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Literature

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Plymouth High School, Devon

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Year 12

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Dominique A. ©
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PART ONE

Chapter One

Summary:

  • Briony has finished writing the Trials of Arabella for her brother’s return (Leon).

  • Her room and stories are describing, reflecting aspects of her personality that align with her future actions.

  • The cousins from the north are arrive (Lola Quincey and the twins, Jackson and Pierrot) because their parents are getting a divorce.

  • After the twins have had a house tour and a swim in the pool, the first rehearsal for the play begins. Briony involves the cousins in the play and reluctantly casts Lola as Arabella.

Key Quotes & Analysis:

  • “love that did not build on a foundation of good sense was doomed”


  • “Tempest of composition”– a storm is coming, foreshadowing the destructive nature of Briony’s future actions. Also hints at the contextual unrest of the country – the impending war.


  • “luminous, yearning fantasies”


  • The plot of Trials of Arabella is similar to that of classic gothic literature, mocked by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey (quoted at the very beginning of the novel, it’s about a young woman who mistakenly believes a crime has happened).


  • Cecilia – “unclosed books, unfolded clothes, unmade bed, unemptied ashtrays” – a clear contrast to her sister, Cecilia possesses a sense of care free liberty.


  • “Briony’s was a shrine to her controlling demon”


  • “denied her the reckless possibilities of wrongdoing” and “mayhem and destruction were too chaotic for her tastes” – foreshadowing and irony.


  • “a love of order also shaped her principles of justice” – reveals the underlying reason for why she convicted Robbie, it fits neatly with her narrative and satisfies her need for order.


  • “more pleasing than a model farm” – Briony is desperate to retain the simple order of childhood, but wants to mature whilst avoiding the complexities of adulthood (an impossible task). At the end of the novel, she re-watches Trials of Arabella, suggesting her longing for her ordered childhood. Briony provided order for both the reader and herself, but doesn’t necessarily deliver the truth and uses writing to return to her childish imagination that is made clear in Part One.


  • “falling in love could be achieved by a single word – glance” – Briony thinks she understands mature human emotions, such as love. However, this is proven wrong. The word that triggers the relationship between Robbie and Cecilia is vulgar and explicit, not a word suited to the fairy tales Briony writes. Her naivety is made clear when she misinterprets Robbie’s note and wrongly casts him as a “maniac”.


  • The cousins “from the north” – a classic fairy-tale element to the story, family arriving from a faraway land, emphasising Briony’s childish perspective. “refugees from a bitter civil war” – hinting at WW2. Throughout the novel, the turmoil of relationships is amplified by the international turmoil of war.


  • “death and marriage the main engines of housekeeping, the former being set aside exclusively for the morally dubious, the latter a reward withheld until the final page” – The outcome for Paul and Lola and Cecilia and Robbie, however in real life the moral justice is reserved and the conventions of a fairy-tale narrative are broken. Paul receives his “reward” by marrying Lola and avoiding guilt.

    This quote displays the differences between Briony’s fantasy and the harsh reality.


  • “Lola’s dominion was merciless and made self-pity irrelevant” and “she spoke her lines correctly but casually” – Lola controls Briony’s play, and therefore controls the words that Briony has written. This continues to the end of the novel, since Briony cannot publish whilst Lola is still alive.


  • From the outset, the only romantic relationships that have been presented thus far in the novel are broken: Emily and Jack Tallis never see each other and Hermione and Cecil are going through a divorce. The bitter love is a contrast to the sublime and sweet relationship developing be.....[read full text]

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  • The broken “triangular pieces” of the vase are “writhing in the broken light” at the bottom on the fountain – the vase, a symbol of things traditional and wealth, is now broken. Robbie and Cecilia break society’s traditional norms, by socialising and engaging romantically outside of your class. Also, the broken vase is part of the family heritage and foreshadows the dissolution of the family.

    The vase is a symbol of surviving war, the fact it’s now broken hints at the death of Robbie and Cecilia. The war and the Tallis’ are parallel: the war kills Robbie but also Briony’s lies.


  • Robbie, a man who enjoys landscaping and making plants natural in their beautiful state, separated from Cecilia, who seeks to take the flowers and place them in her room, removing them for their natural place. The vase is the object that bridges them (hence its “preciousness beyond money”), but before it can ever be put into use, it is broken.


  • Cecilia’s somewhat lazy habits and the way she indulges in them, in contrast to Robbie’s job, performing manual labour for her family, underscores the class difference that separates the two characters.


  • “drowning herself would be his punishment” – improving Cecilia’s position of power, she enjoys it.


  • “the frail white nymph” – a portrayal through Robbie’s eyes, objectified. An image of ethereal female beauty, but also a weak female figure. Contrasted to later in the novel, she’s described as a “mermaid”.

  • In this scene, there is the repeated element of water. An element that betrays Robbie in this scene (as Briony interprets this as him manipulating Cecilia) and when Briony jumped into the river. Robbie tries to “quell” the “turbulence was driven by the lingering spirit of her fury” – female actions cause disturbance for the male character.


Chapter Three

Summary:

  • Briony is struggling with the rehearsals for the Trials of Arabella, Jackson wet the bed during the night, Pierrot’s acting skills are appalling and Lola is patronising.

  • Briony has some existential thoughts about her ability to control movements and other people’s minds.

  • She expresses how the play rehearsals conflict with her desire for order.

  • She looks at the window, describes the view. Then, notices Robbie and the fountain scene unravels. She resists asking her sister and begins to plan the story immediately (but the writing is postponed until after the rehearsals.


    Key Quotes & Analysis:

    • If everyone is alive the world is “unbearably complicated” and “offended her sense of order” – Briony wishes that everyone were two dimensional characters that aligned with her narrative.


    • “clear and perfect lines had been defaced with the scribble of other minds” – Blames others for affecting her play. Like the play, the future events of the novel are out of her control, but both stem from Briony’s creation.


    • On witnessing the fountain scene, Briony looks through the “nursery window” indicating that her perspective will be affected by childish naivety. This is father supported by her immediate instinct to project a fairy tale narrative onto the scene, assuming “a proposal of marriage” where the “son of a humble cleaning lady” makes “leaps across boundaries” and has the “boldness of ambition to ask for Cecilia’s hand”.


    • Briony’s interpretation then shifts: Robbie “issuing a command” and Cecilia being “unable to resist him”. She considers “blackmail” and “threats”. Briony realises that she was previously mistaken. Ironically, her second interpre.....

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  • The three sit and talk by the pool. Cecilia reminisces of when her and Leon were younger.

  • They discuss Robbie, his education and his social class are mentioned. They go inside for a drink.

    Key Quotes & Analysis:

    • “It’s only a dream. Come back” – Cecilia has become a maternal figure in the Tallis family, replacing Emily’s role. This comforting statement is a repeated motif in the novel, the idea of wishing things were back to the way they were. Due to the fact her parents are almost entirely absent and have a dysfunctional marriage, Cecilia becomes the woman of the house and therefore takes on the expected responsibility.

      As a woman, she cannot escape the role of being a mother and a hostess. There is a focus on how libertarian she may be outside the family home (for example, “smoking on the stairway… was all the revolt her education would allow”), but inside she falls into the expected behaviours and doesn’t question it (she lacks “the courage to confront him [her father]”).


    • “the artful disorder she preferred, and instead swung round in the water into a wilful neatness” and “orderly pattern” – Cecilia longs for messy freedom, but order is imposed onto her. A metaphor for Briony’s narrative.


    • “it was difficult to imagine this Mr Marshall complaining that the flowers on his bedside were too symmetrically displayed” - Briony narrative, with its neat and ordered narrative, allows Marshall to escape guilt.


    • “He had precise ideas about where and when a woman .....

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    • Amo – means “I love” in Latin.


    Chapter Six

    Summary:

    • Emily retires to her bedroom due to her migraine, she talks about her family.

    Key Quotes & Analysis:

    • “some curled and sleeping animal” – her migraine is personified.


    • “if three years at Girton had not made her an impossible prospect, with her pretensions to solitude, smoking in the bedroom” – it’s not only difficult for women to get an education, but also undesirable. Emily’s concern of her daughter’s marriage prospects indicates it was a woman’s priority to find a suitable husband.


    • “children’s voices” and “metallic clang” and “muffled sound” and “footfalls” and “rattling” – the use of sound shows that she is distant from her family.


    • Emily’s description of Hermione (“precocious and scheming”) resembles the impression the reader may have Briony. Ironic because this suggests that she is distant from her own family. We see her inclined to petty grudges and judgements, which reflects the behaviour of her offspring.


    Chapter Seven

    Summary:

    • Briony goes to the island temple, she is frustrated by the failure of her play and takes out her anger slashing nettles.

    K.....

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    • Briony’s petty dislike for her cousins in reminiscent of her mother’s dislike of her sister, Hermione. Both characters are judgemental and inclined to bear grudges.

    Chapter Eight

    Summary:

    • Robbie is having a bath, he thinks of Cecilia, goes to the study and writes her a letter.

    • He goes out for dinner and passes the letter to Briony. It’s too late when he realises it’s the wrong note.

    Key Quotes & Analysis:

    • “Not blemishes. Adornments” – A moment of boyish daydream, which contrasts to later parts in the novel where he is wrongfully deprived of his freedom by authority outside of his control.


    • Cecilia - “She was restless… bored and confined by the Tallis household”


    • “the unmade bed, the mess of discarded clothes” – Robbie embodies unbridled, youthful virility. Despite seeming in control of his life and ambitions, his natural confidence is dampened by his social class. Robbie and Cecilia are connected by the description of their rooms, both include adjectives with the prefix “un”, this foreshadows their relationship will be unfulfilled.


    • His father – “without luggage, without even a farewell note”


    • Robbie played in Malvolio in the Twelfth Night – this Shakespearian is tricked by a letter, misunderstands and is punished severely after declaring his inappropriate love. McEwan uses literary references to foreshadow Robbie’s future.


    • “What an idiot he had felt” – Removing his socks and shoes when entering the house was an act of self-consciousness, misinterpreted by Cecilia. This demonstrates that it’s not only Briony who is guilty of .....

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    • “another figure in their presence, at the edge of vision, moving behind her” (page 112) – Paul Marshall. A hint to how dangerous his character is.


    In this chapter, there is a significant emphasis on Cecilia’s senses, specifically sound and smell. There is reference to the “tinkle of ice” and the smell of herbs, and then the “trickle of water” and a “silvery and sharp” smell. This repeated sentence structure, first describing the sound of water followed by a scent indicates Cecilia is in hypersensitive state.

    This could suggest that she has experienced a sexual awakening and that her newly discovered lust for Robbie has heightened her perception. Furthermore, the use of the water motif in relation to her senses hints to the fountain scene in an earlier chapter, where she finally acknowledges her feelings for Robbie and the moment acts as a baptism for Cecilia. This awakening is also evident in the previous chapter, where is finally finds the perfect outfit: her “green backless dress” that makes her look like a “mermaid who rose to meet her in her own full-length mirror”.

    This metaphor compares herself to a “mermaid”, is not only another reference to the fountain scene, where she “rose” from the water, but also an image of ethereal female beauty. In the chapter, the sky is described twice using the colour green, an unconventional colour for a sunset sky, so could be a linked to the dress that Cecilia is wearing and suggests she’s a natural beauty.

    Another interpretation of this could use this as evidence that Briony’s envy is consuming the narrative and she was jealous of her sister and Robbie relationship.

    However, this idea of regeneration for Cecilia is contrasted later in the extract, where she is critical of her actions, “reckless, ridiculous, and above all shaming”. The use of alliteration gives a scornful tone and is an indication she’s adopting a maternal role. This is supported by Leon’s comment “being everyone’s mother again” and is unsurprising considering the lack of a present parental figure .....

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