Lit. Analysis #1: Atonement

1. In Part One, the story starts out with the introduction to the Tallis family on one particular day. It focuses on Briony, a yound thirteen-year old girl with a writer's wild imagination. Cecilia is her older sister who is in love with Robbie Turner, the boy they grew up around. When Briony finds out of Cecilia and Robbie's fondness for one another, she plans a way to keep them apart as long as they live. That night at dinner, the two young boys, also their cousins, run away for they do not like staying at the Tallis house, and everyone goes in search of the boys. While out searching, Robbie by himself as well as Briony, Briony sees a man raping Lola, her other cousin. She automatically suspects Robbie and hatches a plan to destroy Robbie right then. She then tells everyone Robbie was the man who raped Lola and he is soon convicted and sent to jail. Part Two opens with Robbie fighting in the war pre-1942 after having spent 3 years in jail for his "crime". He experiences the horrors of war first hand. Cecilia is now a nurse. Robbie and Cecilia reunite and hed towards London. In Part Three we see eighteen-year old Briony taking up nursing as well thinking if she did good it would make up for her terrible sin. She attends the wedding of Paul(who she finally finds out is actually Lola's rapist) and Lola but doesn't stop the wedding. Briony visits her sister and Robbie in London and finally clears all charges against Robbie.

2. The theme of Atonement is the extemely obvious factor of guilt. When Briony hatches her plan to get rid of Robbie by blaming him for raping Lola and sending him to jail for 3 years, she has to live with the immense guilt on her shoulders for her whole life. As young as she was, she didn't fully comprehend Robbie and Cecilia's deep love for each other. Briony only thought Robbie was hurting Cecilia by them being together. As she grows from a young child to an adult, she realizes that she nearly destroyed any sort of happiness for her sister and Robbie. For the rest of her life she has to deal with the guilt that rips her from the core of what she did when she was only a child.

3. In the beginning of the novel the author's, Briony, tone is very adolesent and naive. She wants to become a write and has a very descriptive and wild imagination which makes her that much more childish. In the beginning of the novel before they have dinner, Briony watches Cecilia get naked and jump into the lake. She soon runs off with this wild story as her imaginations takes her into a completely different world of her own. Also, when Briony gets angry with her cousins when they don't participate in her play like she wants them to. This shows a child being a normal child. Not getting their way when they want to. As the story developes and she grows as a character, the tone changes to the more guilty and sofisticated side to Briony. When she's eighteen we learn that she is trying to become a nurse. She disinctively says that she wants to be a nurse because if she did good then maybe it would make up for her sins.

4.
     1) Briony's diction certainly makes her tone come out even more. It resembles her childlike behavior and imagination. Her stories that she writes are full of childish words and meanings. While watching her sister dive into the water naked to go after the broken vase, Briony makes up this huge story about what she think would happen. Her diction clearly resembles her childishness.    
    2) The time spand plays a very interesting part in the story. The whole horrific thing that happened in the book that created all the chaos was written in a matter of one day. While the whole story is in a time spand of about 5 or more years. It shows that it's not actually focusing on what happened but how the characters responded to the event. Five years later, Briony is explaining how she still has to live with her guilt of what she did so long ago as a child.
    3) Characterization is very significant to the tone in this book. While Cecilia and Robbie are older and finding this new found love for one another, Briony is extrememly naive, childish, and imaginative. Briony's tone is completely different from that of Cecilia because she is young and immature. When she writes her stories, her tone is always wild with imagination and very naive you could tell right off the bat it was from a young child.
    4) Conflict is the whole issue in this story. The conflict sets the theme up perfectly. When Briony tells everyone it was Robbie who was the rapist(conflict), it changed the lives of all the characters, especially Briony who had to live with the guilt of her crime(theme).
    5) Dramatic Irony also plays a big part in the conflict. When Robbie realizes he gave Briony the wrong letter to send to Cecilia, Briony reads it but neither Cecilia nor Robbie know she has read it. That's the huge deal breaker for Briony that makes her hatch her plan to rid of Robbie.