Atonement Case

Atonement, a story of a young, imaginative, ambitious, naive little girl surrounded by no one but adults. Revolving around guilt, penance, grief and stories, throughout the novel it can be noted that characters lie to themselves and to others, guilt stricken and feeling the urge to atone. Briony Tallis the main character often is caught in between reality and imagination, and eventually this attributes to the downfall of Robbie. Her imagination, immaturity, misinterpretation and need for attention, to be praised to be treated as an adult blinds her from differentiating what is fact and what is fiction. Her belief that everything is a story and we realize that everything that comes her way she seems to believe connects to her career as an author. Her obsession with writing and stories takes up almost all of her life and once she read the inappropriate letter Robbie sent to Cecilia the first thing that occurs to her is how she can use this to develop her skills as a writer: "The very complexity of her feelings confirmed Briony in her view that she was entering an arena of adulthood from which her writing was bound to benefit" (113).

This story embodies various themes of pain, lies and atonement. As this story progresses so does Briony through 3 distinct stages of her life. Throughout all 3 stages we can perceive how Briony thinks and how she is guilty and naïve but also in the different ways she demonstrates her atonement for what she has caused to Robbie and Cecilia.

1935, Briony Tallis a 13 year old girl, an aspiring writer whose passion for writing is key to her personality, and to the development of the plot. Since this is the stage where she makes the accusation there isn't very mush she atones for, but you begin to see how she demonstrates how naïve she is by how she sacrifices Robbie to her desire for a fulfilling story, making him the predator in the rape of Lola with no consideration for the potential damage it will have on him and others while she has a significant doubt about his guilt. The failure to put herself in someone else's position the lack of ability to imagine how it feels to be them limits her judgement and opinion as it does with most young children. Her desire for drama and chaos leads her into a facade of excitement and panic over Robbie's potential to be a "sex maniac" just like she suspected all along. It is a regrettable coincidence that the attack on Lola happens while she is in this state of mind. Her imagination convinces her that Robbie is guilty of being Lola's attacker, and her longing to be the centre of attention is satisfied by being the only witness to the crime. "To seal the crime, frame it with the victim's curse, close his fate with the magic of naming."(165) After reading this quote you begin to realize that she ignores her doubtful intuition because she 'knows' Robbie did it because it fulfils her desire for a satisfying,