Plot summary Atonement

• Briony Tallis


  Thirteen-year-old who has written a play called The Trials of Arabella
• The Trials of Arabella


  A play about a woman named Arabella who falls in love with a foreign count, escapes with him to a seaside town, contracts cholera, is abandoned by the count and her family, but then falls in love with a doctor who tends to her and she is accepted back by her family
• Briony's passion for writing

  She has had a passion for writing since the age of eleven, finding satisfaction in creating whole worlds and having secrets in her otherwise mundane life
• The Trials of Arabella is the first play Briony has written, to be performed by her cousins Lola, Jackson and Pierrot
• Briony becomes dismayed to see that her cousins all have red hair and freckles


  This does not match her description of the characters in The Trials of Arabella
• Briony becomes increasingly embarrassed by how childlike she feels in comparison to Lola


  Briony is horrified when Lola asks if she can play the part of Arabella
• Cecilia Tallis, Briony's older sister, spends hours collecting flowers to put in another visitor's room at the request of her mother
• Robbie Turner


  The son of the family's charlady, who Cecilia and Robbie grew apart from as they got older despite attending Cambridge at the same time
• Cecilia attempts to lean over the fountain and fill the vase with water


  Robbie tries to help her by taking the vase, causing the lip to break
• Cecilia strips down to her underwear and dives into the fountain herself


  To retrieve the broken pieces of the vase
• Briony looks out the window and sees Robbie and Cecilia at the fountain

  At first, Briony thinks Robbie is proposing to Cecilia, then sees Cecilia removing her clothes and stepping into the fountain
• Briony is inspired to write a scene like the one she saw between Cecilia and Robbie to show what she only just began to understand - that all people equally have just as many unique thoughts and feelings as anyone else and the confusion that arises from that truth
• Cecilia goes to put the vase filled with flowers in the room where Paul Marshall will be staying


  She also sees Briony crossing the bridge to the man-made island on the Tallises' lake
• Cecilia leads Leon and Paul out to the pool, where Paul dominates the conversation with talk of his family's chocolate-manufacturing company
• Lola wanders out of the nursery and into an empty bedroom

  Looking out the window, Lola sees Briony standing in the temple on the island and realizes she is not coming back
• Paul Marshall


  A man who Lola notices has a cruel-looking face but a pleasant manner, a combination that she finds attractive
• Emily Tallis has retreated to her dark bedroom after lunch knowing that a migraine is imminent and hoping to recover before dinner that night
• As Emily's migraine begins to abate, she hears Paul talking to Lola in the nursery and thinks Paul might be a good prospect for Cecilia if he is good with children
• At the island temple, Briony uses a branch to slash at nettles, pretending they are Lola, then the twins, and then the act of playwriting itself


  Briony decides that her childhood is the next thing she must destroy as she no longer has any use for it
• Emily: 'Her mind is constantly at work inventing stories and creating new problems'
• Emily mourns that she will never have a baby again as she is now forty-seven
• Emily hears the twins in the bath

  She thinks of how selfish her sister is to abandon her children with the excuse of a nervous breakdown
• As Emily's migraine begins to abate


  She hears Paul talking to Lola in the nursery and thinks Paul might be a good prospect for Cecilia if he is good with children
• Thinking of all there is left to do before dinner, Emily gets out of bed and looks for her sunglasses
• At the island temple

  1. Briony uses a branch to slash at nettles, pretending they are Lola, then the twins, and then the act of playwriting itself

  2. Briony decides that her childhood is the next thing she must destroy as she no longer has any use for it

  3. Briony imagines herself competing in the Olympics at such a sport
• Briony hears the carriage approaching the house

  She pictures Leon being impressed by her new skill but refuses to turn toward him to show that the opinions of others no longer matter to her
• Briony is frustrated to find herself not in a world of her own making
• Briony decides to remain on the bridge between the house and the island until something momentous occurs to dissipate her feeling of insignificance
• Robbie takes a bath and remembers Cecilia stripping to her underwear and climbing into the fountain


  He thinks of how, despite knowing her since they were young, he has never truly appreciated her beauty before
• Robbie wonders if Cecilia is truly angry with him or was actually trying to make him see her beauty


  Due to her exaggerated performance at the fountain
• Robbie regards a picture of his parents, Grace and Ernest, on their honeymoon
• Ernest, who was the Tallises' gardener, left when Robbie was six years old, never to be heard from again
• Robbie sees the book he borrowed from the Tallises' library a few days earlier, on the day he took off his socks and shoes to enter the house


  That day was the first time he noticed how awkward he felt around Cecilia, and now he finds that his attraction to her has crept up quite suddenly
• Robbie begins to write a letter of apology to Cecilia


  1. Jokingly blaming his awkwardness on the heat

  2. Implying that the heat on its own is not to blame

  3. Revising his statement a few times to get the tone just right

  4. Notices his open anatomy book and, before stopping to think about it, writes a graphic description of how he would like to make love to Cecilia

  5. Takes the paper out of the typewriter, knowing he cannot give that particular draft to Cecilia

  6. Takes out another piece of paper and writes the letter by hand, including only the apology
• Robbie reflects on how he was once asked about his parents by another student at Cambridge and explained his situation without embarrassment
• Robbie figured the others must see him as ignorant to not think his family history matters, but he knows that growing up alongside Cecilia made him an equal in her eyes
• As Robbie walks to the house, he thinks of how bright his future looks and how much he can accomplish in his lifetime


  When he approaches the bridge, he sees Briony standing on it, but she does not respond when he calls out to her
• Robbie decides to give his letter to Briony to deliver to Cecilia so that Cecilia may read and reflect on it before seeing Robbie
• Briony takes the letter and runs up to the house without speaking
• After Briony leaves, Robbie realizes that the letter he put in the envelope was the typewritten one and the handwritten one he meant to deliver is still on his desk