Imagery:
– comparison of the novelist with God (pg 371).
Briony compares herself (the writer) to the Od of creation;
– the image of writing: Briony’s 59-year assignment in search for atonement ;
– The image of the rosary: (pg 172-182).
The reader is told that Briony’s guilt would refine ‘the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an internal loop, a rosary to ne fingered for a lifetime.’
Symbolism:
– Meissen vase:
1. part of the lip is chipped off during the struggle between Cecilia and Robbie
2. The vase is repaired but the lines of cracks still show (pg 43).
3. Briony’s doubts are described in terms of cracks (pg 168).
4. Betty broke it beyond repair (pg 333).
By this time both daughters have left home and the parents have separated;
– The symbol of the triangle:
1. The lovers of Briony;
2. The deceivers and Briony;
3. Author, narrator, reader;
– The child’s leg in the tree (pg 192).
For Robbie this represents the unfairness of life;
– The symbol of the prison in part 3. Briony opts for nursing: regimental training with absolute obedience and stripping of one’s identity. The hospital is reminiscent of a prison;
– Symbolism in the setting: Briony’s conversation with Lola occurs on ‘an artificial island in an artificial lake’ (pg 163).
The Term Paper on Compare and Contrast the Literary
... too much from the people and the world around her. Briony is losing her innocence from the moment “Atonement” begins. ... Atonement is all created by the capability to misinterpret observation. Briony is still a child; her obsession with order, her fantasizing ... Cecilia and Robbie, and even correspondence between Corporal Nettles and Briony. It leaves the question very open: Whose story is ...
In the novel the island is a symbol for values and states of mind. At this point in the novel, the artificiality of the island adds to it’s symbolic value since Briony wants to step out of reality and into the world of imagination.
