Briony Needs Anger Management

July 10, 2011
Pages 52-75

   Briony is a very interesting protagonist. The girl has some MAJOR issues that she needs to sort out. After her play goes terribly wrong during rehearsal she pouts and leaves the room. Lola watches Briony head to the water as she is looking out the window. It is very ironic to me that as Lola is watching from the window in the nursery, Briony is daydreaming about beheading her! What a creepy little girl! I would say that her mother needs to give her some counseling but her mother, Emily has no authority over her children. Emily believes Briony is golden. On page 62 she says, "Poor darling Briony, the softest little thing, doing her all to entertain her hard-bitten wiry cousins with the play she had written from her heart. To love her was to be soothed." The mom needs to have a reality check and get out of the bed and really look at her children. She does absolutely nothing and claims to have headaches all the time. I wonder why McEwan makes every character unbearable, so far I don't really have a character I like. Then again, I do prefer love stories and happy endings so maybe this just isn't my type of book.
    I think Ian McEwan makes the protagonist gloomy and "Gothic-like" to show the time period the story is set in. This was not a happy time for England and its people. The message being sent is I think people were too caught up in World War II to notice how their home life was, especially in Briony's case with her mother. Briony is not only the protagonist, but she is also the antagonist. It is she, that later causes tragic in her own life, it was her choice and nobody elses. Therefore, the dilemma is between Briony and herself.


"Briony." wikispaces. Web. 10 Jul 2011. http://moronepediahonors.wikispaces.com/atonement.