verbal scuffle.
One of the letters is obscene, and he puts it
Characters
Briony
Briony is the "author" of Atonement, a novel she writes as an
apology to her sister Cecilia Tallis and Robbie Turner for
falsely accusing him of raping her cousin Lola Quincey.
Essentially, the whole story is filtered through her point of
view, but her youth makes her an unreliable narrator, as well
as an unreliable witness to all the events.
Cecilia
Cecilia is Briony Tallis's elder sister and the victim of Briony's
lie about seeing Robbie rape Lola. She falls in love with
Robbie Turner and promises to wait for him after he is sent
to prison and then goes off to fight in World War II.
Robbie
Robbie is the son of the Tallis family's charlady. He falls in
love with Cecilia, but is falsely accused of rape by Briony and
goes to prison and then off to fight in World War II (1939–
45).
Lola
Lola is Briony Tallis's cousin who is visiting because of her
parents' impending divorce. It is her rape by Paul Marshall
that leads to Robbie Turner being falsely imprisoned.
Paul
Paul is Leon's friend and houseguest. Partly because he is a
chocolate magnate and an elite member of society, he gets
away with raping Lola, whom he later marries.
Plot Summary
Part 1
In an upper-class house in Britain in 1935, 13-year-
old Briony Tallis has written a play, The Trials of Arabella, to
be performed by her visiting cousins from the North in honor
of her brother, Leon Tallis's, homecoming. Her 15-year-old,
precocious cousin, Lola Quincey, schemes to take the
leading role of Arabella away from Briony—an act that
upsets Briony greatly.
From a second-story window, Briony witnesses a scene at
the fountain below between her older sister, Cecilia Tallis,
and Robbie Turner, the son of their charlady or cleaning
woman. It seems to Briony that Robbie has commanded
Cecilia to strip off her clothes and jump in the water. In fact,
Cecilia has waded into the fountain to retrieve pieces of a
priceless vase broken during a tussle with Robbie.
Briony abandons rehearsals for the play and goes out to a
nearby island temple to destroy nettles, plants with jagged
leaves and stinging hairs. Leon arrives with his friend Paul
Marshall but does not stop to greet Briony, which causes her
to stubbornly wait outdoors until something meaningful
happens to her.
Cecilia fixes the chipped vase. She hears Leon invite Robbie
to dinner and is irritated. She talks to Paul, wondering if he
might be the man she is going to marry, but decides he is too
dull for her.
Paul visits Lola and her twin brothers, Jackson and Pierrot
Quincey, in the nursery and creepily watches Lola eat a
chocolate bar. Meanwhile, Briony's mother, Emily Tallis, lies
in her bed with a migraine and congratulates herself for
being aware, through a kind of "sixth sense," of everything
that goes on in the house.
Robbie cannot stop thinking about Cecilia after seeing her
nearly naked in the fountain. He realizes he loves her and
drafts several versions of an apology letter to her for their
aside. As he walks to the Tallis house for dinner, he sees
Briony and decides to use her as a messenger. Only after
Briony is out of sight does Robbie realize he accidently gave
her the obscene version of the letter.
Cecilia dresses for dinner and then helps the twins get ready.
She chats with Leon before dinner, and Briony brings her a
folded piece of paper—Robbie's letter, which Cecilia soon
realizes Briony has read. She confronts Briony, but Briony
ignores her.
Lola confides to Briony that the twins have attacked her, a lie
intended to protect Paul, her real attacker. In turn, Briony
confides to Lola the contents of Robbie's letter, and they
decide he is a "maniac."
Dinner is a stifling affair with stilted conversation. The twins
ask to be excused, and then Briony finds a letter they left
behind announcing their intention to run away. Everyone
except Emily goes to search for them.
Briony is not concerned about the twins, but she is thrilled to
be allowed outside at night, despite being wary of Robbie,
the "maniac." She finds Lola near the island temple, reeling
from being raped. Briony sees a man of Robbie's build
running away and assumes he was the attacker. Lola does
not correct Briony when she claims she saw Robbie, but Lola
maintains that she did not see her attacker.
Briony returns to the house and accuses Robbie. Everyone
seems to believe her except Cecilia and Robbie's mother,
Grace Turner. The police are called, and when Robbie
arrives with the found twins, policemen take him away in
handcuffs. Cecilia tries to comfort Robbie through the
window of the police car. Grace calls the Tallis family liars as
her son is driven off.
Part 2
Some years later, during World War II (1939–45), Robbie
finds himself in France retreating from the Germans and on
his way to Dunkirk for evacuation at Bray Dunes back to
England. He joined the infantry as a condition of his early
release from prison after serving three and a half years for
Lola Quincey's rape. The shrapnel embedded in his skin is
festering, but he does not want to tell his companions,
Corporal Mace and Corporal Nettle, about it.
Robbie is still in touch with Cecilia via letters. They met once
in London after his release from prison and kissed
passionately. Robbie has one reason to stay alive: Cecilia's
love. He knows her letters by heart.
After stopping for a night's rest at a farm, the three men
continue on toward the beach. Along the way, they witness
chaos and hear the cries of the wounded. German planes
attack, dropping bombs that kill many. Somehow, they make
it to Bray Dunes, but there are no boats to evacuate them.
After Mace saves a Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot from an
angry mob, Robbie and Nettle lose him and find a place to
rest for the night. Robbie's condition has made him delirious
by this point, and his unconscious shouting is bothering the
other men around him. Nettle asks him to be quiet, and
Robbie promises him that he will not hear another word from
him. His last waking thoughts are of Cecilia.
Part 3
Although she could have chosen an easier life, Briony now
works in London as a nurse, just like Cecilia. She tries to
drown her guilt over unjustly accusing Robbie of Lola's rape
in hard work, but guilt pursues her nevertheless. She still
writes in her spare time and has sent the first draft of a
novella to a literary magazine.
War is on the verge of coming to Britain, and Briony cares for
the evacuees from the French front. She receives a letter
from her father with the news that Lola and Paul are getting
married. She decides to attend their wedding, and this event
prompts her to visit Cecilia and apologize for her crime.
At Cecilia's, Briony sees Robbie. He has survived the war
and has returned to Cecilia. Briony asks for their forgiveness,
but they refuse to grant it. Instead, they ask her to write a
letter to their parents and family explaining what really
happened. Briony's novella has been rejected, so she
decides to rewrite it as atonement for her sin.
Part 4
In London, on the day of her 77th birthday, Briony muses on
her recent diagnosis of vascular dementia. She admits that
she fabricated her meeting with Cecilia after Lola's wedding.
In actuality, Robbie died of septicemia in Dunkirk, and Cecilia
died later during the German bombing of the Balham
Underground station during the London Blitz. Briony wanted
to give them a fictional happy ending as part of her
atonement.
At her birthday party, celebrated at her old house (now a
hotel), Briony watches a family production of her play The
Trials of Arabella. She knows, because Lord and Lady
Marshall are still alive and will likely outlive her, that she will
not be able to publish Atonement in her lifetime because it
would be libelous, or damaging to reputations.
Introduction
1. Briony prepares to put on a play for her family.
Rising Action
2. Robbie and Cecilia tussle at the fountain.
3. Briony reads an obscene letter from Robbie to Cecilia.
4. Robbie and Cecilia make love, and Briony sees them.
5. Paul rapes Lola while the family searches for her
brothers.
6. Falsely, Briony accuses Robbie of the rape.
7. Robbie goes to prison and then off to war in France.
8. Briony visits Cecilia to apologize and sees Robbie there.
Climax
9. Paul Marshall marries Lola.
Falling Action
10. Much later, Briony writes but doesn't publish Atonement.
11. Briony reveals the book is not entirely truthful.
Resolution
12. Robbie and Cecilia never reunited.
Symbols
Vase
Uncle Clem's vase is a symbol of Robbie Turner and Cecilia
Tallis's relationship. Like the vase, it is precious and fragile.
Their brittle fountain encounter ends in a tussle during which
the lip of the vase breaks off. Cecilia carefully mends the
vase with sealant, just as she and Robbie mend their
relationship by sealing it physically. Forces beyond their
control break both the vase and their relationship.
But the vase can also be seen as a symbol of Cecilia's
relationship to her family, since it is an heirloom passed
down from a revered uncle. The first cracks to appear
foreshadow Cecilia's alienation from the family after they
unfairly condemn Robbie. The ultimate shattering of the vase
happens during the war in which both Robbie and Cecilia
die, cutting off Cecilia from her family forever. It is also
interesting to note that Uncle Clem acquired the vase in
World War I, which took his life (although his legacy, via the
vase, made it home). The vase is therefore tied to two wars,
both of which harm the Tallis family.
The vase is also tied to Briony's sense of guilt over her false
accusation. It features prominently in her novella Two
Figures by a Fountain. And it is no accident that Briony
reveals the final fate of the vase during her fictional visit to
Cecilia's house. Both the vase and the Robbie-Cecilia
relationship are destroyed, but she attempts to atone by
rewriting the relationship's ending.
Dresses
Dresses are closely related to the coming-of-age theme
because they reflect the perceived maturity level of the
wearer. Briony notes at their second play rehearsal that her
white muslin dress is childish compared to Lola's more adult
sweater and trousers look, but that she did not want to make
the effort to appear older.
While dressing for dinner, Cecilia rejects a dour black dress
she thinks makes her look beyond her sexual prime and a
frilly pink dress she thinks makes her look like a child. She
chooses a backless green dress, signaling her availability
to Robbie Turner. Lola Quincey wears a constricting dress
that Briony muses Lola chose because "attaining adulthood
was all about the eager acceptance of such impediments."
The constricting dress is also a symbol for the trap Lola falls
into with Paul Marshall. Once she keeps her silence about
his culpability, she is bound to him and their lie forever.
Finally, at her 77th birthday party, Briony chooses a dove-
gray, cashmere dress to symbolize she is finally comfortable
and at peace with her story—she has "grown up" emotionally
enough to accept what she has done.
Water
Water is a symbol of life and rebirth
throughout Atonement. When Cecilia jumps into the fountain,
she is reborn as an object of affection in Robbie's eyes.
During the war, Robbie is constantly searching for water to
keep him alive. The sea he is walking toward is a symbol of
his hope for survival and reunion with Cecilia.
Briony often goes to bodies of water to revive herself when
she is in a bad mood. But in Part 3, stinging cold tap water
punishes her a dozen times a day when she must wash her
hands as a nurse at the hospital. Her friend Fiona brings
Briony a symbolic offer of water, but Fiona is incapable of
taking Briony's guilt away. While on her imagined visit to
Cecilia, Briony wishes her sister would give her a glass of
water—here a symbol of a rebirth into Cecilia's good
graces—but Celia does not.
Themes
With a title like Atonement, it seems obvious the novel is
about coming to terms with guilt. Briony Tallis does not
mention her feelings of guilt outright very often. She spends
much of the novel subtly shifting partial blame for Robbie
Turner's fate onto others. Paul should not have raped Lola,
and he should not have used Robbie as a convenient
scapegoat for his crime. Her mother, Emily Tallis, should
have known Paul Marshall raped Lola Quincey if she "knows
everything." Her father, Jack Tallis, should have been more
involved with his family and stepped in to defend his protégé,
Robbie. Her cousin Lola Quincey should have spoken up
instead of letting the clueless Briony speak for her. Robbie
himself should not have used the obscene word he uses in
his letter to Cecilia. And Robbie and Cecilia Tallis should
have found a more private place to make love than the
library, where Briony walked in on them.
During her time as a nurse, Briony acknowledges the burden
of her guilt and how it pursues her: "Guilt refined ... detail into
an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime." She
wishes she could have been brave enough to apologize
personally to Cecilia, so she fabricates a visit to her sister
where she has a chance to do so.
It is not until the end of her life that Briony is ready to go
public with her private shame, but she cannot
publish Atonement until her fellow sinners Paul and Lola are
dead. She knows she can never attain forgiveness, but she
unburdens herself of guilt by her lifelong attempt to set things
right, even if this can be done only in fictional form.
Order versus Chaos
The contrast between order and chaos appears as a theme destroy him, but it also had the power to give him his great
throughout Atonement, with McEwan seeming to advocate a love story.
healthy balance between the two. Briony's impeccably tidy In Part 2, Cecilia's words in letters to Robbie have the power
to keep him alive through prison and his war experience.
room and need for absolute control over her own narrative
Specifically, it is the words she once used to soothe Briony
represents order. Meanwhile, the aimless Cecilia, with her after her nightmares that now express her unwavering
impulsive nature and messy room, represents chaos. devotion to Robbie: "Come back."
Studious Robbie has an orderly life as a doctor in his sights In Part 3, Briony's journal writing is what keeps her sane and
until he falls in love with Cecilia, and reckless actions— allows her to keep her identity in the face of an institution in
writing an obscene letter, using a child as a messenger, which she is stripped of everything but her designation as a
making love to Cecilia in an inappropriate place, and setting nurse. The original draft of her novella (which later
becomes Atonement) lacks power because there is no
off on his own to search for the twins—lead to his undoing.
emotional truth to it—she is hiding her guilt behind an
The novel is framed by young Briony's play, The Trials of unsuccessful experiment in point of view.
Arabella, which extols the virtue of good sense and Finally, in Part 4, Briony has achieved the ultimate power
foreshadows doom for any love not based on this quality. over her creation by becoming a celebrated author. Words
Briony learns early she is not suited to be a playwright are the source of her power, and with them she builds entire
because she does not have complete control over the worlds. But the one thing she wants the most, atonement,
outcome of her fiction. She rejects the chaos of playwriting she does not have the power to give herself. Even so, she
acknowledges she has at least made the attempt.
and dedicates herself solely to the orderliness of novel
writing. In an example of situational irony, when she speaks
for Lola about the identity of the rapist, Briony unexpectedly
becomes the main actress in a real-life drama of her own
making—a narrative she creates to take control, but which
ends up getting far out of her control.
After the chaos of Robbie's trial and prison sentence, Robbie
joins the military, and Cecilia and Briony join the nursing
profession—both institutions that rely heavily on order for
their success. But the events of World War II (1939–45)
break down the military order, leaving Robbie to die in
Dunkirk as the British army withdraws from France. Briony
takes ultimate control of her story by becoming the author of
it. After various drafts, she finally believes it worthy of being
her atonement. But Briony's final punishment for her
obsessive need for order is a slow descent into dementia—
mental chaos from which she can never recover. McEwan
seems to offer her diagnosis as a sort of poetic justice for her
crime.

Coming of Age
Both 13-year-old Briony and 15-year-old Lola try to grow up
too fast, with disastrous results. Briony is too young to
process the complex workings of the adult world and so
misunderstands Robbie and Cecilia's flirtation as something
far more sinister. Lola, still privately reeling from the threat of
her parents' divorce, wants to act as though she is above it
all. She dresses like a woman instead of a child, which
attracts inappropriate attention from Paul.
Briony willfully "kills" her childhood in Part 1, Chapter
7 ("having no further need for it"), using nettles, plants with
jagged leaves and stinging hairs, as a stand-in. As she
reflects in Part 1, Chapter 13, if she had allowed herself to
continue her childhood, and allowed her mother to snuggle
her, would never have found Lola after her rape and never
have borne false witness against Robbie.

Power of Words
The two most powerful words in Part 1 of Atonement are the
obscene word Robbie uses in his letter and the word maniac.
Both change Briony's innocent opinion of Robbie into a harsh
judgment of his character. Robbie sets this transformation in
motion by first writing the word and then giving a child
(Briony) the opportunity to read it. Briony is disgusted by
Robbie, but she does not consider him dangerous until she
tells Lola about the letter and Lola calls him a "maniac."
Once this word is introduced, Briony repeats it until she
believes it wholeheartedly. These two words become the fuel
for Briony's false accusation of Robbie.
Similarly, Robbie reflects how his obscene letter "repelled
[Cecilia] but it unlocked her." His word had the power to