Blog Post 4

"The problem these fifty-nine years has been this: how can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity, or higher form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her. There is nothing outside of her. In her imagination she has set the limits and the terms. No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they are atheists. It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. The attempt was all." (McEwan, 350-351)

The second half of Atonement was an emotional rollercoaster in itself, but this final paragraph was such a powerfully thought-provoking narration by Briony. At the end of Part 3, I was led to believe that there may be some evidence supporting the idea that this novel was actually being narrated by Briony the whole time as one of her own personal novels that she published herself. This closing paragraph provided even more support for that hypothesis. Throughout the story, we see Briony develop from a child who understand very little about the consequences of her actions to owning up to her (very impactful) mistakes she has made in the past; however, one thing remains the same. Briony will always crave the spotlight to some degree. "... how can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity, or higher form that she can appeal to..." Here, Briony is elaborating on the fact that her mind has no limits. No one can tell her what is right vs what is wrong. No one can judge her, punish her, reward her, etc. There are no limits to her imagination, and recognizing that is what created the writer in her, and is probably what led to the false accusations she made in the past. Because Briony is such a dramatic character, I do believe that Atonement might have actually been Briony's work.