‘As far as the reader is concerned, Briony never succeeds in atoning for her crime in spite of all her
efforts’. To what extent do you agree with this view?
‘Atonement’ is a complex post-modern crime novel in which McEwan portrays Briony Tallis as the
main criminal, who constantly seeks redemption through utilising the novel as her own form of
atonement. Throughout the metanarrative, the unreliable narrator manipulates the events of the
story in an attempt to ‘atone’ which forces the contemporary reader to question her reliability and
evaluate whether she is a remorseless narcissist or simply a misunderstood individual. Not only does
Briony commit the crime of wrongly accusing Robbie as the perpetrator behind Lola’s rape, a form of
perjury, Briony contributes to the miscarriage of justice through punishing Cecilia unjustly,
destroying her only glimmer of happiness, and failing to accept responsibility for her wrong-doings.
Furthermore, the metafictional status of the novel positions Briony as a character who cannot be
trusted, so perhaps, the narrative structure can be considered to be a crime against the reader’s
expectations and subsequently, the crime against Robbie is never avenged. However, when the
reader witnesses Briony’s encounter of injured troops during the war and learns of her decision to
become a nurse instead of attend Cambridge, a form of self-sacrifice, we can elicit a sense of guilt
from her character. Moreover, the utilisation of the bildungsroman structure also illustrates the
maturation of Briony and her development from a naïve to a self-aware individual. Just as guilt
forces Lady Macbeth to constantly scrub her hands to remove the blood she imagines, Briony’s
writing of the novel is her form of redemption and perhaps illustrates how riddled in guilt Briony
feels, hence why she lets Robbie and Cecilia, ‘my lovers live’ and gives them their ‘happiness’ which
she stole as a result of the crime that she commits.
Notably, McEwan utilises the Second World War to enable Briony to atone for her sins and
encourage the reader to elicit a sense of remorse for her character. During part three of the novel,
Briony sacrifices her education and chance to attend ‘Cambridge University’, instead choosing to
enlist her services as a war ‘nurse’. The fact that Briony is willing to jeopardise her future to take up
the nursing profession illustrates her penitence. It appears as though her physical and emotional
strain and suffering are wholly self-inflicted highlighting her maturity and enabling the eventual
atonement of the novel. Notably, the conditions that Briony endures at the hospital evokes
sympathy as we learn that the ‘high starched collars rubbed her neck raw’. The use of the dynamic
verb ‘rubbed’ conjures images of pain and elucidates the monotony of the day-to-day medical tasks
that she endures. Perhaps, the adjective ‘raw’ exposes the tedious days that Briony faces to the
extent that her uniform’s ‘collar’ eventually removes all of the skin from her neck. Additionally,
Briony’s ‘chilblains’ and ‘fiercely pinched’ toes, further add to the semantic field of discomfort. The
utilisation of the verb phrase, ‘fiercely pinched’ could illustrate that perhaps her role as a nurse
could be a form of self-flagellation, causing herself to suffer could be seen as her attempting to
atone for her sins. In particular, Briony’s treatment and interaction with Luc, the ‘fifteen’ year-old
French soldier, allows her to encounter brutal suffering and as a result, ‘purge herself of all that she
has done wrong’. McEwan crafts language to construct an unromanticised image of an ailing French
soldier with his ‘spongy crimson mess of brain’ with its ‘missing portion of skull’. The exploitation of
the grotesque adjectival phrase, ‘spongy crimson’ reveals the brutality of the war and also, presents
Briony as a caring character highlighting her development as a character. The horrors which Briony
has been exposed to, enable her to atone for her crime and illustrate her maturation. The narrator
seems to allude to the idea that her crime was a result of her youth and naivety. McEwan illustrates
that now, as an adult, has discerned the error of her false accusation. Most notably, in Luc’s final
moments, Briony reveals, ‘It’s not Tallis. You should call me Briony’. Through breaking one the
Nurse’s code of not being referred to using their ‘Christian name’ to provide the dying soldier with
comfort, Briony illustrates her emotional development and through breaking rules, she portrays her
