Briony is the central character of the novel and the main narrator. She appears at three stages of her life: As a thirteen-year-old girl, a young woman of eighteen and as an elderly woman of seventy-seven.
BRIONY - 13 YEARS OLD, 1935
The young Briony has been largely neglected by her parents but has otherwise had a privileged early life. She likes to see herself as a writer and is desperate for drama. Her family has indulged her literary attempts. Everything she sees or does becomes potential material for her stories, making her somewhat callous in relations to other people and their experiences. She wants to be the centre of attention, and has little concern for the feelings or desires of others. Briony’s own verdict of herself is that she was a “busy, priggish, conceited little girl” (p.367).
In Part 1, Briony is poised on the brink of adolescence, and is beginning to shun overly childish activities and demonstrations of affection. The dangerous mixture of a child’s view of the world and the desire to be respected by adults and thought worthy of participating in their realm leads to disaster: "At this stage in her life Briony inhabited and ill-defined transitional space between the nursery and adult worlds which she crossed and recrossed unpredictably”. (p. 141)
Examples which show this include Briony’s selfish nature in forcing her young cousins to perform her play. Also in the aftermath of the plays failure – Briony cancels the play and makes a dramatic exit, ripping down the poster advertising her play and slashing at the nettles in the field. She pretends they are her cousins heads and that she is also a world champion nettle slasher at the Olympic games. This shows that despite her wish to be mature she is still an immature little girl.
Most importantly she sacrifices Robbie to her desire for a fulfilling narrative, making him the protagonist in the rape of Lola with no consideration for the impact it will have on him and others when even she has doubt about his guilt. The inability to put herself in someone else’s position and imagine how it feels to be them limits her writing as well as making her unthinking in her treatment of other people. When she matures, she is able to imagine being someone else.
Her desire for drama leads her into a frenzy of excitement and panic over Robbie’s potential to be a sex maniac. Her imagination rapidly convinces her that Robbie is Lola’s attacker, and her need to be the centre of attention is satisfied by being the only witness to the crime. She pushes her doubts aside, certain that she ‘knows’ Robbie did it because it fulfils her wish for a satisfying, tidy narrative in which events are played out as they should be. She finds a villain who acts true to form and can be discovered and punished, just as he would have been in one of her own moral tales. Any suggestion that she might change her position is met with hostility from the adults, and her need for approval and attention is then enough to make her adhere to her story and quash any doubts in her own mind.
BRIONY – 18 YEARS OLD, WAR NURSE
Five years later (1940) Briony is working as a war nurse instead of taking up her place at Cambridge. She has realised now and has matured enough to understand what a terrible thing she has done. She resolves to do something about it, but she is still on the brink or adulthood. Poised on the opposite bank of adolescence now, she is still unsure and immature in many of her actions.
During her time as a nurse Briony is forced to grow up. World War Two has broken out and the arrival of horribly injured soldiers at the hospital bring her face to face with real suffering and death. An example is her experience with a young French Soldier Luc Cornet. He is delirious and imagines her to be his sweetheart. He asks her to loosen the bandaging on his head. When she does she discovers he is severely wounded as half his skull is missing. Luc later spasms and dies in her arms. Not all her childishness is stripped away though – she is naïve in the hope that Cecilia and Robbie can forgive her, and that she can make everything right in some way. She even imagines that Robbie might come into the hospital as a patient, she will treat his injuries and he will be grateful for her help and forgive her. She also has childish fantasies about being a spy as she makes her way across London.
BRIONY 77 YEARS OLD, LONDON 1999
Little is known of Briony’s life in the period between Part Three and the epilogue, increasing the sense that her crime has been the key event in her life, and her atonement its main focus and driving force. She has been a successful novelist and also married a Frenchman. Her extended family shows affection and makes an effort to celebrate her birthday and her life, so she is clearly popular amongst them. Readers also learn that she has recently been diagnosed with vascular dementia, a disease which will cause her to lose speech, language and memory. In the face of her dementia, she is not yet panicking, but appears poised and calm. Perhaps she feels that this is an appropriate and deserving end as her ‘dramatic’ nature inadvertently led to the deaths of both Cecilia and Robbie.
At the very end of the novel, Briony is passing out the other side of adulthood and closing in on death. She feels she has atoned for what she did, at last, and is ‘at one’ with herself, at least briefly. As memory loss takes hold her mind will disintegrate. She knows there can be no going back over her work again and so has completed her final draft of the book and atoned as far as she is able.
Briony is the central character of the novel and the main narrator. She appears at three stages of her life: As a thirteen-year-old girl, a young woman of eighteen and as an elderly woman of seventy-seven.
BRIONY - 13 YEARS OLD, 1935
The young Briony has been largely neglected by her parents but has otherwise had a privileged early life. She likes to see herself as a writer and is desperate for drama. Her family has indulged her literary attempts. Everything she sees or does becomes potential material for her stories, making her somewhat callous in relations to other people and their experiences. She wants to be the centre of attention, and has little concern for the feelings or desires of others. Briony’s own verdict of herself is that she was a “busy, priggish, conceited little girl” (p.367).
In Part 1, Briony is poised on the brink of adolescence, and is beginning to shun overly childish activities and demonstrations of affection. The dangerous mixture of a child’s view of the world and the desire to be respected by adults and thought worthy of participating in their realm leads to disaster: "At this stage in her life Briony inhabited and ill-defined transitional space between the nursery and adult worlds which she crossed and recrossed unpredictably”. (p. 141)
Examples which show this include Briony’s selfish nature in forcing her young cousins to perform her play. Also in the aftermath of the plays failure – Briony cancels the play and makes a dramatic exit, ripping down the poster advertising her play and slashing at the nettles in the field. She pretends they are her cousins heads and that she is also a world champion nettle slasher at the Olympic games. This shows that despite her wish to be mature she is still an immature little girl.
Most importantly she sacrifices Robbie to her desire for a fulfilling narrative, making him the protagonist in the rape of Lola with no consideration for the impact it will have on him and others when even she has doubt about his guilt. The inability to put herself in someone else’s position and imagine how it feels to be them limits her writing as well as making her unthinking in her treatment of other people. When she matures, she is able to imagine being someone else.
Her desire for drama leads her into a frenzy of excitement and panic over Robbie’s potential to be a sex maniac. Her imagination rapidly convinces her that Robbie is Lola’s attacker, and her need to be the centre of attention is satisfied by being the only witness to the crime. She pushes her doubts aside, certain that she ‘knows’ Robbie did it because it fulfils her wish for a satisfying, tidy narrative in which events are played out as they should be. She finds a villain who acts true to form and can be discovered and punished, just as he would have been in one of her own moral tales. Any suggestion that she might change her position is met with hostility from the adults, and her need for approval and attention is then enough to make her adhere to her story and quash any doubts in her own mind.
BRIONY – 18 YEARS OLD, WAR NURSE
Five years later (1940) Briony is working as a war nurse instead of taking up her place at Cambridge. She has realised now and has matured enough to understand what a terrible thing she has done. She resolves to do something about it, but she is still on the brink or adulthood. Poised on the opposite bank of adolescence now, she is still unsure and immature in many of her actions.
During her time as a nurse Briony is forced to grow up. World War Two has broken out and the arrival of horribly injured soldiers at the hospital bring her face to face with real suffering and death. An example is her experience with a young French Soldier Luc Cornet. He is delirious and imagines her to be his sweetheart. He asks her to loosen the bandaging on his head. When she does she discovers he is severely wounded as half his skull is missing. Luc later spasms and dies in her arms. Not all her childishness is stripped away though – she is naïve in the hope that Cecilia and Robbie can forgive her, and that she can make everything right in some way. She even imagines that Robbie might come into the hospital as a patient, she will treat his injuries and he will be grateful for her help and forgive her. She also has childish fantasies about being a spy as she makes her way across London.
BRIONY 77 YEARS OLD, LONDON 1999
Little is known of Briony’s life in the period between Part Three and the epilogue, increasing the sense that her crime has been the key event in her life, and her atonement its main focus and driving force. She has been a successful novelist and also married a Frenchman. Her extended family shows affection and makes an effort to celebrate her birthday and her life, so she is clearly popular amongst them. Readers also learn that she has recently been diagnosed with vascular dementia, a disease which will cause her to lose speech, language and memory. In the face of her dementia, she is not yet panicking, but appears poised and calm. Perhaps she feels that this is an appropriate and deserving end as her ‘dramatic’ nature inadvertently led to the deaths of both Cecilia and Robbie.
At the very end of the novel, Briony is passing out the other side of adulthood and closing in on death. She feels she has atoned for what she did, at last, and is ‘at one’ with herself, at least briefly. As memory loss takes hold her mind will disintegrate. She knows there can be no going back over her work again and so has completed her final draft of the book and atoned as far as she is able.