Atonement (2001) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

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• Briony Tallis: The central figure in the story, Briony's decisions in childhood set off a chain of events that have ramifications throughout her lifes and others'.
• Cecilia Tallis: Older sister of Briony and the middle child in the Tallis family. She went to a private secondary boarding school and studied at Cambridge university for a year, but did not attain satisfying grades.
• Robbie Turner: Leon and Cecilia's childhood friend; Robbie grew up on the Tallis' estate and is the son of Grace, who works for the Tallis family.
• Lola Quincey: Wishes to be older. Briony's cousin. Sister to Jackson and Pierrot. She and her brothers stay at the Tallis' home while their parents are settling the divorce.
• Jackson Quincey: Briony's cousin; Lola's younger brother, twin brother of Pierrot.
• Pierrot Quincey: Briony's cousin; Lola's younger brother, twin brother of Jackson.
• Leon Tallis: The eldest child in the Tallis family; when Leon returns home to visit, he brings his friend Paul Marshall.
• Grace Turner: Robbie's mother. After Ernest, her husband, abandoned the family when Robbie was young, Jack Tallis installed Grace and Robbie in a cottage on the Tallis property. She works for the Tallis family.
• Paul Marshall: Leon's friend and dinner guest, he is a young chocolate magnate.
• Emily Tallis: Briony, Cecilia, and Leon's mother. Hermione's sister. She suffers from severe migraines.
• Jack Tallis: Briony, Cecilia, and Leon's father. Rarely present. Important figure in the British War Department.
• Corporal Nettle: Fought with Robbie in France.
• Corporal Mace: Fought in World War II with Robbie.
• Hermione Quincey: Briony's aunt - Emily Tallis' sister; while the divorce is being settled between Hermione and her husband, Cecil Quincy, her children, Lola and the twins, Jackson and Pierrot, live at the Tallis residence for a month.
• Danny Hardman: The handyman for the Tallis family.
• Uncle Clem: Jack Tallis' brother who was killed in the First World War.
• Luc Cornet: A young french boy in Briony's ward.
• Aunt Venus: An old not really close relative of Tallises who lived and passed away in their house a week before Briony's birth.
• Henri Bonnet: Add a description of this character.
• Cecil Quincey: Hermione's ex-husband. Lola, Pierrot and Jackson's father.
• Miss Betty: The Tallis' "wretched" cook/servant.
• Polly: The Tallises' "simple' maid.
• Dr. Lewis: Robbie's teacher at Cambridge.
• Fiona: Briony's friend when she works as a nurse in London.
• Sister Marjorie Drummond: Head nurse at the London hospital where Briony works.
• Charles: Pierrot's grandson
• Mrs. Jarvis: Cecilia's landlady while she works as a nurse during WWII.
• Arabella: The heroine in Briony's play called The Trials Of Arabella.
• P.C. Vockins: A local police officer in the village of Tallises' residence.
• Susan Langland
• Jean-Marie Bonnet
• Corporal MacIntyre
• Michael Berkeley
• Ernest Turner: Robbie's father

Quotes edit see section history

• “"No one in her presence had ever referred to the word's existence and what was more, no one, not even her mother, had ever referred to the existence of that part of her which -Briony was certain- the word referred. She had no doubt that that was what it was. The context helped, but more than that, the word was at one with its meaning and was almost onomatopoeic. The smooth-hollowed, partly enclosed forms of its first three letters were as clear as a set of anatomical drawings. Three figures huddling at the foot of the cross. That the word had been written by a man confessing to an image in his mind, confiding a lonely preoccupation, disgusted her profoundly."”

  Briony Tallis

• “Was everybody really as alive as she was?...If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone's thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone's claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance. But if the answer was no, then Briony was surrounded by machines, intelligent and pleasant enough on the outside, but lacking the bright and private _inside_ feeling she had. This was sinister and lonely, as well as unlikely. For, though it offended her sense of order, she knew it was overwhelmingly probable that everyone else had thoughts like hers.”

• “It occurs to me that I have not traveled so very far after all, since I wrote my little play. Or rather, I've made a huge digression and doubled back to my starting place.”

  Briony Tallis

• “"Aquele momento fora imaginado e desejado por tanto tempo que agora não poderia estar à altura das expectativas"."Quando ela relatava um resultado feliz, aquele momento em que a batalha terminava e a mãe exausta recebia nos braços seu filho pela primeira vez, contemplando em êxtase o rostinho novo, era um prenúncio tácito do futuro de Ceclilia, o futuro que ela compartilharia com ele, que dava às suas cartas aquele poder simples, embora na verdade ele pensasse menos em nascimento que em concepção".”

• “I love you. I'll wait for you. Come back.”

  Cecilia Tallis to Robbie Turner

• “"No one else knew she had a knack of keeping still, without even a book on her lap, of moving gently through her thoughts, as one might explore a new garden. ... Fretting, concerned thought, reading, looking, wanting - all were to be avoided in favor of a slow drift of association, while the minutes accumulated like banked snow and the silence deepened around her." (p.141)”

• “Cecilia knew she could not go on wasting her days in the stews of her untidied room, lying on her bed in a haze of smoke, chin propped on her hand, pins and needles spreading up through her arm as she read her way through Richardson’s Clarissa.”

• “writing stories not only involved secrecy, it also gave her all the pleasures of miniaturization. A world could be made in five pages, and one that was more pleasing than a model farm. The childhood of a spoiled prince could be framed within half a page, a moonlit dash through sleepy villages was one rhythmically emphatic sentence, falling in love could be achieved in a single word—a glance.”

• “Briony knew her only reasonable choice then would be to run away, to live under hedges, eat berries and speak to no one, and be found by a bearded woodsman one winter’s dawn, curled up at the base of a giant oak, beautiful and dead, and barefoot, or perhaps wearing the ballet pumps with the pink ribbon straps..”

• “"The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse. Her reverie, once rich in plausible details, had become a passing silliness before the hard mass of the actual. It was difficult to come back." (p. 72)”

• “This is a very low paced book. The first time I tried to read it I could not finish it. I believe the best review is given by the author when Brioni shows the reader a rejection letter for the publication of her book: "....our attention would have been held even more effectively had there been an underlying pull of simple narrative. Development is required.....For all the fine rhythms and nice observations, nothing happens after a beginning that has promise."”

• “I knew some grammar school types at Oxford and some of them were damned clever. But they could be resentful, which was a bit rich, I thought.”

  Paul Marshall

• “It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you.”

• “But Cecilia, having learned modern forms of snobbery at Cambridge, considered a man with a degree in chemistry incomplete as a human being. Her very words. She had lolled about for three years at Girton with the kind of books she could equally have read at home - Jane Austen, Dickens, Conrad, all in the library downstairs, in complete sets. How had that pursuit, reading the novels that others took as their leisure, let her think she was superior to anyone else?”

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• England
• Dunkirk: World War II battleground
• Cambridge University
• London
• France
• Surrey, England
• Paris
• Whitehall
• Balham

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Truth vs. Imagination: Describe this theme.
• Writing: story vs. authorship: Starts the novel and is referred to continuously in Briony's digressions
• Atonement vs. Forgiveness: Briony atones for her mistakes by writing a book in which she has the opportunity to apologize for her misdeeds and gives Cecilia and Robby the happy ending they deserve. She attempts to atone for what she has done but she does not expect forgiveness from Robbie or Cecilia and she does not forgive herself.
• The Importance of Perspective
• Consequences of Actions: The consequences of the choices that Briony makes at the beginning of the novel shape the lives and relationships of all the characters for the duration of their lives.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Ian McEwan (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Jill Tanner (Reader) - audio CD edition reader

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Man Booker Prize (Finalist, 2001: Fiction, Shortlist)
• Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay Nominee (Finalist)
• BBC's Big Read (April 2003, #154)
• Exclusive Books Boeke Prize (2002)
• Book Sense Book of The Year
• Boston Globe Book of the Year
• Chicago Tribune Book of the Year
• Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year
• Guardian 1000
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Finalist, Shortlist)
• Los Angeles Times Book Prize (2002: Fiction)
• National Book Critics Circle Award (2002: Fiction)
• New York Times Books of the Year
• The Observer's 100 Greatest Novels of All Time
• Santiago Prize for European Novel
• Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year
• Time's All-Time 100 Novels selection
• Washington Post Book World Best Book of the Year
• WH Smith Literary Award
• Whitbread Book Award (Finalist, 2001, Shortlist)
• Whitcoulls top 100
• Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (2002: South Asia and Europe)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PR6063.C4 A88
• Dewey: 823.914

Notes for Parents edit see section history

There are some adult situations that are fairly graphic.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( M ) › McEwan, Ian
• Books › Mystery & Thrillers › Thrillers › Psychological & Suspense
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• wikipedia

Movie Connections edit see section history

• Atonement (2007) (IMDb): Starring James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan; directed by Joe Wright.

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Books Cited by This Book edit see section history