed society and so it is hardly surprising that her reaction to the eruption of sexuality that faces her is one of repression and fear.
• "Maniac"


  Brionys characterisation of Robbie
• "interrupted an attack, a hand to hand fight" 


  Briony misinterprets R+C's sex in the library as a violent assault. a crystallisation of her immaturity.
• "his stupid letter repelled her, but it unlocked her" 


  Robbies letter to Cecilia
• "three simple words" 


  striking contrast between the reality of Cecilia and Robbie's love making and Briony's perception of it
• "arms across her chest, hugging herself, rocking lightly" 


  Lola's traumatised reaction after her ordeal. we are reminded of her childishness
• "Im sorry, I didn't, I'm sorry" 


  Lolas instinctive reaction to blame herself for some unspecified misdemeanour, exacerbating our sense of the trauma she feels
• "Lola, who was it?[...] it was Robbie, wasn't it?[...] it was Robbie...Robbie"

  Briony's questioning turns from interrogative to assertive as she imposes her own perceptive on Lola.
• "let herself be bathed in the concern and guilt of the adults in her life..."


  B's description characterises Lola as an active participant in th indulgence of others. This is something she has encourage and so we receive a hint of her complicity in the crime. In this way, Briony casts herself more as a victim than Lola herself.
• "Lola did not need to lie, to look her supposed attacker in the eye and summon the courage to accuse him, because all the work was done for her" 


  Briony explains how Lola has never had to suffer the ordeal of insisting upon false accusation of Robbie. In this though, she neglects to consider Lola's own suffering at the sexual assault.
• "minor deviations earned her little frowns" 


  Briony's false accusation is explicitly driven by a need of affirmation and attention from seemingly responsible adults.
• "she did not think she had the courage...to withdraw her evidence" 


  Briony's true crime is not so much her false accusation but her persistence with it.
• "she would never be able to console herself that she was pressured or bullied. she never was" 


  An expression of Briony's guilt as a consequence of her false accusation. in this, she could be conceived as a victim of her own compulsive need to compartmentalise, and also her desire for affection and affirmation.
• "self torture" / "rosary to be fingered for a lifetime" 


  these metaphors express the excruciating mental anguish Briony experiences at the hands of her own conscience
• "the way she was listened to, deferred to and gently prompted seemed at one with her new maturity" 


  B's misguided feelings in the aftermath of the rape betray her deluded perception of her age. She is only fourteen and is unlikely fully able to appreciate the gravity of her accusations and the drastic nature of their consequences.
• "cigarettes from gold case" / "patted senior man on the shoulder" 


  shows Marshalls internet corruption and it exacerbates our sense of this cosy criminality.
• "unable to help, or even speak" / "private misery" 


  such a thing demonstrates the crippling impact Briony's accusations have on Cecilia, but also reveals the powerlessness she has within society.
• "Liars, Liars!" 


  Grace Turner helplessly beating the car is a disturbing image of injustice. Further shows that she is a victim of an uncaring and classist society.
• "empty their Bombays over a sleeping cottage by a railway...It was an industrial process" 


  impact of war
• "the stupidity and claustrophobia. the hand squeezing at the throat" 


  torments of prison ( To Robbie ) and punishment as a dehumanising process
• "prison made him despise himself" 


  Robbies suffering
• "they turned on you all of them, even my father..., I am beginning to understand the snobbery that lay behind their stupidity" 


  snobbishness of the Tallis family
• "she's taken nursing on nursing as some sort of penance" 


  Briony's seemingly willingness to atone for her crimes through actions rather than words
• "a leg in tree" / "when they shut their eyes, they saw mutilated bodies" 


  McEwans conveying of the horrors of wartime
• "he was the object of a schoolgirl crush" 


  Robbies disbelief is that Briony's false accusation is motivated by jealousy and a childish infatuation.