Atonement

• SYNOPSIS

  Melodrama & Misunderstanding


  'Atonement' is divided into three parts and an epilogue. The first part, taking up half the novel, is set on the hottest day of 1935 on the English country estate of the Tallis family, and revolves around a family gathering.

  
  

  The Tallises' upper-class life is depicted at length in a slow-moving portrait of the day, seemingly from different points of view.

  Thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis is trying to produce a melodrama she has written, with parts performed by her three visiting cousins, She gives up on this, after witnessing through a window an unusual incident: her older sister Cecilia strips of her clothes and plunges into the fountain in the grounds of their house, watched by Robbie, who is treated as a member of the Tallis family. Unaware that Celilia is retrieving a valuable vase she and Robbie have just broken, Briony does not understand what she sees and assumes Robbie has forced her into this activity in some way
• SYNOPSIS

  A note delivered

  Robbie, realising he is attracted to Cecilia, writes her a note, then adds an obscene ending. He rewrites it, but accidentally gives Briony the obscene note to carry ahead to Cecilia who opens it and reads it, and is horrified by what she finds. She passes the note to Cecilia, who realises her sister has read it.

  
  

  On the way from her room to dinner, Briony happens to go into the library, where Cecilia and Robbie are making love. Misinterpreting again, she assumes Robbie was attacking her sister and is a dangerous madman.

  
  

  After an awkward dinner, two of her cousins, twin boys, go out of the room, leaving a note to say they have run away. The party breaks up to search for them.
• SYNOPSIS

  A witness to a terrible crime

  Briony goes to the island in the lake, where she finds her other cousin, Lola, with a man just leaving her. It appears that Lola has been attacked, and Briony quickly convinces herself that Robbie is the rapist.

  
  

  When Robbie returns from the hunt for the twins, having found both of them, he is arrested. The police question the family at length and Briony repeatedly states that Robbie was the man she saw with Lola. He is eventually imprisoned for the rape.
• SYNOPSIS

  The war in France

  The second part of the novel is set five years later in northern France during the retreat of the British army to Dunkirk, Robbie and two corporals, Nettle & Pace, are making their way to the beach for the evacuation.

  
  

  Robbie has served part of his prison sentence for rape.

  
  

  They travel through the French countryside, witnessing the horrors of war and being caught in repeated German air attacks, It starts to become clear that Robbie's undressed wounds are infected; this becomes progressively worse during the walk to Dunkirk, making him delirious due to hallucinations. This part of the novel ends with Robbie sleeping in the cellar of the house in Dunkirk the night before the evacuation from the beaches.

  
  

  During this section, we also learn that Robbie and Cecilia are still in love, but have maintained their relationship only by letter. Cecilia no longer sees her family because they would not accept Robbie's innocence. Briony has, at last, offered to retract her original statement and admit publicly that Robbie is innocent.
• SYNOPSIS

  A nurse in London


  The third part of the novel also takes place in the summer of 1940 and is set in England. Briony has become a trainee nurse and is working in a London hospital. Within a few days, the hospital is transformed when the wounded from Dunkirk begin to arrive on the wards. Briony quickly learns to deal with their terrible injuries and to handle the trauma of caring for them. Still determined to be a writer, Briony has written a story based on what she saw at the fountain as a child but is rejected by a magazine.
• SYNOPSIS

  A wedding

  Briony learns that Paul Marshall and Lola are to marry. She goes to the church, uninvited, to watch the small wedding.

  
  

  After the service, she goes to Cecilia's flat. Their meeting is very tense. Cecilia remains hostile and resentful towards Briony. Robbie, who is also in the flat, finds it hard to control his fury. Cecilia and Robbie are both surprised to learn from Briony that she is now certain that Paul committed the rape. They are also angered to hear of Paul and Lola's marriage, as it will not now be possible to bring Paul to justice.

  
  

  At the end of the meeting, Robbie makes Briony promise to swear a legal oath, to tell her parents the truth and to write a full account of what really happened. This account will become 'Atonement'.
• SYNOPSIS

  Briony's final years

  In an epilogue written by Briony in 1999, we learn that the novel is the culmination of a series of drafts she has created during her life - her act of atonement.

  
  

  Briony sees Paul and Lola, now Lord and Lady Marshall, from a distance when she visits the Imperial War Museum. She acknowledges that her book cannot be published until Paul and Lola are dead, which will probably be after her own death, as she had a diagnosis of Dementia.

  
  

  She attends a party for her birthday held in the old Tallis family home, how a country-house hotel, where her melodrama is finally performed.

  
  

  Briony explains that this current version of 'Atonement' (and the one we are reading) portrays Cecilia and Robbie alive together at the end. In all previous versions, she followed the true pattern of events, in which she suggests, they both die before 1940.
• AO1


  BEING AWARE OF WHO IS TELLING THE STORY:

  The story of 'Atonement' has a different narrative laters. Sometimes we appear to hear events from the point of view of a different character, such as Emily Tallis, but the account is still ultimately written by Briony Tallis and as such is possibly biased and unreliable.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER ONE

  Summary

  SUMMARY:

  Briony Tallis, the youngest daughter of a civil servant father and. semi-invalid mother has written a play - a melodrama - which she intends to perform with her cousins for her other brother Leon on his return home to their country estate.

  
  

  The family lives in a large house in the English countryside with servants and land. It is a very hot day in the summer of 1935.

  
  

  Briony has a passion for writing and considers herself to have talent and promise. She experiments with new words she reads in a dictionary and thesaurus, and examples of her inexpert use of these are given, inviting us to laugh gently as her.

  
  

  Her cousin, fifteen-year old Lola and twins Pierrot and Jackson, are refugees from a broken home who will be staying in the Tallis household while their mother is in Paris with a new lover.

  
  

  The rehearsals for the play quickly disappoint and frustrate Briony as Lola takes the lead role, which Briony had written for herself, and the boys prove at first reluctant and then inept.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER ONE

  Analysis

  BRIONY'S POINT OF VIEW:

  Although events are related by an anonymous, third-person narrator, the voice in many passages is that of Briony. She is the central character of the early part of the book and the one who will seek the 'atonement' of the title. Only at the very end of the book do we discover that the whole story is being told by the older Briony.

  
  

  We see hints of Briony's literary ambition immediately in phrases such as 'a two-day tempest of composition' and 'the distinct north', the latter, a cliché from the type of children's books she would have spent hours reading. The style which characterises the passages presented from Briony's point of view is self-regarding, ostentatiously 'literary' and often flamboyant. By the end of the first passage, the full, extravagant extent of her literary pretensions has been laid bare in the outline of the melodrama she has written, 'The Trials of Arabella'. Her active imagination has been demonstrated again as she fantasises about the effect the play will have on her brother - as far as guiding him to choose a suitable bride who would make Briony her bridesmaid.

  
  

  
  

  A TRAGEDY WITHIN A TRAGEDY?

  Briony's melodrama, we are told, was intended to 'inspire...terror, relief and instruction, in that order'. This is an allusion to Aristotle's 'Poetics', a critical text on writing drama composed in Athens during the fourth century BC. Aristotle says that the nature of tragedy is to inspire terror and pity on the safe environment of whether literature has a duty if instruction also has a long history.

  
  

  
  

  A SLOW START:

  The opening chapter is used largely to introduce Briony and her literary ambitions, though the action gets underway, for us and Briony, once the cousin's arrival It is a slow and languorous start to the novel and sets up the feeling that 'not much happens', which is sustained throughout most of Part One.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER ONE

  Extract Analysis

  EXTRACT ANALYSIS:

  (Pages 5-6)

  The first chapter of the novel introduces Briony's character at thirteen years of age. The way Briony is presented here will affect how we see her and judge her actions. Even though there will be a chance to reappraise this picture in the light of coming events, the first introduction to a character makes a lasting impression. What is revealed in these pages, therefore, carries considerable weight.

  
  

  The voice describing Briony appears to be that of an omniscient narrator who has privileged insights into her mental state. A sense of Briony's own dissatisfaction with her unexciting life comes through. That no one wanted to know about the squirrel's skull sounds like the sulky complaint of a petulant child. This method of presenting a character's own views or realm of consciousness by giving the narrator words or turns of phrase that could be the characters own is used throughout 'Atonement'. The language holds a great deal of pent-up energy and potential for disaster. Even though the text is saying that these things are not present - 'mayhem', 'destruction', 'chaotic', 'cruel' (p. 5) - we sense them lurking under the surface. It will transpire that Briony's life and character also conceal suppressed imaginative energy, which will be released with catastrophic results.

  
  

  Briony's life is shown to be ordered and harmonious. It sounds dull, but as she hates disorder she appears reasonably satisfied with it. She enjoys a social advantage, but there is nothing interesting in her life. The following line is ominous: 'None of this was particularly an affliction; or rather, it appeared so only in retrospect, once a solution had been found' (p. 5). It tells us that something will happen but is cryptic. This comment gives the first hint of narrative tension after a slow start. Only much later will it become apparent that the fact that there were no real secrets or intrigues in Briony's life left her to construct one out of the events and characters around her, with dire consequences.

  
  

  The passage goes on to introduce the theme of writing which will be central to the book. Although Briony's play has already been mentioned, it has not previously been clear that this is the latest in a series of compositions. The language of the passage suggests the insights of an experienced writer, though it also expresses the thirteen-year-old writer's dissatisfaction with her earlier work. Briony's embarrassment leads her to keep writing secret until her work is finished, and her anxiety that she is revealing too much of herself will be familiar to anyone who has tried creative writing. Her assumption that people will think she is writing about herself is partly justified. The fact that Briony had had little experience of the world so far is not necessarily a hindrance; for details of human experience, all writers must look inwards. hoping that they find has general applicability and will be recognised by their readers. Briony's subject matter in the melodrama is, however, far outside her realm of experiences. In the early work she can, to a certain extent, start to imagine other people's lives through her writing, but she is a long way from imagining other people's psyches - this is demonstrated throughout the earlier part of the novel. Briony is aware of this about herself when she is older and writing about her younger self.

  
  

  There is irony in Briony's worry that the reader would speculate about her representing herself because we later discover that this is indeed the older Briony writing about her younger self. There is Irony, too, in the assertions that 'she did not have it in her to be cruel' (p. 5) and that her ordered life denied her any possibility of wrongdoing. Although Briony is not willfully cruel, she turns out to be astonishingly thoughtless and inconsiderable and Robbie, misunderstanding her motives, does believe her cruel and even vindictive. (Talk about Freud's psychodynamic explanation - The id, Ego and Superego. Selfish behaviour) She manages to create chaos and destruction through her urge to make everything neat - the very urge which supposedly prevents her from doing wrong.

  
  

  Briony's desire for order and harmony expressed in the neatness of her room is mirrored in the pattern of her narratives, both her written fiction and her account of what happened on the island. Briony's habit of writing stories in which fates are resolved and 'the whole matter sealed off at both ends' (p. 6) demonstrates the impulse that will soon lead to disaster. It is because she tried to impose a similar balance on the events and characters of real life, moulding them to make a story, that her imagination is able to wreak such havoc on those around her.

  (Also, represented at the end - moulding them to make a story and for things to be ordered and controlled - them dying was out of her control - she wanted them to live for her to be in control of them, like they are 'characters' in her book, rather than being real people, that she ultimately cannot control. - p. 370)

  
  

  (Wanting to control and for there to be order when practising her play - include quotes)
• PART ONE, CHAPTER TWO

  Summary

  Cecilia Tallis, Briony's sister, has picked flowers for the guest room, which is prepared for Paul Marshall.

  
  

  She takes a valuable vase with an important family history to fill with water at the fountain in the garden and runs into Robbie, the son of the cleaning lady. Robbie has been educated at the Tallises' expense and both Cecilia and Robbie have been to Cambridge University.

  
  

  Relations between the pair are strained, As Cecilia rejects Robbie's offer of help with filling the vase, they break the vase and two fragments fall to the bottom of the fountain.

  
  

  Again refusing Robbie's help, Cecilia undresses and retrieves the fragments, then stalks into the house.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER TWO

  Analysis


  CECILIA'S VOICE:

  The narratorial voice has been changed for this chapter, and we observe events from Cecilia's point of view, rather than Briony's. Her voice comes through quite clearly, as she describes everything in the scene with precision and care that make it possible to visualise it exactly, such as the 'wintry sedge' and the 'unused rosewood music stands' (p. 20). She carefully observes not just her surroundings but herself in them. Cecilia describes events and scenery as though she is imagining how her description will be judged and places herself in the scene with a keen awareness of how she appears to Robbie as well as to readers. Cecilia drily comments that 'There was something between them, and even she had acknowledged that a tame remark about the weather sounded perverse' (p. 25)

  (As Briony is the narrator, Cecilia's voice is how Briony percieves Cecilia to be - very precise and with an attention to detail. Believes that because she is older, she takes great attention to her outward appearance - how Briony thinks older people, Cecilia age, act.)

  
  

  A HOT SUMMER'S DAY:

  The extensive description makes the chapter move slowly. Time is expanded on recounting and analysing the smallest details, This contributes to the languid, even sluggish, the air of the hot summers day as well as giving a sense of Cecilia's intimate relationship with the Tallis house and Gardens. As well as the sexual tension between Robbie and Cecilia. Cecilia tries to break off this languor herself, by running, by plunging into cold water, by refreshing the flowers - but her sloe prose always undermines these attempts.

  
  

  Later events will make the drama of the broken vase look absurd, and by the end of the book, we are told the vase is smashed beyond repair by Betty the cook when the house is being reorganised. Here, however, its importance is easily exaggerated as nothing else is happening. This slightly surreal incident is typical of the unexpected and resonant acts that characters often carry out in 'Atonement'.

  
  

  CECILIA AND ROBBIE'S DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIP:

  Although the events of the chapter are slight, there is turmoil beneath the surface and this is the first glimpse we have of the relationship between Robbie and Cecilia which will be so important in the novel. We see this only from Cecilia's point of view here and as she struggles to find reasons for the awkwardness between them we can't help feeling that Robbie is unsettled by the difference in each other's presence. Her (incorrect) assumption that Robbie is unsettled by the difference in their social stations suggests her snobbishness. She is embarrassed that he has done better than her at Cambridge, and experiments with the possibility that this has made him arrogant. Her unwillingness to be drawn into a literary discussion might hint that she is aware of his superior intellect. Cecilia's fear that she has suggested a 'taste for the full-blooded and sensual' (p. 25) in her preference for Fielding over Richardson is the closest she comes to acknowledging the sexual tension between them.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER THREE

  Summary

  Briony struggles to get her cousins to rehearse the play.

  
  

  One of the twins, Jackson, has wet the bed and is having to wash his sheets in the laundry, which is preventing him from rehearsing. Briony, meanwhile, struggles with Pierrot's inability to intone his lines convincingly and Lola's distance. She fears that Lola thinks her as childish and that she is only indulging her. She worries that 'behind her older cousin's perfect manners was a destructive intent' (p. 34)

  
  

  In a pause in rehearsals, Briony witnesses through the window the scene between Cecilia and Robbie at the fountain.

  
  

  Briony feels the urge to interpret the action she has seen through the window, attributing thoughts and motives to Robbie and Cecilia, but gets it horribly wrong, believing that Robbie has forced Cecilia to jump into the water. It is somehow ironic that she observes 'how easy it is to get everything wrong, completely wrong' (p. 39) - Briony aware of this now that she is no longer a child - writing retrospectively. Also, how people are unable to observe people psyche's at a young age - she cannot understand her own or other peoples.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER THREE

  Analysis


  A PORTRAYAL ADOLESCENCE:

  Briony's voice is used to reveal more of her character. She fits between adolescence and a childish view and behaviour, at one moment reflecting that is is immature not to take more care of her appearance and a little later wiping her dirty hands on her white muslin dress. She is childlike as she plays with her fingers, yet more mature in her consideration of other people's minds. She recognises in herself a childish impulse to see the scene between Cecilia and Robbie as carrying some meaning for her as if it was 'a tableau mounted for her alone' (p. 39). A moment later she is quite grown-up in her acknowledgement that the scene has no meaning outside of its actions, and would have taken place whether or not she was observing it. She admits to herself that 'This was not a fairy tale' (p. 40).

  
  

  This retreat from seeing herself as the point of the centre of the scene echoes the gradual recognition a child has that it is not, in fact, the centre of the universe for everyone else. She thinks about what it must be like to be someone else. This imaginative projection - the ability to imagine what it would be like to be another person - is an essential skill for a writer and is a skill Briony continues to practise as a nurse in London later on in the book.

  
  

  
  

  CHANGING VIEWPOINTS:

  McEwan adds complexity to the structure of the novel when the narrative viewpoint draws back and we are invited to reflect on the episode from six decades in the future, with the old Briony admitting that she cannot disentangle what she thought as a child from what she has thought or written since. The narrative is instantly undermined, and another layer of uncertainty about what actually happened, and what is meant, is added.

  
  

  As Briony stands considering that she could write a scene like the one she has just witnessed, we feel a strange lurch when we realise we are in fact reading the account she has just planned to write, and are caught up in a reflexive, distorted sequence. On first reading, we are unlikely to be aware of this dislocation, but on subsequent readings, it prepares the ground for a sequence of points in the novel in which the ground seems to shift under our feet. Here, the older Briony is writing about the younger Briony imagining writing the scene that the older Briony has just written.

  
  

  This playing with the narrational point of view and the conceit of composition engages us intellectually, disturbing the emotional engagement we are building with the voice of the young Briony. Early instances of undermining our voluntary belief in the fiction such as this, lay the foundations for the whole-scale demolition of the literary edifice at the end of the novel. We may feel frustrated and cheated by this, as we feel we have entered into a contract with the author who is now reneging on the bargain by stepping back from a fiction that we have been led to believe in.

  
  

  
  

  HOW THE WRITER SEES THE WORLD:

  Briony reflects that there is no absolute meaning in an event, but only what is meant to different people. Therefore, Briony believes, as a writer, there is a need to acknowledge her character's' separate minds' (p. 40). This understanding of the separation between people is a key aspect of the novel. E.g Briony is forced to come to terms with the fact that her 'atonement' will never include forgiveness from Robbie Turner because she will never be able to change his mind about her.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER FOUR

  Summary

  Cecilia repairs the vase and watches as Briony tears down the poster for the melodrama, deciding not to go ahead with the performance.

  
  

  Cecilia takes the flowers to Paul Marshall's room and through the window sees Leon Tallis and Paul Marshall arrive.

  
  

  On the way to the house, Leon encounters Robbie and invites him to dinner.

  
  

  Cecilia is annoyed with Leon and wants him to rescind the invitation but Leon refuses, claiming Cecilia is being a snob: 'you think he can't hold a knife and fork' (p. 53)

  
  

  Paul tells them about his confectionary business and success and explains his ambitions to make money out of the widely predicted war by selling special 'Amo' bars with camouflage patterned wrappers.

  
  

  Leon and Cecilia quickly re-establish the balance of conspiracy and antagonism that marked their childhood relationship; they exchange the special 'look' that they used as a weapon as children.

  
  

  The chapter ends with the group going inside for a cocktail.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER FOUR

  Analysis

  CECILIA'S THOUGHTS:

  This is another chapter related to Cecilia's point of view. Again she notices and describes everything in minute detail, in the very precise, self-conscious style established in chapter two. The opening scene establishes the dynamic between Briony and Cecilia. Briony, tempestuous and dramatic, tears her poster but struggles not to cry, resisting the childishness of tears and cuddles. Cecilia notices with regret the indication that Briony is growing up and changing.

  
  

  When Briony decides to share the reason for her temper with Cecilia, she characteristically chooses a word, 'genre' (p.45) she has recently learnt and mispronounces it so that Cecilia does not understand her. We end up smiling at her childishness rather than recognising her maturity as she had hoped Cecilia would do. TFhis reduction to ridicule is a technique that McEwan frequently uses to undermine Briony's self-conscious seriousness.

  
  

  It is clear that, while Cecilia thinks she is disregarding Robbie in fact he is constantly intruding her thoughts, She has 'passed many hours deliberately not thinking about Robbie Turner' (p. 43) and even the furniture, polished by his mother, reminds her of him. Later, her anger that Leon has invited Robbie to dinner emphasises the exaggerated importance he is assuming in her thoughts.

  
  

  THE JOURNEY TO ADULTHOOD:

  As Briony is embarking on adolescence, Cecilia is leaving it behind, but occasionally reverts back to childish patterns of behaviour. She is too afraid of her father to confront him over the issue of smoking and gives Leon 'the look' (p. 50). She is like a romantic teenager in the ways she reflects, as she meets Paul, whether she will marry him. The reflection is not straightforward: she wonders if she will look back in this moment later and imagines a future of happiness or disappointment stemming from it. It is one of many imagined futures in the novel.

  
  

  Here she sees events as though fixed in the past when she contemplates the appearance of Danny Hardman, the sixteen-year-old don of Old Hardman who works on the Tallises' estate. 'All day long...she had been...seeing strangely, as though everything was already ling in the past, made more vivid by posthumous ironies she could not quite grasp' (p. 48). McEwan uses this technique to alert us to passages and reflections that will have a bearing on later events. In this case, Cecilia's suspicion that Danny is interested in Lola is carried through to her later conviction that he was the one who attacked Lola. Again, at the end of the chapter, she feels that she is seeing everything as though it happened in the past and all outcomes are already fixed, commenting 'whatever happened in the future, however, superficially strange or shocking, would also have an unsurprising, familiar quality' (p. 53).

  
  

  PAUL MARSHALL: THE VILLAIN OF 'ATONEMENT'?

  The character of Paul Marshall is introduced and he is not sympathetic. He delivers a long speech about himself in which he appears to be self-important, pompous and conceited. Concentrating on his own achievements, particularly as they are in trade and commerce, would have been considered ruse at the time when the novel is set. Talking about money and commercial success was considered vulgar - a vulgarity recalled later by the appearance of the aged Paul and Lola with their expensive clothes and Lola's vivid make-up.

  
  

  Paul is pompous and even ridiculous in his view of his chocolate-making as a 'purpose' and 'vision' (p. 50). The accusation of warmongering is also absurd and his reputation of it self-aggrandising, More important than these unpleasant aspects of his character, though, is the suggestion that he touches Cecilia lightly on the arm as they go into the house. She is unsure whether he has done so, and the episode is easy to overlook. But when we learn much later that it was Paul who assaulted Lola, the unsolicited touch looks more ominous.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER FIVE

  Summary

  The twins and Lola begin to get homesick and restless. The twins feel uncomfortable and shy around the other people in the house and Lola feels that this 'unstructured time oppressed them' (p. 56).

  
  

  Briony has not told Lola and the twins that she is cancelling the performance but simply walks out without comment. They only realise that the rehearsals are ended for good when Lola wanders into Paul Marshall's (empty) room and sees Briony walking near the island.

  
  

  Jackson says 'I don't like it here' (p. 57), which seems to foreshadow their later attempt to run away. He says they won't ever go home because their parents are divorcing. Lola is furious with him for saying a word they had all avoided.

  
  

  Paul Marshall comes upon them at this moment of conflict. He chats to them and produces an Amo bar from his pocket, which Lola eats.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER FIVE

  Analysis


  THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOLA:

  Lola's character is developed further, reinforcing what we have seen of her already as a girl on the brink of adulthood who combines childish, adolescent and older attitudes. She adopts a caring role when Jackson is unhappy, though the childish thinness of her arm undermines the gesture and makes Jackson all the sadder, She copies what she assumes her mother's behaviour in her angry response to Jackson's blunder in mentioning divorce, and in her words to Paul Marshall: 'Then I'll thank you not to talk about them in front of the children' (p. 59). The counterpoint of adult and child is most pronounced in the history of the trousers; Her story, that she brought them from Liberty's; a sophisticated adult shop, while going to London to see 'Hamlet', sounds like the actions of a grown woman. But behind the story, the reality is that she was at the matinee performance and spilt a strawberry drink on her 'frock' (p. 60), so had to go to the nearest shop to buy clean clothes - a very childish scenario.

  
  

  While adopting what she considers to be adult behaviour and speech, Lola is still very much a child. She flicks open a catch on Paul's suitcase, then closes it and flees. She curls her tongue around the Amo bar and gives the twins a 'serves-you-right look' as any petulant sister would. Furthermore, she panics and struggles to know what to do - has Paul heard the whole exchange about the divorce? How should she respond to his comment about the papers?
• PART ONE, CHAPTER SIX

  Summary

  The first time we meet Emily Tallis - Cecilia, Leon and Briony's mother - she is spending the afternoon in her bedroom, in the dark, fearing the onset of a migraine and 'retreating before it threat' (p. 63).

  
  

  We learn that she considers herself hampered, almost imprisoned, by the 'knifing pains' (p. 63) of migraines.

  
  

  She spends some considerable time planning what she will do when she is out if the room and then delays her emergence further by deciding to search for dark glasses and flat shoes so that she can go outside to look for Briony
• PART ONE, CHAPTER SIX

  Analysis


  EMILY TALLIS: A WEAK MOTHER:

  Through Emily's own voice, we learn a great deal about her character in this chapter. It is significant that she has not featured in the book so far - her retreat from the family and the house outside her room is mirrored in her late arrival in the plot. She likes to feel that she is a central, coordinating force, but in fact, she appears to be redundant in a household that runs itself without her. Her one clear act so far has been to order a roast dinner, a meal with is highly inappropriate on such a hot day and which is causing strife in the kitchen. The room is almost an extension of herself as she notices the creaks and strains of the building, 'the rafters and posts drying out' (p. 64), with the same attractiveness she devotes to monitoring the state of her own body, teetering on the brink of a migraine.

  
  

  She has an indulgent, romantic view of Briony, whom she describes as 'the softest little thing' (p.65), and a sentimental view of herself as a mother who is plagued by her 'habitual fretting' (p. 66). She is already nostalgic for the time when Briony was smaller and considers herself to have been her best and most sparkling when with her. Despite what she says, the history she describes reveals that she has been at best ineffectual, and at worst neglectful, as a mother. She says that she has 'longed to rise up and intervene, especially if she thought Briony was in need of her' (pp. 66-7), but the fear of pain has stood in her way. She lists a string of domestic chores she will carry out ahead of finding and comforting Briony.

  
  

  EMILY'S MISGUIDED VIEW OF PAUL MARSHALL:

  Hearing a 'little squeal of laughter abruptly smothered' (p. 69) Emily assumes this is an innocent activity between Paul and Lola and an indication that he 'might not be such a bad sort' (p. 69) if he is prepared to amuse children. The actions between Paul and Lola is taking place after the twins have gone to their bath and results in Lola's injuries. This reminds the reader of Emily's lack of real knowledge of what is happening in the house around her, as well as providing another example of a disastrous misunderstanding.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER SEVEN

  Summary

  The action of the novel has now reverted to the moments before the arrival of Leon and Paul Marshall.

  
  

  Briony has gone to the ruined temple on the island and is venting in frustration by attacking stinging nettles with a peeled hazel switch, She imagines that they represent her cousins and punishes them for spoiling her play.

  
  

  She then turns on playwriting as her victim, and finally the earlier stages of her childhood, an act of 'self-purification' (p. 74) to make way for her new, older self. Leon approaches in the trap, but she refuses to acknowledge him. Briony instead waits on the bridge for something to happen.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER SEVEN

  Analysis

  BRIONY'S REVERIE:

  McEwan returns to Briony's point of view in this chapter and we see what she has been doing while the twins and Lola were talking to Paul Marshall. Briony's anger has given way to indulgent and enjoyable destruction. She has taken the time to peel a stick before launching an assault on the nettles and finds the activity satisfying. Typically, her imagination takes over and she makes a narrative of what she is doing. The depiction of the scene is benign, and the venom with which she assaults nettles representing Lola is arguably disarmed by the childish context, even though the language is violent: 'the singing arc of a three-foot switch cut her down the knees' (p. 74). Briony, as a child herself, has no real violent intent towards Lola and, in fact, Lola appears to get her own back when the nettles 'sting her toes' (p.74).

  
  

  This activity leads Briony into an even more childish reverie, or dream, as she imagines herself lauded as a world champion nettle-slasher at the Olympic Games. In conjuring up this picture she adopts the terms of a sports commentator, analysing her movements and technique.

  
  

  We have the sense of her being watched, or watching herself, and imagining the impact on others or how she would be described. She is disappointed that Leon does not stop the trap and speak to her. Even though she had anticipated having to 'suffer the interruption with good grace' (p. 75), she was secretly hoping he would stop, as this would demonstrate an interest in her. Her happy picture of her activity deflates and she becomes 'a solitary girl swiping nettles with a stick' (p. 76), robbed of any significance. She is struck by the futility of her activity but also of all she can do; her circumstances are frustratingly limited.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER EIGHT

  Summary - WRITING THE NOTE

  Robbie has returned home and bathed, and the chapter opens with him looking at the landscape in the fading evening light. The house is small and cramped, and we feel aware of his bulk crammed into the tiny room in contrast to the open spaces of the garden and the Tallises' house.

  
  

  He runs over in his mind Cecilia's undressing and plunge into the pool, realising that, although he has never thought about her as anything other than a childhood companion, he is drawn to her sexually, and visualises her in detail, 'a drop of water on her upper arm' (p. 79). Deducing that Cecilia will be unhappy that he is coming to dinner, he drafts a letter to her.

  
  

  He makes several attempts before successfully typing a letter that he feels has the right balance of seriousness and levity, admitting he feels 'light-headed' (p. 85) around Cecilia. Then he spontaneously types an obscene ending to his letter and rips it from the typewriter.

  
  

  Robbie rewrites the letter, without the obscenities, and then gets dressed for dinner.

  
  

  Robbie walks slowly to the Tallis house, contemplating the happy future he envisages was a successful and cultured doctor. It is a sad irony that he is so certain of this ideal future, but as we later discover, will not live to enjoy it. On the way to the hall, he finds Briony waiting on the bridge and gives her the ktter to take ahead to Cecilia.

  
  

  Too late, Robbie realises he has left the good copy of the letter at home and has put the obscene copy in the envelope that Briony has taken.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER EIGHT

  Analysis

  ROBBIE'S POINT OF VIEW:

  The chapter opens with a new voice, but it is not until the second paragraph that we discover it belongs to Robbie. It is clearly ad educated and cultured voice, mentoring poets such as W. H. Auden, Keats, Petrarch and A. E. Housman, Shakespeare's 'Twelfth night' (in which Robbie took the part of Malvolio - significantly, a character who is doomed to humiliation following a misunderstanding in love). This chapter is important in revealing Robbie's character and fills in his background to give a fuller view of his personality and how it has developed.

  
  

  Robbie is learning medical terminology - 'capitate, hamate, triquetral' (p. 82) - and his desire to learn and develop himself is clearly very strong. This could be evidence of his greater accomplishment, which gave him a first-class degree and Cecilia only a third. His voice and character are important, as he will relate to the second part of the book.

  A03 - 'Gray's Anatomy' is a definitive text on anatomy by Henry Gray, first published in 1858. It has been through many editions since. The illustration referred to as number 1236 was in fact not labelled as such until the 1962 edition. This would have been easy for McEwan to check, so is perhaps one of Briony's errors and evidence if a reworking of the novel in the 1960s - variations that she talks about on p. 370.

  
  

  
  

  ROBBIE'S FEELINGS ABOUT CECILIA:

  Robbie's reflections on the incident with Cecilia reveal not only to us but also to himself how his feelings about her have changed. He contemplates the irony that he has spent three years studying classical love poetry at University as if feelings of love were just 'symptoms' and writing about love contained not much more than 'literary conventions' (p. 84). He now pictures himself as one of these Romantic poets, or 'some ruffles and plumed courtier' (p. 84), who worship their loved one. There is a sense that Robbie is wryly criticising himself.

  
  

  Unlike Briony, who waits for something to happen, Robbie takes decisive action in writing to Cecilia. This decisiveness will stand him in good stead during the coming war. After the careful control when phrasing his letter, he lets his real feelings come out in the obscene ending he adds to the typed version. Although Robbie refers to Sigmund Freud a few times in interpreting his own actions, he states that putting the wrong letter into the envelope doesn't need to be analysed in this way. His denial immediately suggests the opposite to us - that this was subconsciously deliberate, to precipitate a crisis with Cecelia which gives him the chance to act and know her feelings.

  
  

  SIGMUND FREUD (A03)

  (Chapter Eight)

  Sigmund Freud was an influential Austrian neurologist who founded psychology. He explained many traits of character and behaviour as having their roots in suppressed sexual feelings or events of a patient's personal history. Robbie had wittingly or unwittingly revealed his sexual feelings for Cecilia through his letter.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER NINE

  Summary - CECILIA & BRIONY SEE THE NOTE


  The narrative switches back to Cecilia (omniscient) who is unsettled, changing her dress twice before she is satisfied with her appearance, which she sees distorted and 'Picasso like' (p. 99) in her mirror.

  
  

  On the way out of her room for the last time, she is surprised by Jackson and is side-tracked into sorting out the twins' problem of having only one pair of socks between them, although she is 'gratified' (p. 99) by their need for her help.

  
  

  In the kitchen, she mediates between her mother and the cook, arguing over Emily's desire to cancel the roast dinner and make a salad. Emily Tallis's interference has reduced Betty the cook to 'fury' (p. 104) and conveys her ineptitude as the matriarch of the house. Free at last to drink gin and tonic with her brother Leon on the terrace, Cecilia talks nervously with him, finding it difficult to move beyond their childhood relationship. Briony avoids her mother's attempts to send her away to clean up and passes Robbie's not to Cecilia.

  
  

  Cecilia takes in the message, including the obscene postscript, without betraying any surprise or shock. But she quickly realises that Robbie would not have sent it as a folded note and that Briony has read it.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER NINE

  Analysis

  ANOTHER GLIMPSE OF CECILIA:

  The chapter reveals more of Cecilia's character. She sees herself as essential to managing and soothing the household. She feels obliged to help the twins, she negotiates for the cook, finding a solution that does not undermine or embarrass her mother, and intends also to look for Briony - 'someone else to worry about' (p, 101). Cecilia detects Irony in Leon's comment on her adopting the role of mother as it matches her own view of herself.

  
  

  Cecilia slips back into her habitual way of relating to Leon and there is little evidence of the sophistication she claims to have developed at Cambridge. She adores him, and as suave, relaxed, carefree - though to us he appears shallow with only superficial interests and a dull life as a banker. She is anxious and unsure, overcompensating by trying to be witty, but is aware that she is not coming across well, and is self-conscious. She admits that she is 'influenced by Leon's tone' (p. 109) but her self-mockery is painful and lacks conviction.

  
  

  CECILIA UNDERSTANDS HER FEELINGS:

  After reading Robbie's note, Cecilia quickly recognises her own feelings for Robbie, The words 'of course, of course' (p. 111) repeat themselves in her mind. She deduces than an unacknowledged interest in him has worked subconsciously to keep her near him but made her encounters with him awkward.

  
  

  Keeping up appearances. Despite the strong language of the note, Cecilia is able to maintain an 'expression of amused curiosity' (p. 111). Cecilia does not reveal her true feelings.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER TEN

  Summary - LIBRARY

  Briony mulls over the obscene word in the letter, relishing her feelings of disgust. She wonders how to write about what has happened and the new, adult insight into life it has given her.

  
  

  She drifts into a meditation on writing and what it requires, reflecting that she can describe things well but needs to learn how to capture and show emotions.

  
  

  Lola comes in and shows Briony the scratches and scrapes that she says the twins have inflicted on her. Briony feels the grown-up responsibility to console her. In an attempt to look more mature Briony tells Lola about the letter, pleased with the shocked reaction it elicits. The two encourage each other in working up Robbie as a threat and a 'maniac' (p. 119), a word that Briony finds very appealing.

  
  

  On the way down to finner, Briony goes to the library where she makes out two figures in the dark. At first, she wonders if she imagines them, but then recognises Cecilia and Robbie. She misinterprets their stance and thinks Robbie is attacking Cecilia. She stares in shock, not knowing what to do, until Cecilia eventually straightens her clothes and walks past Briony, out of the room.

  
  

  Briony follows her sister, certain that she has rescued her from a dangerous assault.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER TEN

  Analysis

  LIES, PRETENCE & MISINTERPRETATION:

  By the end of this chapter, the misconceptions that will spiral irrevocably to the crisis of the novel are in place and the action takes on a fatal inevitability from this point.

  
  

  Briony shows awareness of the way in which reading the note and being an observer of Robbie and Cecilia's relationship are taking her to areas of thought she had never considered before - as she says 'an arena of adult emotion and dissembling' (p. 113). The notion of 'dissembling' is complex - it can be defined as 'lying' but can also be more subtle: deception, bluffing, saving face and pretending can all be called dissembling, and Briony has witnessed Cecilia and Robbie clearly pretending outwardly that there is nothing unusual between them.

  
  

  WHAT IS REALITY?

  Briony comments that she is quite able to capture the reality of things in a description, but struggles to convey emotion rather than state it: 'how was [sadness itself] put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy?' (p. 116). This is a common theme of creative-writing courses and seems to belong more to the writer than to he thirteen-year-old Briony.

  
  

  Again, Briony feels that she is leaving childhood behind and is being initiated into an adult world of mysteries that she can't quite grasp but must come to terms with if she is to write successfully. She decides she must reject the simple, clear mortality familiar to her from children's books. However, this is precisely what she returns to in damning Robbie and reconsidering her previous encounters with him in the light of what she thinks she has discovered. She and Lola indulge in a childish frenzy of overdramatising events and working Robbie up as a terrible and dangerous villain. It is in this overwrought state, with her imagination running away with her, that she comes across the lovers in the library and sees what she expects to see - an unwelcome assault rather than a shared moment of passion.

  
  

  Briony's desire for drama in her life, which has been clear from the start of the book, makes her fix eagerly on the threat of Robbie. What could have been comical as a juvenile misunderstanding of adult passion is dangerously distorted by her desire for drama, sensation and attention. By chance, it becomes the catalyst for disaster.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Summary - DINING ROOM


  The guests are stifled by the heat. Dinner is awkward, marred by aggressive remarks and suppressed feelings.

  
  

  Robbie recalls events since his arrival in the house: explaining his mistake to Cecilia, making love in the library and being interrupted by Briony. Cecilia is also preoccupied with her thoughts.

  
  

  The twins leave the table and Briony reveals the scratches and bruises they have supposedly inflicted on Lola.

  
  

  Emily's inability to make the social situation run smoothly means that it gets off to a slow start.

  
  

  Briony discovers a note the twins have left, saying they are running away. The party breaks up as all, except Emily, set out to search for the boys. Robbie searches alone.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Analysis

  AN UNCOMFORTABLE ATMOSPHERE:

  The atmosphere in the dining room is stifling - both from the physical heat and from the emotions held in check. Paul's sickly cocktail, the inappropriate warm desert and the obligation to eat too much contribute to the suffocating fullness of the scene. In the room, as with the food and drinks, excess and extravegance are cloying and irritating. This mirrors the way the novel is building up. There has been a run of small incidents, blown out of proportion by the characters but with an impact that has been contained, giving a sense of building pressure. Robbie describes the conversation as full of 'harmless inanities' (p. 130). Some cool, fresh relief is needed to counteract the heat of the evening. McEwan builds the pressure through the details of the over-rich food, the suppressed love-making in the library and the squabbling during the evening meal.

  
  

  AN INTIMATE MEMORY:

  While the diners eat, Robbie recollects the interval in the library with Cecilia. He recalls very precisely, with an evocative description, exactly how he felt, what her body was like and what they did, 'her arms were looped around his head' (p. 135). The level of detail is surprising, even shocking, in its intimacy. The episode of passion is given extended treatment as it is to be the only one they can enjoy, and memories of it must sustain both the lovers through Robbie's imprisonment and the war. We need this level of detail in order to understand what it is that Robbie recreates in Part Two of the novel.

  
  

  THE FIRST ATTACK ON LOLA:

  Lola's injuries, revealed to the table by Briony, are still presented ad though inflicted by the twins, and Emily comments in shock 'you're bruised up to your elbows' (p. 141). There are clues for us that the twins did not cause the bruising. At the time when Lola claimed the twins attacked her, we saw her letting them into the room and talking to them. They told Cecilia they were afraid to ask Lola to help them find socks, and it seemed 'wondrous' (p. 118) to Briony that the twins could have upset Lola so much. Paul, who was also scratched, says that he had to pull the twins off Lola - yet we saw the whole of his encounter with Lola and the twins and this did not happen.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Summary - LOOKING FOR TWINS & LOLA IS FOUND


  Briony hears a cry from the bridge, which at first she imagines is a startled duck, and only later realises was human.

  
  

  She is strangely unperturbed by the apparent movement of the bush, which draws her attention to Lola and another figure. When she disturbs them, Lola speaks and the unidentified person walks away.

  
  

  Much is made of how little Briony can make out in the darkness, even though she claims 'she had no doubt' (p. 165). All this is set to undermine Briony's later certainty.

  
  

  As Briony soothes Lola, she suggests explanations to her - Lola says very little herself. Briony convinces herself that Lola has been attacked by Robbie and persuades Lola that she saw him. (Sin)

  
  

  Pleased to adopt the role of mature helper, Briony launches enthusiastically into the task of comforting Lola and helping her to the house, until Leon and Cecilia meet them and Leon carries Lola back.

  
  

  The narrator reflects on the way these catastrophic, life-changing events would be 'pursued as demons in private for many years afterwards' (p. 167).
• PART ONE, CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Analysis

  A SEARCH IN THE DARK:

  Here, the narrative moves back in time to Briony's search for the twins. She goes through the motions of looking for the twins but is confident they will be safe. She enjoys the chance to practise describing the episode in her writing, imagining the twins floating face down in the pool, and reflects again on how she is crossing the border into adulthood, commenting, 'wasn't writing a kind of soaring, an achievable form of flight, of fancy, of the imagination?' (p. 157). She revels in Robbie's hatred and imagines what else might be happening in the darkness and how her own future might unfold. At one point she hears a shout in the distance and sees a torch flash on and off - later we might wonder if this was perhaps part of the incident between Paul and Lola, or just an innocent part of the search, and this contributes to a sense of both willful and accidental misinterpretation of events.

  
  

  A WORLD OF IMAGINATION:

  Briony is preoccupied with her own concerns - with how she feels she is growing up, and how she can turn experiences into literature. Her fertile imagination builds potential narratives and possible futures from any scrap of an event or fleeting thought. These fantasies combine her desire for excitement, her literary ambitions (she ponders how she will write about them) and her need for attention. In considering her mother's funeral she stresses that it had to be witnessed' (p. 162). This is the same desire to see others seeing her than Cecilia has exhibited earlier.

  
  

  As Briony draws towards the island and her discovery of Lola, there are many overt reminders that events could have gone differently - that she might have turned back, that she could have stayed in the room with her mother - and then the crisis would have been averted. The slightest reasons impel events in the particular direction they finally take - Robbie's decision to search alone, Briony's reluctance to explain why she was looking through the window, her unwillingness to give in to fear and her desire to appear grown-up.

  
  

  CHILDREN & ADULTS:

  On pages 167-71, in the space between the repetition of the words 'I can. And I will', the inevitability of all that follows is spelt out. The certainty on those words, though ill-founded, seals the fate of the characters involved. We see forward to the future weeks during which Briony sticks to her story and Lola remains silent. The blameworthiness of Briony in particular, but also of Lola, is held up to scrutiny - Briony was only a child, she was not helped to re-examine the story, but felt only encouragement to stick with it. She would feel the disapproval of adults if she faltered in her certainty and, for a child like Briony, desperate for adult attention and to feel important, this was certain to make her ignore any doubts and follow the path mapped out for her.

  
  

  HOW CLEARLY CAN WE SEE?

  This chapter is remarkable for the great emphasis it places on the description and the visual, especially as it takes place in the dark. We end the chapter with a clear sense that has seen exactly what has been going on - recreating in us the same error that Briony commits of trusting what we have imagined as a representation of the truth. Even elements of the description which stress how little is visible have their own visual precision: 'the dark disc of Lola's face showed nothing at all' (p. 167).
• PART ONE, CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Extract Analysis

  PAGES 168-9:

  Here we are presented with a description of the investigation into the rape of Lola. It is compressed into a short, vital passage of reflection. Briony's doubts about what she saw are acknowledged, and we see the process by which these doubts were quashed or ignored at the time.

  
  

  The image of the 'glazed surface' of Briony's conviction with 'hairline cracks' (p. 168) recalls the Meissen vase, mended do that the cracks are barely visible. Both the vase and Briony's story will come apart again later. It recalls, too, the flaw in the bowl in Henry James's novel 'The Golden Bowl'.

  Also, the use of 'glazed surface' suggests that the truth is hidden and will be eventually revealed. Briony hinting at her revelation of truth in the final part of the novel.

  
  

  In acknowledging that she did not really see Robbie, but 'knew' (p. 169) it was him, Briony falls short of admitting that she lied. As a child, she believed in her strange means of perception. Indeed, her mother has been shown to have similar faith in intuitive knowledge. Sitting silently in the house, Emily feels and senses what is going on around her, and 'what she knew, she knew' (p. 66). Briony sees what she expects to see: 'The truth instructed her eyes' (p. 169). This is a motif repeated throughout the novel, but it never has such dire consequences as here.

  
  

  Briony interprets events so that they fulfil a pattern she has seen and wants to complete. She believes that symmetry and common sense confirm what she knows and that this in itself is evidence. We have already seen that she hates disorder. She will not write about divorce because it is messy. She will not violate symmetry in her own stories and does not like to think it can be violated in real life. She has already wondered how to use the scene at the fountain in her writing. Now she is going beyond using the experience to form stories and is using a story to recast experience.

  
  

  The passage is presented as though it is a mirror on Briony's reflections at the time, though clearly it has been refracted through years of guilt and analysis of what she did. The writing makes excuses for her as she might have done herself: 'What she meant was rather more complex';'There were no opportunities, no time' (p. 169). There is a childish image of scary things emerging from the quiet village, something frightening and powerful that had been waiting for this catastrophe. She is overly defensive, voicing a childish desire to avoid blame, but there is also a more adult point to this, examining psychological motives. Briony as a child was eager to please, afraid of upsetting people, scared to change her version of events because she was nervous about disapproval or getting into trouble. This is convincing and prepares the way for the courage she shows later in deciding to retract her statement. The recriminations will be fare greater if she changes it in the future. She feels foolish if she deviates from her story as older, more experienced people show displeasure; it is 'wise' (p. 169) brows frown. This extended explanation generates some sympathy for Briony. It is easy to understand a person, especially a child, being afraid to disappoint people and to get herself in trouble.

  
  

  The final image, of the 'bride-to-be' (p. 169) who has doubts before a wedding, prefigures Lola's wedding to Pual in Part Three. Did Lola have doubts? At the same time, it recalls the marriage-centered plot of The Trials of Arabella and the unsatisfactory marriages of the novel so far. Instead, the appealing, foolish nervousness, the comparison might be expected to conjure up, any reflection on marriage as it is presented in 'Atonement' would suggest that doubts are highly appropriate.

  
  

  The passage concentrates solely on Briony's actions and reactions. Her excitement, her desire to find or impose a satisfying pattern on events, and her fear of alienating people by expressing her doubts are all given as reasons for her to remain loyal to this story of Robbie assaulting Lola. The great absence in all of this is Lola. Everything put in motion by Briony could have been stopped by Lola, and why it does not remains a mystery, It could be argued that Lola's silence is by far the worse crime. 'Lola was required only to remain silent about the truth' (p. 168). The fact that Lola's motivations are not discussed comes down to a question of ownership: 'It was [Briony's] story, the one that was writing itself around her' (p. 166)

  
  

  However, Lola herself says that 'She couldn't see, his hand was over her eyes...she couldn't say for sure' (p. 168). Therefore, Lola didn't necessarily conceal the truth, she may have genuinely not known who assaulted her.

  
  

  'to seal the crime' (p. 165)--> Briony doesn't want anything to be out of place. The desire for patterns and perfection.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Summary - BRIONY'S STATEMENT - WHERE HER CRIME TAKES PLACE - JUDICIAL


  Lola is led upstairs sobbing. The police arrive. Briony relates her version of events, saying that she saw Robbie. The family doctor arrives to examine Lola.

  
  

  Downstairs, everyone but Cecilia talks in small groups; Cecilia is angry and upset, and stands apart smoking.

  
  

  Briony rushes to find Robbie's note, then gives it to the policeman. Cecilia is furious when she discovers that everyone has read it and storms off to her room.

  
  

  Briony gives her first official statement. She shows the positions in which she saw Robbie and Cecilia in the library, and insists again that she definitely saw Robbie on the island. (Crime)

  
  

  However, very late into the night, Robbie appears through the morning mist carrying one of the twins on his shoulders and accompanied by the other. Briony is sent indoors before he arrives at the house. She is incensed that he may be hailed as a hero and her own actions forgotten.

  
  

  From her room, Briony sees Robbie taken away, handcuffed, in the police car. Still, firm in her belief that she understands all she sees, Briony interprets Cecilia's last exchange with Robbie is generous forgiveness, whereas we later learn it is a declaration of loyalty and love.

  
  

  As the car leaves, Robbie's mother, Grace, appears on the drive to stand in front of it. She launches an assault, screaming that they are liars, and hitting the car with an umbrella. Robbie is driven away.
• PART ONE, CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Analysis


  THE AFTERMATH OF THE ATTACK:

  The chapter opens with a glimpse of the future, showing how Briony will later be tortured by remorse as a result of what happened in the immediate aftermath of the attack. It is the night of the attack and the early morning that followed that will trouble her more than the legal processes that will unfold in the subsequent weeks. The rest of the chapter sets out how this future situation will come about.

  
  

  For the first time in the novel, a great deal of the action takes place - Briony's desire for excitement has been fulfilled. She revels in being centre stage, with a feeling akin to the 'Christmas morning sensation' (p. 177).

  
  

  The chapter is sprinkled with doubt about the older Briony's memories of events. She questions how she can remember seeing the doctor arrive when she knows that she must have been in another room with her mother, for instance. The doubt of the older Briony casts the certainty of her former self into relief.

  
  

  
  

  BRIONY JUSTIFIES HER ACTIONS:

  Briony tries hard to convince herself, as well as the police and her family, of what she saw. Her motive for doing this is not malice against Robbie, but a desire for a neat story, to see things work out as she feels they should to create a narrative with integrity. She does not pause, at this age, to reflect that life is not a balanced narrative, and in trying to impose one she wrecks the lives of the people she uses as characters.

  
  

  It is partly to bolster her own certainty that Briony rushes to find Robbie's letter. Ironically, handing over the letter gives her a feeling of doing good, yet a motivating factor is 'that [it] could only earn her praise' (p. 177). Her desire to remain the star of the scene is strongly underlined by her private fury that Robbie should turn up with the twins, She fears that he will be lauded as a hero and that she will be overshadowed.

  
  

  Grace Turner's outburst, 'Liars! liars!' (p. 187), as the police take Robbie away, is heart-wrenching to read. We know she is right and Robbie is innocent, but this scene is dispassionately by Briony. She does not allow herself to consider Grace's agony - she so fat has no capacity to fully imagine herself in someone else's position or the consequences of her actions. Our own response, though, is of immense sympathy for Grace and a sudden, devastating recognition of the distance between the drama as Briony is seeing it and the terrible reality for Robbie and Grace. The result is a more poignant rendering of the moment that would have been achieved by any expression of sympathy from Briony, the narrator.

  
  

  A MISSED OPPORTUNITY:

  At one key point in the investigation, Briony is given a clear chance to escape from the action she has set in motion. She tells the policeman 'I know it was him', and the policeman replies 'Let's forget what you know' (p. 181). At this point, it goes on to confirm repeatedly that she is certain that she saw Robbie, even though this is not true. 'Yes. I saw him. I saw him.' (p. 181). It is for this, and her later maintenance of this position, that she must spend the rest of the book atoning.
• PART TWO

  Pages 191-201 - ROBBIE'S NARRATIVE - 1940

  Summary

  The narrative has switched to the perspective of Robbie Turner, now a soldier in war-torn France, and has moved on by five years to 1940. He is desperately making his way through the French countryside towards Dunkirk, where he has the best hope of escaping France to return to England.

  
  

  Robbie has been injured in the side but has not told his companions, Nettle and Mace, about his injury. Fever and pain made him absent-minded.

  
  

  They come across a bombed house and Robbie sees a child's severed leg in a tree. He has to go behind a wall to be sick. The soldiers continue on their way, Nettle and Mace teasing Robbie benignly about women. They pass through a swarm of bees, and Robbie's knowledge of rural life saves them from injury.

  
  

  They come across a farmhouse and ignore the protests of an elderly woman who tries to drive them away. She claims that her sons will kill the soldiers, but Robbie demands that they have food and water and shelter in a barn. Shey gives then a scant supply of poor food.

  
  

  Later in the evening, the woman's sons come to the barn. Robbie, Nettle and Mace assume they have come to kill them, and Robbie pulls out his gun, but the men are carrying baguettes, not weapons, and have brought food and wine. All the men talk, Robbie is acting as interpreter.

  
  

  The French brothers tell a sad tale of going to look for a cousin and her children in a bombed-out village, of finding corpses on the road, and of fearing the arrival of the German army. They finally leave the three to sleep.
• PART TWO

  Pages 191-201

  Analysis

  THE ROAD TO DUNKIRK:

  The contrast with the first part of the novel is stark. It is not clear for two pages that we are now sharing Robbie's point of view. In this way, he has introduced anew, almost as though he is a different character.

  
  

  The spectacle of the child's leg in the tree is socking, to Robbie and to us. The flat, unemotional account of its fact lets the horror speak for itself. The description of the plane tree first, and then the leg, makes it clear that this is a common scene in the war-torn landscape. 'A mature-plane tree, only just in leaf. The leg was twenty feet up' (p. 192).

  
  

  The fact that Robbie is embarrassed by his disgust and his subsequent need to vomit is a testament to how many horrors they have witnessed - the others are able to disregard it and Robbie fears they will see it as a weakness that he cannot conceal it. This leg is an 'unexpected detail' (p. 191) referred to at the start of Part 2 and stays with Robbie as a disturbing image he struggles to get it out of his mind.

  
  

  The hostility of the old woman is initially comic, though dangerous in that it nearly leads to her sons later being short by Robbie. We reflect differently on her behaviour on hearing that she had already lost a son in the First World War and that she has become confused by old age and grief. 'The eldest, Paul, her first-born, died near Verdun in 1915' (p. 200). The brothers account of their journey, and their disappointment and wonder that the German army is again in France make real the human impact of the war.

  
  

  THE CRIME OF WAR & WAR CRIMES:

  'they came across a dozen or so English dead soldiers...It must have been a big machine-gun attack' (p. 199).

  'mutilated bodies' (p. 199).

  'a booming far off explosion' (p. 200)
• PART TWO

  Pages 202-13 - THEME OF BRIONY'S ATONEMENT

  Summary

  Unable to sleep, Robbie feels the wound in his side, which is throbbing uncomfortably, confirming his suspicion that is has a piece of shrapnel in it.

  
  

  He reflects sadly in the boy killed in his bed - the 'vanished boy' (p. 202) - on the thoughtlessness of the bombers, and then on his own lost youth wasted in prison. Robbie thinks about the possibility of being captured and spending the rest of the war in a prison camp, knowing he would not survive a second incarceration, 'Prison camp. This time he wouldn't last' (p. 203).

  
  

  Robbie recalls his last meeting with Cecilia and how her letters sustained him in prison. The two had become intimate in their letters, writing code and referring to books they knew in order to bypass the censorship of the prison wardens. Romance; 'they wrote about literature and used characters as codes' (p. 204).

  
  

  Their meeting for tea in London was awkward, but they shared a long kiss before Cecilia took her bus back to the hospital. Their plans to meet before Robbie was sent to France were thwarted by the early declaration of war. 'This moment had been imagined and desired for too long, and could not measure up' (p. 205). McEwan presented the idea of lost expectations, which is also representative of their imagined future not being a reality as a result of war - a crime in itself. Moreover, the narrator is further depicting the idea of the lovers being torn apart by circumstances outside of their control, 'her bus was far ahead, and soon disappearing towards Parliament Square' (p. 207) Separated as a result of the crime of war and because of Briony's crime.

  
  

  Robbie reads a letter from Cecilia in which she tells him of Briony's wish to meet up and Cecilia's hope that it might mean Briony wants to set the record straight and clear Robbie's name. This introduces the theme of Briony's Atonement.

  
  

  Third person focalisation of Robbie and Cecilia. This is representative of the fact that they never lived to tell their experiences, Briony has to narrate their experiences for them.
• PART TWO

  Pages 202-13

  Analysis

  A BETTER LIFE THAN PRISON:

  The combination of his earlier life and his time in prison has prepared Robbie well for the army and for France and explains to regard in which Nettle and Mace hold him, despite his inferior rank (Robbie could not apply to be an officer because of his criminal record). His accounts of the stifling oppression of prison, 'the darkness of his cell. He could feel he was back there. He could smell the concrete floor, and the piss in the bucket, and along the gloss paint on the walls...Three and a half years of nights like these, unable to sleep.' (p. 202) and that 'He did not know how he survived' (p. 202) - Robbie reflects that 'Prison made him despise himself' (p. 206) - making the consequence of Briony's actions painfully real. His military training feels 'rich in variety' (pp. 207-8) in comparison and he thrives in the army.

  
  

  
  

  A LETTER FROM CECILIA:

  Cecilia's final letter coveys her love for Robbie and her reaction to Briony's change of mind. Cecilia has grown up and learnt to deal with trauma. She has spent years waiting for Robbie, 'feeding on the same memories that consumed him every night' (p. 205). Her nursing training and her rejection of her family have moulded her adult character.

  
  

  Cecilia makes clear that she will never forgive the rest of her family, but admits her excitement at the news of Briony's possible retraction. She also displays empathy for her sister and her choice to become a nurse.

  'They chose to believe the evidence of a silly, hysterical little girl' (p. 209) - Briony, as the narrator of the novel, looks retrospectively to the recklessness of her childish actions, her ideas are presented through the focalisation of Cecilia through a first-person narrative. This has a greater effect on the readers, as we are experiencing the traumas experienced by those who have suffered the consequences of Briony's crime.

  
  

  'She's [Briony] is doing nurse training' (p. 211) One of Briony's many attempts to atone for her crime.

  'I'm actually very excited by this news about my sister and what it could mean for us' (p. 213). As Briony is narrating the thoughts of Robbie and Cecilia, it is indicative of her longing for them to know that she is atoning for her crimes out of guilt and regret and that she wishes they knew that and that they could have had the opportunity to forgive her.

  
  

  ATONEMENT AS A ROMANCE:

  The lovers are constantly separated from one another as a result of external circumstances outside of their control. 'By the time this card arrived, telling her of his arrival, she was on her way to Liverpool...The day after he reached London he set out to follow her North, but the trains were impossibly slow...At Birmingham, New Street station he missed a connection and the next train was cancelled' (p. 210). This causes dramatic tension for both the characters and the reader. The gaps in the narrative are indicative of the gaps in Robbie and Cecilia's knowledge and the knowledge of the reader - unaware if they are ever going to see one another again - element of war, what will happen to Robbie in France? Cecilia in London?

  
  

  THE PROCESS OF WAR:

  Although McEwan does not shy away from presenting the reader with the very real horror of war in this section, it could be argued that the most horrific aspect of the war is the 'indifference' (p. 202) that is shown to so much suffering. Robbie reflects that the war is an 'industrial process' (p. 202) in which the end product - death and terrible injury - is hardly considered.