Patrick DePeters

October 2005

Atonement Ian McEwan

            One mistake, one lie, one egregious error made by a young and naive protagonist was so profound and so offensive that it deteriorated a close-knit family, led to the abrupt change in the protagonist’s career, and severely startled, but did not destroy, the young, durable love of a couple who were most affected by her lie. Briony’s life following her mistake was devoted to expiation. For hours, days, and months following the indictment of Robbie, Briony was unable to admit that she had not actually seen Robbie at the scene of Lola’s rape. Briony’s omnipresent guilt was enough to convince her that she had made a terrible mistake. Because of the detrimental effects that her lie caused, most notably with Cecilia, Briony spent most of her days in the ward trying to move forward with her life, but found her burden, her past, unavoidable. She could not simply abandon her family, or live on knowing that she didn’t say sorry, say she was wrong, and seek forgiveness. Atonement is Briony’s attempt to recapture and simultaneously relive the events of her past, a memoir of sorts; and in seeking expiation, she has the artistic license and moral responsibility to repair and unite the relationship that she destroyed.

            “It was Robbie,” said Briony with such conviction, such confidence in an attempt to “avenge herself” for what she had seen in the Library (220). “No one doubted her” (220). Those words, derived chiefly from Briony’s preconceived notion that Robbie was a “maniac,” proved to be severely consequential. These indicting words were enough to land Robbie in jail, and Cecilia in shambles.

The impulse, the flash of malice, the infantile destructiveness he could understand. The wonder was the depth of the girl’s rancor, her persistence with a story that saw him all the way to Wandsworth Prison (220).

Rancor, defined as deep-seated ill will, is indicative of Robbie’s unsympathetic perception of Briony’s intentions. Robbie “did not forgive her. He would never forgive her. That was the lasting damage” (220).   Briony was “a child at the time” who thought she had the whole story. To Briony, it was “her own discovery…her story…that was writing itself around her” (156). Years later, in the ward, Briony had come to realize the magnitude of her lie—her seemingly innocent error. Briony’s past haunted her every day following the incident. She had “felt her familiar guilt pursue her with a novel vibrancy” (268).

Briony’s egregious lie may have stemmed from a childhood crush. In June of 1932, Briony and Robbie spent a day together bonding by the river. Briony was about ten, and she was old enough to form an unwavering opinion, rather crush, on Robbie. She proclaimed her love for him, and he, to her dismay, did not reciprocate those feelings. These feelings, though premature, may have been significant to Briony. When Briony saw Robbie and Cecilia in the library the night of the rape, she may have been overwhelmed by emotions such as jealousy, dismay, betrayal, or simply broken-hearted. Briony sought and received vengeance for Robbie’s wrongdoing. Robbie didn’t actually do anything wrong. But, one must remember, that the story revolves around Briony. Just as in the Trials of Arabella, “falling in love could be achieved in a single word—a glance” (7).  Briony’s view of the relationships between men and women was romanticized. But to her credit, she recognized that “love which did not build a foundation on good sense was doomed” (3).

Robbie recognized that it would take “courage…to go back to the law and deny the evidence she had given under oath” (220). Regardless, Briony “knew what was required of her.” It was not an option to forget the past or convince herself that events had occurred differently. The truth was too painful—the past too real. Briony knew that “whatever actually happened drew its significance from her published work and would not have been remembered with out it” (39). A simple, extended letter that her brother requested of her would not suffice. It would have to be a “new draft, an atonement” (330).

The entire novel Atonement is Briony’s view of the past. Up until penultimate chapter, the reader thought that story was told by a limited omniscient narrator. When the reader discovers that the entire novel is written as a recollection of events based on Briony’s memory, in addition to made-up events based on Briony’s desires, the reader knows that everything that happened is written by Briony. She writes as if she can understand what people like Cecilia and Robbie are thinking, and the circumstances that they are enduring. It is clear that she is trying to make up for the past. She is not bitter about the past because her writing and her recollection does not change throughout. The novel is based on her experience with accepting the past, presenting the truth, in addition to altering what really happened to what should have happened.

 The theme can best be described as compassion and forgiveness. Bitterness or longing would not be acceptable for one seeking reconciliation. Briony, who supposedly wrote the novel/letter after her confrontation with Cecilia and Robbie, is mature enough to offer all vantage points, including those that magnify her weaknesses, betrayal, untruthfulness, and sorrow. Briony said, “I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair, to let my lovers live and to unite them at the end” (351). She termed it “An act of kindness”—so simple and sincere. Briony adopted the “lovers” as her own, and she sought the proper ending for their existence—together, as it should be. In the penultimate chapter, Briony sought atonement. By the concluding paragraph, Briony was “not so self-serving as to let them forgive [her].” She had all the power to manipulate them and their interactions with her, yet she avoided the embellished fairy-tale conclusion—and she departed humbly. Now that the novel is finished, and Briony, Cecilia and Robbie (among others), only “exist as [her] inventions,” the lovers “survive and flourish” together (350).