UNIVERSIDAD DEL ACONCAGUA

ESCUELA SUPERIOR DE LENGUAS EXTRANJERAS

English Teacher Training Program, 3rd year

ROJAS, Gabriela Carolina

Briony Tallis: The Voyage of a Soul Longing for Forgiveness

 Briony Tallis: The Voyage of a Soul Longing for Forgiveness

Atonement is the voyage which has sin as its point of departure and repentance and

reconciliation as its destination. In many cases, it is a long and painful journey. In some cases,

it takes a whole life. This is Briony Tallis’ case who, after a terrible lie that sent Robbie Turner

to prison and destroyed his incipient romance with her sister Cecilia, would spend the rest of

her life trying to make amends for such a crime. On this situation, some inevitable questions

arise: Could she finally atone? How? Who with? To complicate things even more, there is, at

all levels, a constant confusion between fiction and reality, since through the epilogue the

reader finds out that Briony is herself the author of the novel and that some facts in it do not

coincide with reality. This might lead the readers to dismiss Briony as a reliable witness, but it

is impossible to do so, because she is the only existing witness of the novel. Thus, for

pragmatic purposes, some clear-cut distinctions are made: First, that Briony (from now on

also regarded as the author or narrator) will be considered as a reliable source only in what is

stated in the epilogue or in whatever is in accordance to it. Second, that the whole story up to

immediately before the epilogue will be regarded as fiction, and those supposed to read it will

be called “implied readers”, while the epilogue itself will be considered as reality and its

readers will be named “actual readers”. Regarding the above mentioned questions, it may be

said that Briony was unable to atone any of three levels, namely, internal, external and literary

i.e. as she could not come to terms with Robbie and Cecilia (external level) , she could not

forgive herself (internal level), and, as a writer, was theoretically unable to atone with the

“actual reader” (literary level).

The narrator could possibly never come to terms with Robbie and Cecilia. It may be

argued that Briony actually tries to reconcile with the lovers by sending Cecilia an apology

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letter offering them practical help and giving them hope for the future, which is inferred from

Cecilia’s letter to Robbie, where she (referring to Briony’s letter) writes: “I think she wants to

recant (…) If it is not legally possible (…) she can at least (…) tell to our parents (…) Then

perhaps we may have the beginning of a new start ” (Mc. Ewan, 2005:151). However, even

though this could have been the starting point of reconciliation, it is not enough, since

“silence [is] Cecilia’s answer [to Briony’s letter]” (200). In fact, Briony would never see, talk,

or have the possibility to help Robbie or Cecilia again, since they die, and if she had the

chance she wouldn’t take it. In her own words: “(…) a cowardly Briony limped back to the

hospital, unable to confront her recently bereaved sister” (268). In the end, Briony has to live

without the lovers’ forgiveness.

It is possible to state that Briony Tallis could never reconcile with herself. It is claimed

that Briony forgives herself by becoming a nurse instead of studying at Cambridge, since she

“she tends to the wounded and the dying in London seeking to salve their sundered flesh in

atonement for the damage she caused as a child” (Shone, 2002:3). Nevertheless, such

commitment as a nurse results useless in terms of self-redemption. In Briony’s own words,

“Whatever Skiving or humble nursing she [does], and however well or hard she [does] it,

whatever illumination in tutorial she [has] relinquished (…), she [will] never undo the

damage. She [is] unforgivable” (McEwan, 2005:202). In fact it, is also argued that “her real

atonement [will not] take place in (…) anything as mundane as hard physical labor in the

service of the less fortunate” (Mendelsohn, 2002: par.5), but through fiction. Since Briony’

mental peace cannot be achieved through concrete physical actions of any kind, she will resort

to what used to give her relief in the past, to the passion and “thread of continuity” of her life:

writing. Only through fiction, it is said, can she face the lovers’ anger to tell them how sorry

she is about having lied, and convince herself that she would have contributed to their

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happiness if she had only had the chance. However, not even such conviction allows the

narrator to live in peace, Even though “(…) she likes to think that [giving ‘happiness’ to

Robbie and Cecilia] is not weakness or evasion but a final act of kindness” (McEwan,

2005:268). such happiness is “not so self-serving so as to let them forgive [her]. Not quite,

not yet”. (268). This seems to indicate that her impossibility to atone with Robbie and Cecilia

prevented her from coming to terms with herself, either through nursing or through fiction.

Finally, it seems reasonable to state that it is not possible for Briony, as a writer, to

atone with the “actual readers”. It would be almost impossible to say that Briony cannot atone

with the “implied readers” of her novel. They would have nothing to reproach to a brave girl

who faced the enraged lovers and helped them to live happily ever after. It is the author’s

position in front of her “actual readers” which is subject to passionate discussion: How will

they judge Briony after having discovered that she herself is the narrator and that she has

changed some facts on the novel? Can they actually judge her? In fact, these readers have two

options. Firstly, they can positively or negatively judge her as a character. On the one hand,

they can feel they have been in the “hands of a masterful manipulator” (Wiegand, 2002: par 9)

who “lies [herself] to make [her] life more palatable” (Miller, 2002: par 5) and tries to

persuade her readers to believe such misrepresentations, making them the puppets of her

“controlling demon”. On the other hand, they could consider the epilogue as an act of humble

and sincere confession, and believe that her creation of a happier reality is motivated by her

“kindness”. They could agree with Mendelsohn when he asserts: “If fiction can destroy it can

also redeem” (par. 6), and see Briony’s novel as her redemption. Secondly, they could simply

consider Briony’s position as a writer, and what she says about atonement in such cases: “No

atonement for God or novelists, (…) with their absolute power of deciding outcomes”

(McEwan, 2005:268). In this case, readers would be in a situation where they can neither

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condemn nor forgive Briony. After all, they cannot condemn and have nothing to forgive to a

writer who is doing her job, i.e. creating fiction. In summary, since the narrator takes refuge in

her immunity as a writer, she cannot be subject to the actual readers’ attack or praise.

To conclude, as it has been stated, Briony Tallis’ impossibility to come to terms with

the lovers, prevented her from forgiving herself, and as a writer, she is not in conditions to

atone with the actual readers of the novel. In other words, she could not atone at any of the

three levels (external, internal and literary), neither in reality nor through fiction. In the end,

she could never reach the final destination of her long voyage. However it is left to us, the

actual readers, the decision of letting her atone with us, at least as a character. Whether we

see her as a masterful manipulator or as a repentant soul is a personal matter. Whether Briony

Tallis can successfully atone at least at this individual and personal level is up to each of us.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

- Dictionary of Contemporary English. The Living Dictionary (New Edition). Della Summers
(Dir.) Edinburgh: Longman Pearson Education Limited, 2003

- McEwan, Ian. Atonement: a novel. New York: Random House, 2005

- Memdelsohn, Daniel. “Unforgiven” [online excerpt of a review published on March 18,

2002] in La Vie. Grand Mariner. Available at:
th
http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/books/reviews/5776/. Last Visit: September 24 , 2009

- Miller, Laura. “‘Atonement’ by Ian McEwan” [online excerpt of a review published on

March 21, 2002] in Salon.com Available at:
http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2002/03/21/mcewan/. Last Visit: September 24th, 2009

- Shone, Tom. “White Lies” [online excerpt of a review published on Sunday, March 10,
2002] in The Daily Telegraph of London. Available at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/10/books/white-lies.html?pagewanted=1 . Last Visit:
September 24th, 2009

- Wiegand, Daniel. “Stumbling into fate” [online excerpt of a review published on March 10,
2002] in San Francisco Chronicle. Available at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
file=/chronicle/archive/2002/03/10/RV109370.DTL. Last Visit: September 24th, 2009