Christoff Reimer
Mr. Breaton
ENG4U
May 24, 2015
Through the course of Atonement by Ian McEwan, Briony commits a terrible act and maintains her vicious and steadfast resolve in its execution, making her one of the most despised characters in the novel. However, despite destroying her family, Briony is in fact redeemable and likeable.
The first evidence of this is found by unravelling Briony’s motivations in lying to convict Robbie. Briony was driven not entirely by hate, but a sincere desire to fight what she perceived as a threat to her sister. Briony states:“Cecilia, whom she ought to protect . . . She had seen Robbie’s letter, she had cast herself as her sister’s protector” (McEwan 114-115). In this quotation it is amply demonstrated that Briony acted as a vigilant defender of her sister’s safety from the threat of a maniacal Robbie, not out of a selfish vengeance or will to do evil. The events of Part One are the result of Briony’s delusion from reading Robbie’s letter, a confusion of childhood that she was not yet mature enough to be rid of. The motives of Briony are, in fact, heroic if viewed from this perspective. Briony was misled from honest and good intentions that are understandable, if not admirable to commit a disastrous and tragic crime. Briony should be heralded as a likeable and morally good character in Atonement for her attempts to perform justice and bring safety back to the Tallis household.
An additional reason that Briony is likeable is that she has an immense capacity for remorse and a dedication to righting her wrongs. This is observed in the latter part of Briony’s life in her story-writing. Briony tells the reader that she has “been thinking about my last novel, the one that should have been my first. The earliest version, January 1940, the latest, March 1999, and in between, half a dozen drafts . . . My fifty-nine-year assignment is over” (McEwan 349). Briony demonstrates that she has devoted nearly six decades of her life to an attempt to recreate and fix the grave mistakes of her youth in her novel, a sign of a soul deeply scarred by remorse and repentance for her sins. Briony shows that she genuinely has a heart of virtue by the impact that her crime left on her and her futile yet passionate attempts to amend it. This is further reinforced by Briony during the war as “She thought of how one of these men might be Robbie . . . how he would turn to her with gratitude, realize who she was, and . . . forgive her” (McEwan 281). Briony feels guilty after realizing the error she made, and she is desperate to avoid it becoming permanent and unforgiven, dreaming of receiving Robbie’s forgiveness. Briony also admits the part she and the other parties involved played in Robbie’s conviction: “There was our crime--Lola’s, Marshall’s, mine . . . I’ve regarded it as my duty to disguise nothing--the names, the places, the exact circumstances--I put it all there as a matter of historical record” (McEwan 349). Briony demonstrates that she does not want to shield her involvement in a terrible crime and is willing to sear her legacy forever in revealing what she did to Robbie and Cecilia, a sign that Briony is willing to accept and live with the judgement of society and the law, the mark of a truthful soul. In her old age, Briony shows that she is both a virtuous and truthful character, surely worthy of the sympathy and admiration of the reader.
Many accuse Briony of manipulating a fiction of her own design to try and avoid her feelings of guilt, seeing her still as the foolish and repugnant writer who sent Robbie to prison on a deranged whim. In contrast to this popular image, Briony is a thoroughly likeable and virtuous character. Briony viewed her last work as “a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair, to let my lovers live and to unite them at the end. I gave them happiness, but I was not so self-serving as to let them forgive me” (McEwan 351), preserving a legacy of happiness for the lovers she destroyed in the form of her fiction, to immortalize the love that never was. Briony dedicated her life to fixing the errors of her youth, errors made with the best intentions, and along the way she has shown her true quality as a likeable character who has done more than enough work to redeem herself.
Author’s Note: "I can no longer think what purpose would be served if, say, I tried to persuade my reader" (McEwan 350) that Briony was nothing more than a self-serving and guilty soul, the measure of whose sin was complete; "who would want to believe that, except in the service of the bleakest realism” (McEwan 350).
Comment: Elcie, I found your article on the good that is left in Briony very intriguing and convincing. You managed to expertly examine her wrongdoings as evil and still produce a powerful argument that she still had some good in her at the end. I thoroughly agree with most of your points, yet I have some conflict of opinion with regard to my article as to whether Briony's motivations were good or evil when convicting Robbie. You managed to turn a fictional construct that meant nothing into one that counted for redemption and forge a bond with a character others find despicable. The idea that there is still some good in Briony reminds me strongly of the pivotal conclusions at the end of star wars episode six, as it is revealed that Darth Vader, a thoroughly evil villain, still has the capacity to commit good acts and repentance for his sins. Thank you for proving that even the most thoroughly evil characters can have a bit of good in them. Altogether a very well done piece.
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