Atonement Novel Analysis

2381 Words10 Pages
Atonement: Supporting Material Part One Intro Atonement is divided into 4 parts, the first part consists of four chapters and spans over a hot summer day at the Tallis’ household in 1935. Briony Tallis, a 13 year old girl, has been working on a play to perform to her brother, who is due to arrive that evening. Briony’s elder sister, 23 year old Cecilia, has recently graduated from Cambridge, and is altogether dissatisfied and rather bored with being home. Cecilia and Briony’s mother Emily, remains upstairs with a migraine for the majority of the day while her husband Jack is in “town” working late, as he is known to do. Emily’s sister is going through a divorce, and her daughter and twin sons are to stay at the Tallis’ household for an unspecified length of time. Relationships/Love The author introduces relationships in a negative way; the distant and rather cold marriage of Emily and Jack and the impending divorce of Hermione and her husband are used by the author to show how dull, unpassionate and cruel love and relationships can be. The sexual tension between Cecilia and Robbie (the charwoman’s son and Jack Tallis’ “project”) is a contrast to this, while the other relationships are bitter or cold, Cecilia and Robbie are awkward but passionate. Symbols/Metaphors Cecilia makes all attempts to avoid Robbie, and is unexplainably rude to him. Together in fits of stubbornness, they break a vase, a priceless family heirloom. The vase symbolises the destruction of the Tallis’ family, the division, and Cecilia’s repairing of the vase is the first act of deceit. The play is a metaphor, which foreshadows the coming crimes of Briony. The “spontaneous” actions of the heroine, Arabella, are mirrored by Briony’s own rash decisions, and they lead her into an henceforth undiscovered world of adult emotions, where it all seems to “rise up and tread on her”. The three
Open Document