Atonament

As we have being seen Atonament, here is a summary of the book.

In 1935, Briony Tallis, a 13-year-old girl from a wealthy English family, has just finished writing a play. As Briony attempts to stage the play with her cousins, she witnesses a significant moment of sexual tension between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, a servant's son, a man that Briony has a childish crush on. Robbie returns home and writes several drafts of letters to Cecilia, including one that is explicit and erotically charged. He does not, however, intend to send it and sets it aside. On his way to join the Tallis family celebration, Robbie asks Briony to deliver his letter, only to later realize that he has mistakenly given her the prurient draft. Briony secretly reads the letter and is simultaneously disgusted and jealous.

That evening, Cecilia and Robbie meet in the library, where they finally declare their love for one another and make love. During the act, Briony watches through the partially open door and her confused emotions about Robbie become heightened. At dinner it is revealed that the twin cousins have run away. Briony goes off alone into the woods looking for them and stumbles upon a man running away from apparently raping her teenage cousin Lola. Lola claims that she does not know the identity of her attacker, but in a fit of pique the still-wounded Briony tells everyone, including the police, that she saw Robbie commit the act. She shows Robbie's shocking letter to her mother. Everyone believes her story except for Cecilia. Robbie is arrested and sent to prison.

Four years later, Robbie is released from prison on condition that he joins the army, where he is shipped off to the French front and dies. Briony, now fully understanding the impact of her accusation,

Decades later, an elderly Briony reveals in an interview that she is dying of vascular dementia, and that her novel, Atonement, which she has been working on for most of her adult life, will be her last. Briony reveals that the book's ending where she apologised to Cecilia and Robbie is fictional. Cecilia and Robbie never saw each other again once he left for war. In reality, Robbie actually died at Dunkirk of septicemia while awaiting evacuation, and Cecilia died a few months later as one of the flood victims in theBalham tube station bombing during The Blitz. Briony hopes that, by reuniting them in fiction, she can give them the happy conclusion to their lives that they had always deserved. The last scene of the movie has Cecilia and Robbie once again together in what could be afterlife or a fictional plane of existence.

This book refers to an historical fact, the Dunkirk evacuation. I thought it might be adequate to add a brief reference of this operation.

The Dunkirk evacuation was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, France, between 27 May and the early hours of 4 June 1940, because of the inminent lost at the Battle of Dunkirk in the Second World War. In a speech Winston Churchill called the events in France "a colossal military disaster", saying that "the whole root and core and brain of the British Army" had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured. The British army thought it was a success, because they could rescue the majority of the soldiers that returned safely to England.

From 28-31 May 1940, an event known as the Siege of Lille involved the remaining 40,000 men of the once-formidable French First Army in a delaying action against seven German divisions, including three armored divisions, which were attempting to cut off and destroy the Allied armies at Dunkirk. According to Churchill, "These Frenchmen, under the gallant leadership of General Molinié, had for four critical days contained no less than seven German divisions which otherwise could have joined in the assaults on the Dunkirk perimeter. This was a splendid contribution to the escape of their more fortunate comrades of the BEF".

On the first day, only 7,011 men were evacuated, but by the ninth day, a total of 338,226 soldiers (198,229 British and 139,997 French) had been rescued by the hastily assembled fleet of 850 boats. Many of the troops were able to embark from the harbour's protective moleonto 42 British destroyers and other large ships, while others had to wade from the beaches toward the ships, waiting for hours to board, shoulder-deep in water. Others were ferried from the beaches to the larger ships, and thousands were carried back to Britain by the famous "little ships of Dunkirk", a flotilla of around 700 merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft and Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboats—the smallest of which was the 14 ft 7 in (4.45 m) fishing boat Tamzine, now in the Imperial War Museum—whose civilian crews were called into service for the emergency. The "miracle of the little ships" remains a prominent folk memory in Britain. 

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Movie analyzing questions

Watch the first half of the 2007 movie adaptation of "Atonement". While you watch, take notes and answer the following questions:

1. What sort of social and cultural setting does the Tallis House create? What emotions and impulses are being acted upon or repressed by its inhabitants?

2. A passion for order, a lively imagination, and a desire for attention seem to be Briony's strongest traits. In what ways is she still a child? Is her narcissism - her inability to see things from any point of view but her own - unusual in a thirteen-year-old? 

3. Why does Briony stick to her "version of the story" with such unwavering commitment? Does she act entirely in error in a situation she is not old enough to understand, or does she act, in part, on an impulse of malice, revenge, or self-importance? 

4. As she grows older, Briony develops the empathy to realise what she has done to Cecilia and Robbie. How and why do you think she does this? 

Answers:

1-.  At Tallis house, they are very rich people (high culture status). This is way it is impossible the love of Robert and Cecilia. Also there’s anger repressed because of jealous.

2-. Briony has a lively imagination, so she creates her own “story” or version of what is happening. That’s in what she bases the idea that Robert was sexually attacking the residents of the house.

3-. I think that Briony acted for having revenge to Robbi, because she couldn’t have him. Also Robert didn’t pay much attention to her, transforming her desire of Robbi into hate. At the movie Briony says: “I know it was him” instead of I saw him.

4-. I think she realizes that what she has done has tremendously affected her sister and Briony starts to feel guilty.