Blog Post 3 Atonement Pt. 1

“A second thought always followed the first, one mystery bred another: Was everyone else really as alive as she was? For example, did her sister really matter to herself, was she as valuable to herself as Briony was? Was being Cecilia just as vivid an affair as being Briony? Di her sister also have a real self concealed behind a breaking wave, and did she spend time thinking about it, with a finger held up to her face?... she knew it was overwhelmingly probably that everyone else had thoughts like hers. She knew this, but only in a rather arid way; she didn’t really feel it.”

This passage, taken from page 34, is about Briony and her running stream of thoughts around how she perceives her thought processes and how others may compare, whether they offer a similar stream of consciousness or not. The first reason why this passage stood out to me was because of it’s level of contemplation and hyperbole, incredibly shown by Briony throughout the first part of the book.

Briony’s level of wonderment lead to her suffering as well as other’s. Similar to Catherine in Northanger Abbey, Briony creates stories within her mind from either insufficient evidence or completely fictitious pieces of information. The combination of Briony’s advanced level of contemplation and her desire to create stories lead to her mislabeling Robbie and Cecilia’s moment in the library as abuse, it may have also mislabeled Robbie as the assaulter of Lola.

I wonder why McEwan has Briony show this level of introspection if she continues to show disregard for what other people may be thinking or how they may be motivated. There is certainly a realistic manner, with Briony being a kid, as to why she is very presumptuous and creates stories and ideas from very little information.

I also considered looking at Briony as the “no-bullshit” character. Briony works in the story as someone that is not restrained by social norms or the etiquette that the rest of the family follows so strictly. Briony may work as the character that exposes potential truths to the reader, especially if they are too ridiculous to be seen on their own.

I’m interested in seeing how the other half of the book turns out. If Robbie did truly assault Lola then Briony almost solidifies her desired role as an “adult”, but if the story turns out to be false then Briony maintains her status as a “child”.