Atonement

In Atonement, Briony is characterised by her inability to misunderstand the world for which she lives in. In part one, she believes that as a thirteen year old, she now belongs to a world on maturity, however in actuality she does understand the principles of adulthood, evident in her misunderstanding of Cecilia and Robbie’s relationship. Suggestively, Briony does not understand human morality as she does not understand the value of right and wrong however is instead more concerned with order and advancement. For a character who is obsessed with identifying her own intelligence, she does not have any understanding of the world suggestively influenced through her sheltered and privileged upbringing. Briony quite simply does not understand the value of honesty and during the narrative, we as the reader never see her identifying the significance of the truth. Although Briony watches the scene by the fountain, she does not hear it; although she reads Robbie’s letter, she does not understand what the words actually mean. Briony sees Robbie and Cecelia having sex, but she does not understand why they do it; Briony hears the rape of Lola, but she does not see the truth of what actually happened. Briony attempts to create an understanding of the events of the past through the characterisation of maturer characters, however, she is unable to understand a perspective other than her own. Briony understands what it means to create a narrative and characters, however she did not understand how to be human which is evident in her immoral values. Her character is intrigued as she becomes wiser with age but nevertheless does not grow as a character to understand the world from a different perspective. Ironically, Briony misunderstands the world, and the reader misunderstands Briony whose motives constantly appear as being unclear and unexplained. When by 1999, we think that we understand Briony, we discover that we do not know her character at all and that to some extent, neither does she as she is diagnosed with vechinal dementia.

The title change of Briony’s novel characterises her as gaining a sense of maturity as she understands that the story of Atonement should not be ‘romantic’ as the original title (and scene) originally suggests. The man who rejects the novel is suggestively inspired by Cyril Connolly who was a real English literature critic during the period that the narrative is set. The change of title demonstrates how the ‘two figures by a fountain’ could have still been saved, however the two figures who died could not therefore requiring Briony’s atonement. Furthermore, the title change demonstrates how Briony is defined by her own need for Atonement as she writes a novel characterising herself as being the villain as a source of accepting responsibility. CC’s neglection of ‘two figures’ symbolic represents her ability to accept her responsibility by recognising her wrongs however whether she does this is questionable.