How easy it was to get everything wrong, completely wrong. (McEwan, 2002, p. 37)
In Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement, the reader is introduced to Briony Tallis, a young girl who is in the stage between childhood and adulthood, who in a hot summer day in 1935 makes a mistake that will forever shape her life and those closest to her. After witnessing several events she does not understand and seeing her cousin being sexually assaulted, Briony accuses Robbie, her father’s protégé, of rape. With these three simple words “I saw him”, she sends an innocent man to prison and for that spends the rest of her life trying to atone for her crime. The purpose of this essay is to analyse some of the reasons that might have led Briony to do what she has …show more content…
Her motives to have accused Robbie of the attack, her reasons to have spent time as a war nurse, the last part of her life when she is an elderly woman and if she has indeed achieve d atonement, or not.
Firstly, in the beginning of the novel Atonement, the thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses various events that she does not fully understand. She sees her sister, Cecilia, undressing in front of the housekeeper’s son, Robbie, and dive in the fountain nearby. Briony finds the situation illogical since she assumes Robbie has just made a marriage proposal to her sister, and she wonders what kind of power he has over her. From the start, it is possible to see how Briony’s vivid imagination and her lack of understanding of adult dynamics can contribute to her misinterpretation of certain events. This continues when she reads Robbie’s letter to Cecilia, which leads Briony to think Robbie is a potential threat to her sister and starts to believe he is a “maniac”. She immediately “casts herself as her sister’s protector” (McEwan, 2002, p. 115) for “she did not doubt that her …show more content…
The whole process of writing this novel, which is entitled Atonement, is her way to atone for her sin. Her “fifty-nine-year assignment” (McEwan, 2002, p. 349) is the only way she can right the wrongs she has done because it is only in her story that Robbie and Cecilia live happily together. The truth is they are both dead, Robbie has died in France and her sister a few months later in a London bombing. As such, the only form of atonement left for Briony is the one she writes it herself. She states "I’ve regarded it as my duty to disguise nothing—the names, the places, the exact circumstances—I put it all there as a matter of historical record” (McEwan, 2002, p. 349), so coming forward with what really happened is the only way she can redeem herself. Her atonement is the long process of writing the novel, of admitting all her mistakes and perhaps some of the reasons that have led her to committing them, because “what matters is not so much the outcome (casu quo absolution) as the attempt, the performative process of confessing, which generates and reveals a true story” (D’Hoker, 2006). So, even if she cannot achieve atonement, “the attempt is all” (McEwan, 2002, p. 349). Briony has made peace with herself and with the world, when her novel is published and the truth is finally known, and as such, it could
In Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement, the reader is introduced to Briony Tallis, a young girl who is in the stage between childhood and adulthood, who in a hot summer day in 1935 makes a mistake that will forever shape her life and those closest to her. After witnessing several events she does not understand and seeing her cousin being sexually assaulted, Briony accuses Robbie, her father’s protégé, of rape. With these three simple words “I saw him”, she sends an innocent man to prison and for that spends the rest of her life trying to atone for her crime. The purpose of this essay is to analyse some of the reasons that might have led Briony to do what she has …show more content…
Her motives to have accused Robbie of the attack, her reasons to have spent time as a war nurse, the last part of her life when she is an elderly woman and if she has indeed achieve d atonement, or not.
Firstly, in the beginning of the novel Atonement, the thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses various events that she does not fully understand. She sees her sister, Cecilia, undressing in front of the housekeeper’s son, Robbie, and dive in the fountain nearby. Briony finds the situation illogical since she assumes Robbie has just made a marriage proposal to her sister, and she wonders what kind of power he has over her. From the start, it is possible to see how Briony’s vivid imagination and her lack of understanding of adult dynamics can contribute to her misinterpretation of certain events. This continues when she reads Robbie’s letter to Cecilia, which leads Briony to think Robbie is a potential threat to her sister and starts to believe he is a “maniac”. She immediately “casts herself as her sister’s protector” (McEwan, 2002, p. 115) for “she did not doubt that her …show more content…
The whole process of writing this novel, which is entitled Atonement, is her way to atone for her sin. Her “fifty-nine-year assignment” (McEwan, 2002, p. 349) is the only way she can right the wrongs she has done because it is only in her story that Robbie and Cecilia live happily together. The truth is they are both dead, Robbie has died in France and her sister a few months later in a London bombing. As such, the only form of atonement left for Briony is the one she writes it herself. She states "I’ve regarded it as my duty to disguise nothing—the names, the places, the exact circumstances—I put it all there as a matter of historical record” (McEwan, 2002, p. 349), so coming forward with what really happened is the only way she can redeem herself. Her atonement is the long process of writing the novel, of admitting all her mistakes and perhaps some of the reasons that have led her to committing them, because “what matters is not so much the outcome (casu quo absolution) as the attempt, the performative process of confessing, which generates and reveals a true story” (D’Hoker, 2006). So, even if she cannot achieve atonement, “the attempt is all” (McEwan, 2002, p. 349). Briony has made peace with herself and with the world, when her novel is published and the truth is finally known, and as such, it could