Why did briony lie

Her concept of penance is shown to be a cosmic one, rather than a direct one. If she can somehow force her good deeds into the world after the fact, the guilt she feels will be absolved.

She finds, however, that it is not. Briony apologizes to Robbie and Cecilia when Robbie returns from the evacuation at Dunkirk, and Briony agrees to write a letter describing the truth of what happened all those years ago. But that basic assumption is soon ripped from underneath us: an elderly Briony, shown years later as an author doing a television interview, informs the interviewer that the preceding scene did not happen, that Robbie died at Dunkirk, and Cecilia during the Battle of Britain.

This revelation is tragic and surprising in its own right but also infuriating in the way it cheats us out of the truth we so desperately need to see Briony confront, and the kind of truth we are accustomed to being shown in film.

We have seen Briony lie to others, but do not expect her to lie to us. We inherently believe that to be a viewer separates us in some manner, and puts us in a position that makes us privy to truth, even in fiction. Atonement breaks that barrier down and complicates its happy ending to draw attention to just how badly we need to believe in stories. What satisfaction could a reader derive from an ending like that? This film exposes the desperate need the viewer feels, despite our knowledge that this is a work of fiction, to feel privy to truth and justice.

Briony has a major crush on Robbie as revealed later in the movie and by the scene in which she jumps into the river to see if he would save her. She wants Robbie to love her, yet he loves her sister.

I think that has more to do with their own world views and conviction, instead of what McEwan actually intended. Her view of Robbie as a maniac resulted in her misconstruing his romantic interchange with Cecilia as one of aggression.

Lola begins crying because her brothers are abusing her, mistaking their reason for being stuck in the Tallis house as her fault, and not that of their parents.

Atonement is a film in which thirteen-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit..

Self-Reflexive Novels Atonement follows in the literary tradition of the self-reflexive novel, or novel about its own writing. Also, what did Briony do in atonement? In the fantasy apology scene that Briony created for her book, Robbie's reaction was out of character. In a novel, she can make the world better than it truly is. Briony lies to the reader, pretending that Robbie did not die during the Second World War, so she can give Robbie a preferable ending which lessens the severity of her crime.

Robbie and Cecelia both studied literature at Cambridge, and Briony is an aspiring author. Similarly, Briony from Atonement, had also told the absolute truth to the presenter of the talk show, however the audience instead, did believe what she had said, unlike in Life of Pi.

The ending of Atonement seems to indicate that Briony is eventually able to forgive herself. In fact, Joe Wright has given us literature on film. Ian McEwan on Briony Tallis. For Briony to undertake her "atonement", her work of fiction must make up for, and confess, the wrong that she has done. The most violent acts of the day happen offstage, so to speak, but the most enduringly destructive one is a lie Briony tells, a lie that will ruin two lives and overshadow her own for decades.

Lying is, after all, what "Atonement" is about as much as it is about guilt, penitence or, for that matter, art. She had to know it was Paul Marshall because when she attends Lola's and Paul's wedding she has a flash back to where they both had scratches and figures out it was paul. So she had to know before that it was paul and not Robbie?

Was it jealously because she does tell Robbie she loves him and remembers this moment when she is seventy. Why do you think Briony lied? To answer questions about Atonement , please sign up.

Showing that it was just a childish crush and not any kind of motive which Robbie suspects at one point. So to Briony, Robbie must have been sexually obsessed and had some kind of evil power that her sister was powerless against as was evident, to her, by findin them in the library.

I think it becomes clear in the description of the legal proceedings that she starts to doubt herself then.