Is Briony Likeable or Not? (Hayley Lisko)

In every single class discussion about Atonement, we only looked at the fact that Briony is selfish, rude and how none us of us like her. We always discussed the negatives about the things she did and never looked at the positive things that she had to offer. Instead of talking about the all the reasons why we should hate on her, let’s look at the reasons why we should like her.

To start off, the reason why this novel was written was to atone herself. It took Briony a very long time to write the novel because she was always trying to find a good way to fix the ending. She wanted to give her sister, Cecelia, and her sister’s lover, Robbie, the proper ending that they deserved. Towards the end of the book she writes “How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power  of decoding 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” (McEwan, 350). Basically, Briony can seek atonement but it has to be granted by the one who has been wronged, is now dead and Briony is unable to atone herself. Also,if she cannot atone herself because they people who have been wronged have passed away, how will she get over all the things that she has done and what they had to go through.

Another piece of evidence from the text to prove that Briony wanted to give Cecelia and Robbie the ending would include this quotation. “So, my sister and Robbie were never able to have the time together they both so longed for... and deserved. Which ever since I've... ever since I've always felt I prevented. But what sense of hope or satisfaction could a reader derive from an ending like that? So in the book, I wanted to give Robbie and Cecilia what they lost out on in life. I'd like to think this isn't weakness or... evasion... but a final act of kindness. I gave them their happiness” (McEwan). \Briony even writes how she wished they had the ending that they deserved to have and she is trying to be seen as a kind person.

In addition to the reason why she wrote the book, Briony feels regret. “How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime” (McEwan, 162). This quotation may be taken in a very deep meaning but it is supposed to mean exactly what the quotation says. When Briony was younger and she was growing up with her family, she committed an act which will last her entire life. She will never forget what happened the day she blamed Robbie for raping Lola because she knew he would not get away with it, and she will never forget how that destroyed her entire family and how they all split up. This will lead her to self-torture and it will stay with her for the rest of her life.

To wrap up, Briony was always discussed in class as a horrible person and how we hate her, but we never considered the few good things that she actually did to make her be considered a somewhat decent person. In the text there were 3 main sections that jumped out to myself and they are: first she wanted to give them a proper ending and one they deserved, second she wanted to be seen as a kind person and finally she feels regret after all of the acts she committed which ended up destroying her family and she has to live with it.

To comment on Heather’s Post...

I completely agree with her. The way she described Briony at the beginning of her blog is the exact same way I thought of Briony. “I found Briony to be self-centred, pretentious and show signs of sociopathic behaviour”. Personally, she is exactly the same as Hamlet (what a shock the book and play we read are similar)! I also agree on how Briony made a mistake when she was a child and that she is trying to redeem herself, but can she actually get redemption knowing that her entire family basically is now dead and she didn’t have the guts to apologize in person...

Briony also is making her seem like the villian even though she caused it for herself, which I completely agree on your point and majority of your blog post about Briony!

Innocent Until Proven Innocent (Louwyn Besa)

While reading Atonement, I had trouble understanding why everyone held such a negative opinion on Briony, as my thoughts on her for the majority of the book stayed relatively optimistic. I can’t help but empathize for her naive, child-like mindset. Therefore, I believe that there is one key factor that is rapidly overlooked; if one were to put themselves in her shoes, taking into account the time period, the different morals, and the setting, most of us would have probably done the exact same things she did. As readers, we are quick to nit-pick the faults of each character, and we easily dismiss any idea of what the individual's perception of the situation may be. Unfortunately, Briony’s fault just so happened to be her innocence.

An important factor we must understand at the beginning of the story is that Briony is still a child when she accuses Robbie for attacking Lola. We have learned that she has just acknowledged the existence of herself, and particularly during these early stages of life, she has not yet been completely educated about the repercussions of her own actions. Every normal human being makes mistakes throughout their entire life, especially during the key years of being a young adolescent. Besides, up to this point, Briony isn't even completely sure if it was Robbie or not who had attacked Lola, so it wasn't as if she was hiding the fact that she knew it was Paul the entire time. If anyone is to be blamed in this position, it should be Lola and Paul. And although her small mistake made much more of an impact on someone else’s life, we cannot ignore the fact that as children, owning up to your mistakes is never an easy thing to do. Briony most likely understands that what she is doing is wrong, but that does not mean she is going to do anything about it because she is undoubtedly afraid of getting in trouble. How many times can you say you confessed all your wrong doings when growing up?

           One must also take a step back and analyze the situation. Initially, Briony is only trying to help Lola to identify her attacker, not deliberately ruin anyone’s life. It wasn't as if she intentionally blames Robbie knowing that he was going to go to jail, fight in the war and eventually ruin what was left of her family. I think another one of her goal's was not only to try and protect Lola, but future victims that the attacker could have potentially targeted next. You could almost categorize her actions as heroic depending on how you perceive it, because from her point of view, she assumed that what she was doing was right.

In the first chapter, Briony's strong leadership personality portrays her as being full of herself. This characteristic is immediately distinguished by the reader as an unfavorable trait. As a result, for the remainder of the book, a preconceived notion of Briony being this stereotypical full-of-herself character is formed. This manifestation makes the majority of readers instantly dislike her before any real development to her character is made, whether they are aware of it or not. If you think of it, Briony never once commits any acts consciously knowing that they will have negative effects on a specific person. She is always trying her hardest to help the people she loves. I find that calling Briony out on her immaturity is stating the obvious because evidently she’s going to be a little immature. She is after all, only thirteen. How much more do you expect from a thirteen year old girl growing up in the Victorian era with Victorian values? Later on in the book, when Briony is old enough to assess the situation and come to the realization that what she had done was wrong, it is already too late. She attempts to apologize to Robbie and Cee, but there is not much more she can do, because she isn't given any more options. The damage is already too far, too gone.

A likable trait about Briony is that she is passionate about writing. Some can bring up the point that she is pretentious and self-centered about her writing, but as humans, when we’re told that we’re good at something, we pursue that interest and we praise ourselves and constantly want to be praised by others for it. You cannot blame Briony for being a little prideful for something she’s obviously very good at. She grew up writing, fueling that passion for the thing that she loved, throughout her adulthood and well into her old age. She used it as an outlet when she had nowhere else to turn, and became a successful author because of this talent. We can assume that Briony changes her values and continues to grow as a person throughout the years, but one thing that never faltered is her passion for the craft of writing. She even tries giving Robbie and Cee the ending they very much deserve through the only way she knows how, by writing about it. This leads me to believe that she is not seeking forgiveness from anyone when she releases the book, because the act she did is unforgivable and she is aware of that. People can interpret this as being a selfish way of going about things, but I honestly feel like Briony is just trying to get Robbie and Cee’s story out there for everyone to hear and give them the voice that the both of them were never given. “There was a crime. But there were also the lovers. Lovers and their happy ends have been on my mind all night long” (McEwan, 349). I think Briony has already given herself so much slack that in her opinion, this is the only way she can express how she feels about their lives, and their story.

I can relate Briony’s situation to a film called “Mud”. In this movie, two fourteen year old boys encounter a runaway murderer who is trying to avoid the police. In the time given, the boys have multiple opportunities to tell someone that they found the wanted man, but instead, they help him hide, which almost costs them their life countless times. They can be related to Briony in the sense that, as children, although they think they are doing the right thing, they are doing the completely opposite.
   

In the end, Briony really isn’t as bad of a person as everyone in the class made her out to be. She was passionate, compassionate and very intelligent. She was a kid who made mistakes just like we all have, and we have to learn to not be so quick to judge a person for their past. Something that we all don’t need more of is the affirmation of an error we’re already aware of.

In response to Alex’s post…
I agree with what you said in your third point about Briony being put into mature situations, especially when she was still in the process of trying to find herself. I think that these adult encounters mixed in with the fact that she was still technically in the mindset of a child, confused her to the point where she was unable to tell right from wrong. She was caught in some kind of limbo in between wanting so badly to grow up, but also still wanting to stay this innocent little girl. Although I agree with 90% of the points you made, I also have to disagree with the fact that you think she was handling the situation better than the adults were. I honestly think her true downfall was the fact that she was mainly stuck in the “act like a child” mentality, which ultimately, was keeping her back from doing actual commendable “adult things”. (Like tell the truth). 

Briony: More the Golem than Mordor by Casandra Barrett

Briony was not the evil monster a lot of us think she is. She was an ignorant, misguided girl that let her

cowardice hold her back from doing what was right. Was she a great person? No. She was a control freak,

she twisted and turned Robbie and Cecilia's fate in reality and in her story. However, her story is more of a

sad story than anything else. She knew Robbie and Cecilia wouldn't forgive her, and she couldn't even

forgive herself. She lived alone and died alone, and I can't hate her because I pity her so much more then I

dislike her for being a coward.

Proof:

            1) Briony wasn't an evil mastermind pulling the strings behind an elaborate revenge plan:

She was precocious and sexually uneducated, "... no one, not even her mother, had ever referred to the

existence of that part of her to which -- Briony was certain -- the word referred" (107) and she had literally

just become self-aware, "Was everyone else really as alive as she was?" (34). This idea of revenge was her

own portrayal of what Robbie might have thought of her, and not necessarily and definitely not absolutely

the truth, because it was Briony herself that wrote Robbie considering that her acts were for vengeance, we

know this because "Robbie Turner died of septicemia at Bray Dunes on 1 June 1940." (350). He couldn't

verifiably have thought these things if Briony was simply recreating his thoughts from her own imagination.

That she had acted maliciously as a child is unfounded because she genuinely didn't understand what she

was doing, just like she didn't understand the danger she put Robbie in by pretending to drown that day,

"'You went under the surface, I couldn't see you. My clothes were weighing me down. We could have

drowned, both of us.'" (218), but Briony did come to realize her mistake in blaming Robbie, "She was like a

bride-to-be who begins to feel her sickening qualms as the day approaches, and dares not speak her mind

because so many preparations have been made on her behalf." (150) Briony simply didn't have the have the

courage to go back on her word! " She did not think she had the courage, after all her initial certainty and

two or three days of patient, kindly interviewing, to withdraw her evidence." (159) Two or three days! It

took her a few days to realize that something was wrong, but she didn't want to be 'a silly girl who had

wasted everyone's time' (160). Instead, she deliberately carried through despite her doubts, knowing she

was 'never pressured or bullied' (160). Rather than be courageous, " She trapped herself, she marched into

the labyrinth of her own construction, and was too young, too awestruck, too keen to please, to insist on

making her own way back." (160).

So we know that she was just an ignorant young girl too afraid to go back on what she thought was the

truth, at the time. Briony didn't know anything about healthy sexuality, or sexuality at all. If she didn't

understand initially the effect of her accusations, and then grew to realize, how could it have possibly been a

malicious act from the start?

             2) While I love and dread equally thinking about existentialism, particularly the writing of Albert Camus,

existential thought doesn't really apply to Briony's accusation or her view if the world - because she never

lets go, which is what existentialism is all about:

She was a victorian girl through and through, prim, proper and ignorant to even the notion of sexuality. She's

naive about marriage: "Marriage was the thing, or rather, a wedding was, with its formal neatness of virtue

rewarded, the thrill of its pageantry and banqueting, and dizzy promise of lifelong uinion." (8). She wants to

control her family into what she views as right, for example Leon, "Her play was not for her cousins, it was

for her brother, to celebrate his return, to provoke his admiration and guide him away from his careless

succession of girlfriends, toward the right form of wife, the one who would persuade him to return to the

countryside" (4) She's truly a child in every sense of the word, desperate for the perfect ending she deems

fit. "She was one of those children possessed by a desire to have the world just so." (4). While I know

Roman specifically said that he grew fond of her near the end, this childish need for 'the promise of lifelong

union' never really leaves Briony's thoughts. In the end, she still made Robbie and Cecilia, "..still alive, still in

love, sitting side by side in the library" (350). She admits this to us in the end, saying, "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?" (350). If Briony could have had it her own way she would have

chosen that ending as reality, the one in which Robbie and Cecilia were still alive to love. This isn't the truth,

and only she can make it true within her own mind and the mind's of others to atone for the fact that Robbie

and Cecilia "never met again, never fulfilled their love?" (350). Just like when she was a child, too afraid to

admit that she was the 'bride with cold feet'(150), she became "too old, too frightened, too much in love

with the shred of life I have remaining" (350). She asks us directly, "How could that constitute an ending?"

(350). She goes on to rationalize this "I like to think that it isn't weakness or evasion, but a final act of

kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair," (351) but I think it's more kindness to herself than to Robbie

and Cee who have already lived their horrible fate, with Robbie having died at war and Cecilia by a bomb

within the same year (350).

Going back to existentialism, Briony couldn't have been an existentialist, because like stated in Albert

Camus' The Stranger or L'Etranger, "It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me

of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my

heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me

realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still." I don't have a page but it was basically the second

last page, and was about him accepting his death by execution.  Existentialists accept.Existentialists look into

the dark void of the universe and accept it. Briony "took a stand against oblivion and despair," (350). She

never let go, she never forgave herself, and yet controlled her universe as "God" (350) until the very end.

                3) With her impending dementia, "The process will be slow, but my brain, my mind, is closing down. The

little failures of the memory that dog us all beyond a certain point will become more noticeable, more

debilitating, until the time will come when I won't notice them because I will have lost the ability to

comprehend anything at all" (334), all Briony can do now is look back at her life. Like I asserted in my first

points, Briony is a coward, and in my second,  Briony's need for control is what never allows her to let go. I

can't really dislike her in the end, because her life was more sad than anything else - a sad confused girl

grown into a sad lonely old woman, who's only liberation is that she will be able to forget her crimes.

So, was Briony admirable in any way? Maybe in that she deluded herself until the very end. Or that she

learned and lived the rest of her life trying to make up for her cowardice, but the reality is that she never did,

and never could. The day she felt the wrongness in the pit of her stomach and held her tongue was the day

she became irredeemable. When you know something, deep within and make the choice that you know is

the wrong one, it's too late. Does she deserve forgiveness? No. Pity? Probably. She definitely deserved to

be able to let go, but what damned her -- her stubborn cowardice -- is what never allowed her to set herself

free. I think that's profoundly sad.

The real blame here should be set on the adults in Briony's life that so neglected and yet coddled her.

Encouraging her writing but not teaching her right from wrong. Briony wasn't the only one at fault, the

parents in her life abandoned her almost of much as they abandoned Robbie by not defending him and by

not being there for her, which is why I blame them for what happened more than I blame Briony - a

forgotten child. I truly pity her.

Atonement for Briony?

Erica Kang

While I can’t exactly say I like Briony, she has a few admirable traits that people can relate to or identify with. For example, she continues to rewrite her life. How many of us would like to or have actually rewritten parts of our lives or something that we did in order to allow ourselves to live with, or make sound better. The point of this is, what is truth? Whose truth are we talking about, there is no actual truth, just perceptions of the truth. For example, “I never saw them that year. That my walk across London ended at the church on Clapham Common, and that a cowardly Briony limped back to the hospital, unable to confront her recently bereaved sister” (McEwan 350). Briony owns up to the fact that the story is a fabrication intended to make her look better. The effect of Briony’s narrative is to create layers of truths and untruths and this is what each of us do in our lives. This is closer to reality than the romantic or modern novel can achieve. This is why I feel people should relate to Briony’s character.

We can like Briony because we should be operating from the point of view of forgiveness, not condemnation. In the novel, no one ever gives Briony a second chance. A perfect example of this is when Briony says, ““I’m very very sorry. I’ve caused you such terrible distress.” They continued to stare at her, and she repeated herself. “I’m very sorry”” (McEwan 329). Robbie and Cecilia never acknowledge her apology, they simply stare at her. Cecilia even says, “I won’t ever forgive you” (McEwan 318). So Briony’s reward for her forgiveness is more alienation. Briony is then justified in continuing to rewrite her own story since it is demonstrated that she is completely alone. Almost no one likes to be alone all their lives. We can have sympathy for her and identify with her, making her a likeable character. We can forgive her especially because she asks for forgiveness multiple times even though she never really did tell anyone the truth. Everybody makes mistakes and they, like Briony, are deserving of many new chances. The readers can see themselves in Briony especially because they’ve been her age before. Briony can’t be expected to know everything, considering she’s only thirteen. At thirteen, she is just coming out of childhood, and has no working, real world experience. Her assumptions are likely to be naīve and not well informed. So, she is more likely to make mistakes as there is not one person in the world who has never made a mistake. It is really unfortunate that Briony always seems to have to pay for her mistakes and the readers can identify with that. Briony may not be completely likeable because she brings us closer to the truth about ourselves and that makes us uncomfortable. In addition, people always assume that what happens to Briony is her fault. For example when Lola is raped, Briony is not entirely convinced it was Robbie and has to state it out loud three times to convince herself it was him who she saw, and Lola knows it wasn’t Robbie but doesn’t say anything. We can sympathize with this because Lola is equally at fault but this never crosses anyone’s mind. Briony takes all the blame. Although this doesn’t make her likeable, we can empathize with her dilemma.

Lastly, as a character, it’s easy to admire her creative ability to convince others of circumstances. For example, once Lola was raped, everybody believes Briony’s accusation that Robbie is the rapist automatically. They believe her because she presents herself as the primary witness. It takes a lot of confidence for her to present her version of the evidence to the authorities because she’s having a hard time convincing herself of Robbie’s said crime. In addition, the reader can admire Briony because of her creative ability to continually rewrite her past in so many ways. This is admirable because it creates a novel within a novel within a novel and is a clever form of storytelling. To conclude, readers may not like Briony but ultimately may find that much about her is a reflection of themselves. Briony is naīve, as many of us still are, creative, manipulative, and very capable of recreating herself many times over.

RE: Roman (don’t hate me)

I think this comment took me longer to craft than the post itself and maybe I’m wrong, but I think you are confused about the post modern direction in the macro, and Briony as a sociopath in the micro. Let’s begin with the latter, Briony. I believe that Briony is likeable, or at least a “normal” person, just because….the post modern novel is reality. The modern novel is guilty of a romantic vision, where everyone walks off into the sunset and the ending is happy and the reader gets to enjoy the vision on an up note. Life is not generally like that; it often...sucks. Sometimes we are afforded a glimpse at happiness if we are lucky. All around us; third world countries lack food; pollution is wrecking our climate; our politicians are arguing and giving themselves raises, and we are under the belief that we “deserve” a good life. Briony is just a simple example of how the average human being rewrites their story every hour, every minute of every day. We spin everything. Politicians spin their political platforms. We choose every day not to believe we are killing our world. We choose every day to ignore third world problems. We choose every day to rephrase something about how we handled our day. Briony is likeable because she deconstructs and reconstructs her own life every day, and does it consciously….we should be so honest. Try living in a world where there is no belief in a happy ending. That is reality; Briony’s reality, our reality.

Now let’s take a look at the former: you claim that Briony is a sociopath. What if Briony is just….normal? Perhaps a little passive aggressive, but normal. The postmodern novel doesn’t pull any punches with decorating the characters with traits that aren’t really viable in the real world, and Briony has one of those characters. Unpolished, unbuffed, not fluffed up, she is a victim, she sees herself as a victim, and she is closer to a real life character because she is writing her own novel. She tells it like it is. We all make mistakes, each and every day. Most of us hide them, feel guilty about them, spin them into something else, or are just plain not conscious of them. That is what life is really like. Life is the postmodern novel.

Again, maybe I’m wrong, but I think you are a bit off regarding the direction and intent of the postmodern novel as a whole, and existentialism as an element. The intent of the postmodern novel is to shed light on our gothic and romantic, linear tradition and to stimulate people to think about our assumptions. We need to thank Briony because she causes us to question our assumptions. I’m not sure that you do, because you have not defined the function of the tools that you are quoting nor explained how they assist the positive portrayal of Briony. That is why I think you are confused about the purpose of the postmodern novel, and about the role of the character of Briony. Briony acts as a foil, a device by which we can gage our own consciousness or lack thereof and extent by which we are romanced by our era and society.

From The Young Girl To The New Woman

                Briony. The very name strikes anger and outrage into the minds of those who have read Atonement. Although the urge to hate little Briony is inevitable, she happens to do a lot of growing up in Part 3 and is able to reflect on the error of her ways in 1999, when she has become an old woman. Briony’s character has led a charmed life, silver spoon and all. Briony was, as a result of her family’s wealth, very sheltered from the ways of the world.  No wonder she was oblivious to the fountain scene and especially that of the library. It is Briony’s sheltered, Victorian upbringing which has led to her fatal mistake, the mistake that has made Briony such an unlikable character. Briony cannot be judged purely based on her past mistakes alone. It is not the mistakes you’ve made, but what you do about it that defines you. Since that day, many years ago, Briony has done all she can to show how sorry and how wrong she was. For this, Briony should not be hated, but revered. Briony has turned down her spot at university to become a nurse, has become excommunicated with her family by choice and has written a book purely for the sake of Cecelia and Robbie’s happiness.

                Briony, like any young woman during the war, has been allowed to taste freedom. Men, ever the dominant gender, have mostly been the only ones allowed to procure a job, support the family, and attend university. The war has opened doors for women and has allowed them to procure jobs, support their families and attend university.  A very lucky, Briony Tallis, has been accepted to Cambridge University. Cambridge, being the elitist university that it is, is the opportunity of a lifetime for a girl like Briony. Briony’s talent for writing could grow and mature in an environment such as this. Only one thing stands in Briony’s way, Briony herself. Guilt stricken by a terrible mistake, Briony has turned down her once in a lifetime opportunity to serve penance as a nurse; “The first surprise is that Briony isn’t at Cambridge. She didn’t go up last autumn, she didn’t take her place/ But I get the impression she’s taken on nursing as a sort of penance” (McEwan 199). Briony seeks redemption and forgiveness, but knows very well nothing can be done to persuade Cee and Robbie to forgive her. Instead, Briony seeks out nursing as a way to forgive herself. The life of a nurse is gruelling. The blistered hands, the stench, and the long hours make for a very uncomfortable life; “Between tasks, perhaps a dozen times a day, the students scrubbed their cracked and bleeding chilblained hands under freezing water” (McEwan 256). Briony has turned away from a privileged life at Cambridge, in order to redeem herself through the life of a nurse for the awful mistake she made years ago. Briony is not the self-centered girl that she once was, but rather, a selfless woman who seeks forgiveness.

                Briony has become a young woman and is now living away from home. Every young girl in the nursing program has sent or received mail to or from loved ones, all except Briony. It is hard to believe, given Briony’s silver spooned upbringing.  Briony was coddled as a child, so use to being praised and well-loved. It becomes increasingly hard to believe that she has chosen to cut herself off from her family on a personal and financial level; “She was the one who had cut herself off from home” (McEwan 263). Briony is, for the first time in her life, alone. Though, this route would not have been her first choice. Briony, after years, has become accustomed to a certain way of life and now, as a gift to Cee and in a way herself, she has cut herself off from her family. Briony’s family wished to believe the 13 year old rather than the 18 year old Briony. They wished to put the messy mistakes in the past instead of uncovering the truth and admitting they were wrong. Briony sacrificed her relationship with her family and her financial security in search of truth. Briony is no longer a spoiled, sheltered rich kid, but an independent and morally sound young woman.

                In her old age, Briony found the courage and strength to write about her fatal mistake whether it has been embellished or a complete web of lies spun off one truth, she did it. Atonement was a novel she had been trying to write for years but just hadn’t had the motivation until now. Briony’s illness and slow loss of memory have prompted her to get the story down on paper and out in the open. Briony’s last wish was to tell the story of Cecelia and Robbie. To give the lovers what they did not have in life, time. Time was stolen from Robbie and Cee by Briony and death; “Robbie Turner died of septicemia at Bay Dunes on 1 June 1940/Cecelia was killed in September of the same year by the bomb that destroyed Balham Underground Station” (McEwan 350). Briony, using her book, was able to unite the two and allow their love to live on through the ages; “I like to think that it isn’t a weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair, to let my lovers live and unite them at the end” (McEwan 351).

                Briony. A name which should invoke admiration and respect. Briony made her mistakes, but haven’t we all. Can we judge her based on a simple mistake made by a young, sheltered girl at the age of only 13? Or do we lift ourselves above all that and see Briony for who she really is? Briony turned down her acceptance to Cambridge, excommunicated herself from her family, and wrote a story about Robbie and Cee forever preserving their love in the pages of her book. Briony is a selfless, loving, and respectable woman who has come a long way from the girl she once was.

Comment on Riley's Blog:

I believe that Riley has a very valid point. Whether I would like to admit it or not, I can see bits of myself in Briony. Her need for organization and her longing to have a more exciting life than the one she does now. Making up stories and scenarios in your head is something every young child does. Taking those thoughts and trying to make them real is where it all starts to get a little bit messy. Riley's third paragraph made me think a little deeper about what we learned earlier on in the semester. The human mind wants to read and watch stories that are horrific and ironic because at the end of the day we want to be able to say that someone's life is worse than ours. Even if that person isn't real, we appreciate the fact that someone out there has a harder life than we do. Riley's point is pure genius and very exposing and I agree with it 100%.

Johannes Walker

Leave Briony Alone

Many may think that Briony is a horrible person due to the fact that she played a key role in the accusation and criminal conviction of Robbie, driving away Cecilia which cleaves the family, and the apparent death of Robbie. I say apparent because later in Atonement, we learn that Briony wrote the book, and may have falsified everything from witnessing Robbie and Cecilia’s affair, to her latter encounter with them at Cecilia’s one-bedroom apartment. However, as bad as these offences may seem, when you consider the circumstances Briony was in, I do think she made the right choices to the best of her ability.

During Atonement Part 1, Briony reads the letter Robbie wrote for Cecilia and witnesses the events that transpired in the library’s corner and of Lola’s second rape. To an impressionable young thirteen-year old girl who has been told all her life that whatever she does is “stupendous” (McEwan 4), causes her to form the basis of her persona as a protector for Cecilia and Lola. After seeing Lola’s rape, Briony tries to be the like Cecilia by comforting Lola. She insists the rapist is Robbie due to Robbie and Cecilia’s library encounter, and Lola is about to express doubts saying, “But it doesn’t make sense. He’s such a close friend of your family. It might not have been him.” (McEwan 161), but is suppressed by Briony’s evidence of the library. Lola never expresses doubts about Robbie again. Although Briony was very adamant about what she saw, the adults, mainly the Inspector, are to blame for Robbie’s conviction. When the Inspector took Briony back to the scene of the crime McEwan points out by sayings “[...], the inspector was careful not to oppress the young girl with probing questions, and within this sensitively created space she was able to build and shape her narrative in her own words and establish the key facts: there was sufficient light for her to recognize a familiar face; when he shrank away from her and circled the clearing, his movements and height were familiar.” (McEwan 169). The Inspector allows Briony to fabricate Lola’s entire rape instead of asking Briony questions pertaining to fact, so he could get a proper idea of what happened. Ultimately it was not Briony’s fault that she, as an ignorant young  girl, caused suspicion to be placed on Robbie, which lead to his conviction; it was Lola’s and the law officials’ fault for not calling shenanigans on Briony’s recollection of the rape.

Also, in Atonement Part 3, Briony is confronted by her past when she witnesses the wedding between Lola and Paul Marshall, and decides not to speak out against it. McEwan says, “[...] the scratches and bruises were long healed, and all her own statements at the time were to the contrary. Nor did the bride appear to be the victim, and she had her parents’ consent.” (McEwan 306). Briony chooses not to interfere so she does not upset Lola or ruin her life, since she is happy with Paul Marshall. She shows restraint. Briony also attempts to atone for her grave error by becoming a nurse in order to try and take the place of Robbie, who is at war. During her time as a nurse, she encounters a wounded French soldier named Luc Cornet, who she comforts and loves until his death saying, “[...] for [in] that moment, she did. He was a lovely boy who was a long way from his family and he was about to die.” (McEwan 292). Briony was not obligated to console him, but did it for the benefit of Luc. I think this shows her change from an entitled little girl, to a caring woman, who tried to make a man feel at peace in his last dying minutes.

Response: @Alex "Ma' Boy" Dinning

I agree with Alex that young Briony has lost, or has never had, the ability to distinguish between the real world, and her simulation, that being her role as a protector for her Cecilia and Lola.

I also want to say that because of her upbringing, especially in a society where class is prominent and where it forms her social reality, she has formed her identity by influential persons,namely her mother and sister, telling her life telling her that whatever she does is "stupendous" (McEwan 4). This gives her false confidence which leads to her downfall when she realizes the metanarrative she has been fed fails, and that her actions have consequences that do not only affect her, but every single person around her. 

Briony Grows Up: By Emma Lauermeier

From the first page of this book, Briony Tallis annoyed me. Briony didn’t live in the real world. Her life was essentially scripted. She was obsessed with writing these stories, about the girl and boy who fall in love and live happily ever after. Her infatuation with the perfect ending took over her life. In order for her to move past the mistakes she made, she rewrote her past. Wether this was the correct thing to do or not, she did make improvements in her character.

Briony loves to be in everyone’s business. She proved she can mettle in Part One, when she walks in on Cee and Robbie in the library, and then framing Robbie for Lola’s rape. This is the crime that sets up Briony on the quest of forgiveness. To me, there is nothing Briony could really do to make things go back to the way they were before. She really messed things up, and everyone involved in the situation knows that. What I think is commendable of Briony, is she tried to make herself better, even if she couldn’t fix the larger problem.

After learning from her father about the wedding of Paul Marshall and Lola, Briony decides to attend the affair. While at the wedding, she is reminded of the horrible incident from her youth, saying, 

“She felt the memories, the needling details, like a rash, like dirt on her skin: Lola coming to her room in tears, her chafed and bruised wrists, and the scratches on Lola’s shoulder and down Marshall’s face; Lola’s silence in the darkness at the lakeside as she let her earnest, ridiculous, oh so prim younger cousin, who couldn’t tell real life from the stories in her head, deliver the attacker into safety” (McEwan, p. 306).

Briony’s worked hard to move past her mistakes of her youth, and remembering all these memories could trigger her to fall back into her old patterns. But, when the priest asks for any objections to the marriage, Briony stays still; 

“Aunt Hermione would be rubbing her hands. That Paul Marshall, Lola Quincey, and she, Briony Tallis, had conspired with silence and falsehoods to send an innocent man to jail? But the words that had convicted him had been her very own, read out loud on her behalf in the Assize Court. The sentence had already been served. The debt was paid. The verdict stood” (p. 307).

This is Briony finally learning her place. She can’t intervene in everyone’s problems. Even though you so badly want to stand up, to say what you think is right, things aren’t always in your control. You have to let people make their own mistakes. Briony proved she’s learned her lesson in this moment.

This reminds me of an episode of my favourite reality tv show, The Hills. Heidi, Lauren’s ex-best friend, is marrying Spencer, Lauren’s nemesis. Lauren and Heidi stopped being friends because Heidi started dating Spencer, but Lauren decides to attend the wedding to put the bad blood behind her. Sometimes, a small act like this speaks louder than words.

So, Briony may or may not of actually lived out this transformation. But, she understands what she did was wrong, and would change it if she could. I think that’s positive character development in the case of whiny-Briony.

Comment on Erin’s Blog Post:

While I think it is commendable that Briony is so passionate about the forgiveness of the people she hurt, is it worth suffering her whole life for? Briony is completely aware that her family won’t forgive her, let alone speak to her. If she isn’t living with them, and not in any contact, isn’t there a point when one would want to move on? She could be living a life full of love from others, but instead she is plagued by this guilt of one mistake. What she should do is learn from this mistake and not repeat it in new relationships. Just because the family you are born into turns against you, does not mean you can’t build a new family of friends.