The One We Love To Hate

The one we love to hate

At first glance, Briony Tallis may come across as a nasty bitch that completely disregards other peoples personal lives. Now I'm not saying that she's a good person, because quite frankly I hate her imaginary guts, but she isn’t totally the spawn of satan if you take into consideration the entire story. I know that we all know what Briony did to Robbie and how she ruined his life because she can’t stay out of other people’s business. But just try to putting yourself in Briony’s 13 year old mind and looking at things from her perspective. It may open your eyes to the way she perceives information around her, which intern will lead to some feelings of admiration towards her. 

In part one Briony becomes sexually aware very quickly as she witnesses many sexual moments. Like the sexual tension at the fountain, reading the accidentally “dirty” letter from Robbie to Cecilia, “I could never forgive Robbie for his disgusting mind" (1.10.6) says Briony as she is astonished by what Robbie writes, Robbie having sex with Cee in the library along with Lola getting raped by “Robbie” (eye roll), and all of this happens in a very short time. While she put her nose in other peoples business, it doesn't change the fact that she was exposed to a lot of mature sexual moments. This may confuse a young child as she had little time to collect her thoughts and emotions between each sexual experience. Now if you look at the examples I just stated you will notice that Robbie is actually involved in 3/4 events. Young immature Briony probably had in her head that Robbie was a sexual deviant because of his numerous romantic scenes with Cee. So this mixed in with her witnessing Lola getting raped by someone,(who she admits she could not see because of how dark it was outside, but whatever!!!) she was probably so confused and in shock that the only logical sexual offender in her mind would be Robbie because of her over exposure to his relationship with Cee. 

Another fact that may warm your heart towards Briony is that Paul Marshall nor Lola corrected Briony when she said that it was Robbie that raped her. The two of them let Briony tell the lie over and over again but also let an innocent man go to jail, the war and die because they were unable to say who the real criminal was. Lola and Paul Marshall are cowards who in my opinion are even worse than Briony, because at least Briony was trying to defend her cousin with what she thought was a traumatic rape, while Lola and Paul kept quite for selfish reasons. "I couldn't say for sure," she tells Briony after her rape, and she keeps right on not saying for the rest of her life (1.13.44). If you were to despise any one character in the story it should be Lola or Paul Marshall  because they are the real villains. 

If I haven’t yet convinced you that Briony isn’t all that bad, then take into consideration that Briony may not have even interfered with Cee and Robbie at all and maybe the two of them ended up living happily ever after. In the end of Atonement after reading part three and London 1999 it becomes clear to the reader that the entire story that Briony wrote was fake, or that only certain parts of the story were real. With this being said, every emotion you felt towards Briony (an imaginary character) was not real because the real fake Briony may not have interfered with Robbie or Cee at all. Meaning that all the feelings you have towards Briony aren’t real because the story isn’t even true. You can not hate someone for doing something that they may not have even done. Atonement is a layer of lies and spending time hating someone fake that may not have even done anything to begin with is pointless, irrelevant and illogical.

- Jasmine Mastracci 

Comment on Romans Blog:

I agree and disagree with certain parts of what Roman blogged. I agree and disagree with his last point with the idea of "knowing and accepting that nothing has worth so there is no reason to waste your finite time on such peripheral matters." I agree in the sense that in the big picture and compared to the universe, feelings and emotions are of very little worth. Where I disagree is when he says that there is no worth, because maybe compared to global warming or a zombie apocalypse there isn't much, but when your looking at human beings as a race, emotion and feelings play a very big part in defining who we are as a species. Because unlike fish, tigers or Mr.Breaton's muslim cat, humans are capable of deep thought and reflection. Whether Briony feels she is forgiven isn't as significant as she makes it out to be. And atonement can be an impossible thing. But when you are looking at the human experience and life (which is the world we live in) the emotions and feelings that people have do have importance.