Atonement

Robbie Turner is the son of a working-class family who finds himself caught in a terrible position. His life is a series of tragedies that he is forced to overcome. His father abandons Robbie and his mother when Robbie is still young. Robbie works hard and graduates from Cambridge University with an excellent degree, winning the respect of his benefactor, Jack Tallis, and allowing him to dream about a future as a doctor. After a lifetime of holding unrequited feelings, Robbie is finally able to express his emotions to Cecilia. They enjoy a very brief romance, overcoming the differences in social class to find love with one another. Then, Briony falsely accuses Robbie. He is sent to prison, his career is ruined, and his only way out is to join the army. Robbie is sent to France during World War I, where he dies before he can return to England and be with Cecilia. Robbie fights hard to overcome the tragedies that are thrust upon him, but the lie Briony tells is too devastating. He can overcome his family’s poverty, his father’s absence, and his unspoken love for Cecilia, but these same problems condemn him when Briony accuses him. Class prejudice clouds the perception of those around him, and they implicitly believe Briony, rather than probing deeper into the circumstances to verify her opinion.

The version of Robbie portrayed in the novel after the night of his arrest is Robbie as seen through Briony’s eyes. As such, his loathing for Briony is an emotion that Briony has projected on to his character. She needs the fictional Robbie to hate her; it is the only way she can assuage her guilt. Briony’s fear that she might never be forgiven is evidence in her writing, as Robbie spends long passages of the novel debating whether he can ever forgive her. His character becomes a mediation on guilt and innocence, as Briony invents a new life and a new future for him after playing a crucial role in denying him the opportunity to live such a life.

Robbie’s character becomes the embodiment of Briony’s own self-loathing. He expresses the anger and the pain that she has always imagined that she deserves. His anger is a form of catharsis for Briony, manifesting in her writing because he no longer has the chance to express it in real life. Just as Briony gives Robbie and Cecilia time together in her novel, she gives Robbie a chance to say to her the things that she wishes he would have said. Robbie is the conduit through which Briony punishes herself. Ironically, in her attempt to give Robbie the love and emotional release that she denied him, Briony once again turns him into a pawn in her fiction. Even when Briony is trying to help Robbie, she forces Robbie to play a role in her stories and denies him agency. The tragic irony that McEwan creates for Robbie is that Robbie’s redemption is as imagined as the original accusation made against him.

Cecilia is Briony’s older sister. When the novel begins, she has recently graduated from Cambridge University but does not yet have plans for the future. She does not really understand what she wants from life. She lacks the ability to voice her frustrations, much in the same way that her mother and father do not express their emotions. Cecilia stands in stark contrast to her younger sister; whereas Cecilia’s unclear future frightens her, Briony loudly proclaims her goal of becoming a writer. Briony spends her days happily dreaming up a future for herself while Cecilia becomes increasingly annoyed that she cannot look beyond the end of the week. Cecilia’s frustrations come to a head at the fountain, where she breaks a vase and argues with Robbie even though she does not know why. The argument is a moment of clarification for Cecilia, and it becomes a turning point in her life.

After the argument at the fountain, Cecilia realizes that she loves Robbie and wants to be with him. She can suddenly see her future in a way that she never has before. Unfortunately for Cecilia, this happiness is short-lived. Briony has not just taken away Robbie in a physical sense; she has taken away Cecilia’s only vision of a happy future.

Cecilia dies in 1940 and is never able to enjoy the life she imagined for those few brief hours. Briony believes the fictional version of Cecilia who lives with Robbie in a cottage by the sea is just as authentic and as real as the Cecilia who died in a bomb attack at the station. Briony tries to repay Cecilia by giving her the future she briefly imagined. Cecilia’s tragedy is that she never had the opportunity to decide this future for herself.