Atonement: Supporting Material

Part One
Intro
Atonement is divided into 4 parts, the first part consists of four chapters and spans over a hot summer day at the Tallis household in 1935. Briony Tallis, a 13 year old girl, has been working on a play to perform to her brother, who is due to arrive that evening. Brionys elder sister, 23 year old Cecilia, has recently graduated from Cambridge, and is altogether dissatisfied and rather bored with being home. Cecilia and Brionys mother Emily, remains upstairs with a migraine for the majority of the day while her husband Jack is in town working late, as he is known to do. Emilys sister is going through a divorce, and her daughter and twin sons are to stay at the Tallis household for an unspecified length of time.

Relationships/Love
The author introduces relationships in a negative way; the distant and rather cold marriage of Emily and Jack and the impending divorce of Hermione and her husband are used by the author to show how dull, unpassionate and cruel love and relationships can be. The sexual tension between Cecilia and Robbie (the charwomans son and Jack Tallis project) is a contrast to this, while the other relationships are bitter or cold, Cecilia and Robbie are awkward but passionate.

Symbols/Metaphors
Cecilia makes all attempts to avoid Robbie, and is unexplainably rude to him. Together in fits of stubbornness, they break a vase, a priceless family heirloom. The vase symbolises the destruction of the Tallis family, the division, and Cecilias repairing of the vase is the first act of deceit. The play is a metaphor, which foreshadows the coming crimes of Briony. The spontaneous actions of the heroine, Arabella, are mirrored by Brionys own rash decisions, and they lead her into an henceforth undiscovered world of adult emotions, where it all seems to rise up and tread on her. The three cousins, Lola, Pierrot and Jackson, are not believed by their cousin to be adequate actors of her stupendous (E.Tallis) masterpiece. Lola, being 3 years Brionys senior, seems determined to segregate herself from the other children, and acts in a superior manner determined to demonstrate that her nearly adult mind was elsewhere (Author) Briony soon gives up on her disastrous attempt at gaining her brothers praise, and spends the rest of the day in the grounds.

The letter: A turning point

A letter from Robbie to Cecilia falls into Brionys hands, the wrong draft, a hasty error by its author; it contained blunt sexual sentiments, which Briony is not completely capable of understanding. She reacts defensively, but one suspects a hint of delight, she revels in secrecy and storytelling but has experienced so little of the world she has no secrets, and few stories. In her head she perceives herself as a heroine, her sister is a weak victim who will fall prey to the

irreducibly human(B.Tallis) man who would disrupt all order in her controlled life. She immediately accepts Robbie as a maniac (L.Quincey) a violent, untrustworthy man, though she has known and trusted him all her life. I could not easily understand how she could change her perception so quickly. After deciding she must protect her sister, she interrupts a tryst between Cecilia and Robbie, which she misinterprets as Robbie trying to hurt Cecilia.

The runaways and the rape

Part one reaches a climax after an awkward dinner on a hot night, the twin cousins attempt to run away. The commotion caused raises everyone from their seats to search, the melodramatic Lola runs ahead, and all the Tallis family and guests follow. During a fervent search of the grounds, Briony comes across a traumatized Lola, as a man retreats back towards the house. With the exchange of few words, Briony understands something vile has happened to her cousin. The thoughts which had consumed her all night cause her to believe she knows who the culprit was. She repeats I saw him, I saw him, it was him to Lola, who in her traumatized state, submissively confirms to Briony that Robbie was the one her raped her. The household is kicked up into further commotion, with Jack being called back from town, the police arriving, and the first instance of the segregated family. Cecilia is enraged because she knows Robbie could not have done it, but her family willingly follows the words of a young girl. Robbie arrives back after finding the twins, and is arrested and taken to jail. Part one ends with Robbies mother chasing the police car, screaming Liars (B.Turner).

Part 2
Part 2 focuses on Robbie, a few years after the rape, for which he served 3 and a half years. Through several flashbacks and letters we learn that Robbie and Cecilia have seen each other very little since the night in the library. We learn that she has separated herself completely from her family, does not speak to them at all, and that throughout Robbies trial she maintained his innocence and told everyone about their love.

Brionys Guilt #1
There are several letters in this part of the novel. Between Cecilia and Robbie, this is how we learn much of what is happened. Cecilia tells Robbie that Briony has eluded her place at Cambridge to take up nursing, much like her elder sister. This action is indicative of Brionys guilt and search for atonement.

Robbies Hope
At the end of each of Cecilias letters she repeats the phrase Ill wait for you, come back, we learn this is what she spoke to him outside the Tallis house as he was arrested, and at the train station before he left to go to war. This phrase is also repeated in part one, when Briony would have a nightmare that was how her sister would call her back. This phrase empowers Robbie, and Part 2 encompasses a great feeling of hope. Robbie is optimistic and believes that all he needs to do is survive the war; survive the war and he is free. His time served, his crime forgiven. His thoughts and letters vary from angry to indifferent and understanding. Often he is very, very angry with Briony. He thinks that the fact her cannot forgive her is the lasting damage (R.Turner), he forgives the Tallis family, and encourages Cecilia to make contact with them.

Dismemberment and setting change

Part 2 is very different from the idyllic setting in Part 1. A country manor becomes the barren war country of France, where a man can easily stumble across a corpse or dismembered body part. These body parts represent how a person can be partly destroyed; have a part of them taken away. In Part 1 Briony sees her mothers leg, which also appears disembodied (B.Tallis).

Robbies Flashback
Whilst he and 2 other officers trek the long journey to the beach, where they will be taken back to England, Robbie has several flashbacks. He is injured and slowly delves into a dream state where shooting a lieutenant in the chest is a logical decision, though he doesnt carry through. An important flashback is a memory of him and Briony. It is mentioned in part one that Robbie taught Briony how to swim. The memory is of one of these swimming lessons, Briony is acting rather strangely. She asks him whether he would save her if she drowns he of course replies that he would. As he puts his clothes on she jumps into the water. Robbie hears the splash and knowing Briony cannot swim well, he jumps in fully clothed. When he retrieves her he is seething and he asks her why she would do that, with the risk of them both drowning. She calmly admits her love for him. As she was 11 at the time, Robbie thought no more of this until his time in prison. He believes Brionys crush on him could very well be what forced her to open the letter, and he jealousy of his love for Cecilia was what made her accuse him of something she knows he very well did not do. At the end of this Part, Robbie is feverish and plagued by nightmares of the night of his arrest. Though he should seem far more concerned with his injuries, his dream state makes him merely thoughtful as he considers the events which changed his life. Part 2 ends with his promise to his comrade that he wont say another word, and the promise of home is only a few hours away.

Part 3
Identity
Part 3 focuses again on Briony, and her search for reconciliation and atonement. She accepts her guilt and tries to get as close to the war as possible in order to gain her atonement. Briony writes to her sister requesting to meet, Cecilia believes this is Brionys impending offer to clear Robbies name. Briony is filled with guilt and her decision to become a nurse, separate from her family and education, is the stripping away of identity. Briony has no first name; she is merely Nurse Tallis. She is far less vivacious and believes she has abandoned herself and has no will and no freedom. Her punishment to herself is to live a life of strictures, rules, obedience and housework, things a 13 year old Briony Tallis would never have considered as a future for herself. She continues, however, to write. She keeps journals which are further from fact than she would like, but the pleasure of fiction never escaped her, nor the pleasure in seeing pages covered in her own handwriting. Briony works as a nurse to fix what she has broken, but she knows that she can never be rid of her guilt until she is forgiven by Robbie and Cecilia.

Chaos and Lack of Control

Briony is right in the thick of it when soldiers begin returning from war. A graphic section describing the various injuries Briony is helping to treat. Briony fears the chaos; as a writer she demands control, she demands order. In the real world, Briony has no name, Briony is not God and Briony can do very little. The last section of Part 3 is a letter from a magazine where Briony sent in a story to be published. The letter encourages her to pursue her writing and tells her where her story went wrong. This advice reveals much to Briony and seems to puncture right through her thoughts. The letter suggests that the child who viewed a scene by a fountain could come between them in some disastrous fashion (C.C) due to her lack of understanding of the situation.

A meeting
Briony walks through London to the apartment where her sister lives. There she also finds Robbie and the immense relief she feels about seeing him alive is overshadowed by his open hostility. Briony offers herself for however Cecilia and Robbie wish to use her to rid Robbie of his charges and Briony of her guilt. They both will not forgive her, but she accepts that. They believe it was Danny Hardman who raped Lola but Briony tells them it was Paul Marshall, she has just come from their wedding. This is another mistake of perception in the story, not just by Briony. In Part 3 Briony indicates several times that she lacks a backbone, she could not interrupt the wedding of Lola and Paul Marshall. We understand Brionys cowardice for maintaining her lie for so long, but it would have taken a large amount of courage to meet her sister and Robbie again. The last image of Cecilia and Robbie given is them standing together at the subway station, the fact that they managed to find each other again is comforting to Briony.

Part 4
Part 4 is the only part written in first person from the point of view of a 77 year old Briony. She tells of her last story, the countless drafts, and the letters from an army officer. Briony is diagnosed with vascular dementia and soon will remember nothing, no person, no conversation, no crime. She takes some comfort in this idea. In her final address to the reader, Briony lets go of the last twist of her tale. She explains, It is only in this last version that my lovers end well, standing side by side on a South London pavement as I walk away. The paragraph describes how the part of her book where she is in London in 1940, and meets Robbie and Cecilia in their flat, was completely made up. The narrator explains how Robbie never made it off the beach in Dunkirk and that Cecilia died shortly thereafter in a London bombing. Briony explains how after the wedding, the real story is that she was too cowardly to confront a grieving sister, which led to never seeing her again before her death shortly after.

Setting: Part One

-1935, a few years before the beginning of the war -Women could study with men, but could not gain real degrees or employment - Tallis estate -The main house, plain, ugly (residents: Emily, Jack, Cecilia, Briony. Visitors: Lola, Pierrot, Jackson, Leon, Paul Marshall) -The temple, purposeless and run down, surrounded by nettles -The charwomans cottage (residents: Robbie and his mother) Themes: -Social Class -Robbie would never be considered an appropriate match for Cecilia - Danny Hardman, another servant, was suspected of the rape, but Paul Marshall was only questioned as a witness, like Leon and Emily. -Innocence (Briony- loss of innocence, naivety to the world) -Briony is too young to understand the letter, leading to her hostile attitude towards Robbie, her perceptions of the kind of person he is and what he is capable of. - Perception (the crime) -Brionys perception (Robbie) -Robbie and Cecilias perception (Danny Hardman) -Guilt/Atonement -Briony- decision to take up nursing instead of getting an education, the book. -Marshall/Lola charitable work later in life -Deceit -Brionys lie, (I saw him) -Lolas evasion (Letting Briony tell everyone it was Robbie) -Paul Marshalls accusation of the twins abuse on Lola -Paul Marshalls crime