Sunday, October 26, 2008

Atonement

Atonement is the satisfaction or reparation for a wrong or injury. In my opinion, everyone in this story is guilty of something in one way or another. The degree of their crimes and the amount of guilt vary, but atonement is something that lingers within everyone involved. After that one crazy evening at the Tallis mansion, their lives will never be the same again. After finishing the story and analyzing the characters I have come to the conclusion that no one really achieves atonement. Briony is the main character searching for atonement because of the crime she committed. She expresses the fact that she wants to be atoned by writing a book about Robbie and Cecilia, with an alternate ending. This ending gives Briony the chance to be forgiven by her sister and Robbie, while they get to live happily ever after in love. It also proves that it was not Robbie who raped Lola. By changing these two scenarios in her book she is in someway admitting that she was wrong for what she did, and only feels comfortable admitting it in this form of writing. There were many inferences in the book that prove Briony realizes that she is wrong, and might not know the whole truth about what happened that night. This does not matter though because she tries to put these thoughts out of her head and piece everything together. She is still a child but tries to act as if she is an adult by being a detective with the whole situation going on at the house. I do not think that Cecilia and Robbie have anything to be atoned for in this story. I do think that Cecilia feels she could have done more by helping save Robbie, and proving that her sister fabricated everything. I do feel a little sorry for Briony. I feel as if her age had a great deal to do with the way she acted. She did not know what sex was at the time, so when she walked in on her sister and Robbie it looked as if he was trying to hurt her. Having this image in her head led her to believe that he was also the person to rape Lola. I am not saying what she did was justifiable, but her age did play a big factor on her actions. Being that Briony was the main character of the story, and the things she experienced were the basis of the book, I believe that atonement was a perfect title.

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