Old enough to be left to die on the roads. Did you know that? Not simply a letter, but a new draft, an atonement, and she was ready to begin. The problem these fifty-nine years has been this: how can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God?
There is no one, no entity or higher form that she can appeal to or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her. There is nothing outside her. In her imagination she has set the limits and the terms. No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they are atheists. It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. The attempt was all.
I gave them happiness, but I was not so self-serving as to let them forgive me. Not quite, not yet. If I had the power to conjure them at my birthday celebration…Robbie and Cecilia, still alive, sitting side by side in the library….
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Themes All Themes. Symbols All Symbols. Theme Wheel. Everything you need for every book you read. The way the content is organized and presented is seamlessly smooth, innovative, and comprehensive. This jealous misconception leads her to wrongly implicate Robbie in the rape of her cousin, Lola Quincey , a crime for which Robbie serves three years in prison.
Later in the book, Briony becomes a nurse and works to make up for the wrongs she has committed against Robbie. Towards the end of the novel, it is revealed that she has written the story o of the novel in an attempt to atone for the damages she has caused and rectify the falsehoods she spread.
For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Quotes. Related Symbols: The Trials of Arabella. Related Themes: Perspective. Page Number and Citation : 13 Cite this Quote.
Explanation and Analysis:. Part 1, Chapter 3 Quotes. Page Number and Citation : 34 Cite this Quote. Related Characters: Briony Tallis.
Page Number and Citation : 38 Cite this Quote. Part 1, Chapter 4 Quotes. Page Number and Citation : 41 Cite this Quote. Part 1, Chapter 6 Quotes. Page Number and Citation : 62 Cite this Quote.
Part 1, Chapter 10 Quotes. Page Number and Citation : Cite this Quote. Part 1, Chapter 11 Quotes. Part 1, Chapter 13 Quotes. Part 1, Chapter 14 Quotes. Part 3 Quotes. Epilogue Quotes. Related Characters: Briony Tallis speaker. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance. Part 1, Chapter 1. Briony is described as an orderly, if a bit fastidious, girl with a gift for writing Briony returns to her room and wonders how she will cast her play.
She rationalizes that Part 1, Chapter 2. Part 1, Chapter 3. Briony moves to a window and glances out across the grounds. She sees Robbie and Cecilia Sixty years in the future, Briony will describe how this moment represents a crucial realization in her life—but that at thirteen, Part 1, Chapter 4. Cecilia spends the afternoon repairing the vase. Briony passes by in tears, and Cecilia endeavors to comfort her. She also feels useless as a member of the Tallis family.
She is restless and wants to feel needed, but is not. Cecilia discovers Robbie Turner's love for her after receiving a letter by the hand of Briony. Surprisingly especially to Robbie she embraces his desires and mirrors his sentiments. When Robbie is accused of raping Lola Quincey, Cecilia is the only one who stands by him, insisting on his innocence.
Following the incredulous accusations towards her lover, Cecilia exiles herself from the Tallis family. She moves to London to become a nurse and we only hear from her through her love letters to Robbie Turner while he is fighting the war off in France.
In the final section of the book, Cecilia is surprise-visited by Briony. She receives her little sister and we find Robbie and her living together in a small flat in London. The last we see of Cecilia is when she and Robbie escort Briony back to the subway station following a visit in which forgiveness for her sister's malice crime is never granted. Robbie is the main male character of the novel.
He is the young man who we follow into battle during World War Two in the middle sections of the book, as well as the character whom is falsely accused of rape by Briony Tallis. Robbie Turner is the son of the Tallis charlady Grace Turner. During childhood, all the children were too young and innocent to recognize any difference between themselves and Robbie was close friends with Leon and Cecilia, and acted as an older, caring brother to the young Briony.
When his is introduced in the book, he is 23 years old and has just returned from Cambridge where he earned a literature degree. He is now working on some landscaping in the Tallis park and debating on going back to school for a degree in medicine. His entire schooling has been funded by the generous Jack Tallis. We learn that Robbie's father Ernest left him and his mother when he was six years old with no real explanation.
Rather than turn the Turners onto the street, Jack Tallis offered a position on the house staff to Grace and over the years both mother and son became an extended part of the Tallis family. Robbie is described as being very handsome, "sheer bulk," and quite intelligent Although ignored for the most part by Cecilia at Cambridge, Robbie pens a letter to her announcing his love for her.
He intends to deliver an apology letter for breaking the family's relic vase, but the letters are accidentally switched and his awkward predicament is set. After being caught making love to the higher class Cecilia, Robbie is accused of raping the young cousin Lola. Robbie is found guilty of the crime and sent to prison for three years. When Britain enters the war in , Robbie has an opportunity to emancipate himself by fighting in France. This he does. The middle of the book follows Robbie through his horrific tour retreat, really from the front lines near Belgium back to Dunkirk where the British army was gathering to flea back to England via the English Channel.
Robbie is injured with shrapnel during a bombing, but marches on with his two corporal companions Nettles and Mace. Turner reaches Dunkirk. The next time we pick him up is in Cecilia's flat in when Briony visits, seeking her "atonement. She is 46 years old in where the first third of the novel takes place. She is defined as distant and unfriendly and seems to let the Tallis household be managed by the staff that is employed there.
To her defense, Emily is pretty much a single mother--her husband Jack is never around, devoting more of his time to his work in the Whitehall ministry than to his family. Emily suffers from severe migraines, an illness that began after the birth of her youngest child Briony. She was educated at home by herself until she was 16, then she was sent to Switzerland to boarding school. Her view about woman and class in society is traditional. She feels woman are subservient to men and social classes should not mix romantically.
Emily has a special maternal instinct for her youngest daughter, Briony, and it is said that she "loves to love her" and "protects her against failure" Overall, she is described as having a maternal "sixth sense [and] tentacular awareness" for her children and her household. There is a complete and in-depth description of Emily Tallis given at the beginning of Chapter 6.
Jack is the father of the household and a minor character in the novel. We know he is an extremely hard-working and generous man. He is never home, spending all of his time at the ministry in London where he works, suggestively on secret government preparations for the inevitable war with Germany on page , he refers to himself as a "slave" to Britain.
Jack values family and patriotism. His most prized possession is a family heirloom vase that made it home from the first World War after his brother was awarded it as a gift for saving a Belgian village from German attack. This is the vase that Robbie Turner breaks in the fountain, triggering the series of events that leads Briony to falsely accuse him of rape. We know Jack to be generous by the way he treats his staff.
He keeps Grace Turner on as an employee after her husband abandons her and adopts Robbie like a son, funding his way through Cambridge. When Briony accuses Robbie of rape, he stands by his daughter's word and disowns the Turners from his family, his daughter Cecilia included. Leon is Briony's older brother and the eldest of the three Tallis children. He is the typical s playboy. Living in a period of jubilation and ease between the two wars in Europe, Leon enjoys the freedoms and carelessness of his social predicaments.
Leon is returning home from working in London to visit his family and it is his homecoming that has Briony so excited and inspires her to write a play for him.
With him, he brings home his new found, and highly wealthy friend Paul Marshall. He is extremely close with his sister Cecilia and the idol of his younger sister Briony. Leon is also very close with Robbie and described as generally an overall well-rounded guy who is admired by everyone Leon has the opportunity to work with his father at the ministry, but passes it up showing his carefree spirit in the face of patriotic responsibility. Instead he takes a job at the banks, "working and living for the nights and weekends" Leon feels that no one in the world is naturally mean spirited, scheming, lying, or betraying He is the voice of optimism and hope, albeit somewhat blind and ignorant, during this period leading up to the war in Europe.
At the end of the novel, Leon is still alive, although very old and completely inept. He has survived four marriages, raised a number of children, and is still viewed as a very likable and admirable character by all who surround him. However, there is an alternative motive to her writing since it is her coping mechanism to the demons in her head and she chooses to express her thoughts and frustrations through her work.
When Briony receives her rejection. Open Document. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. The theme of coming of age is featured throughout the entire novel Atonement because of how people grow up and change during their lifetime.
She is unable to tell the difference between her own fantasies and the realities of real life. When she reads the letter she is appalled and disgusted by it because of how she perceives it as something terrible.
This is the first encounter she has with the reality …show more content… Realism is important in the novel Atonement because of how it helps to discern the difference between reality and fantasy. The reader believes that the fictional events of the novel are all reality within the context of the story until it is revealed at the end that a majority of the story was made up in the pure imagination of Briony.
The satisfaction Briony faces at the end when she comes to terms with the guilt that has been building up inside of her is a result of realism.
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