Briony Tallis 'Coming Of Age In Atonement'

1. The theme of coming of age is featured throughout the entire novel Atonement because of how people grow up and change during their lifetime. McEwan expresses his opinion on whether people remain the same or change as they grow up and mature by covering 64 years of events in Briony Tallis’ life. He begins by showing Briony’s young and innocent mind in Part One, where she falsely accuses Robbie of raping her cousin Lola. She is unable to tell the difference between her own fantasies and the realities of real life. Until she reads Robbie’s letter, she questions her life purpose. When she reads the letter she is appalled and disgusted by it because of how she perceives it as something terrible. This is the first encounter she has with the reality

Realism is important in the novel Atonement because of how it helps to discern the difference between reality and fantasy. The reader believes that the fictional events of the novel are all reality within the context of the story until it is revealed at the end that a majority of the story was made up in the pure imagination of Briony. It is made evident that one can get carried away easily with the fantasies of writing the mind’s thoughts. The satisfaction Briony faces at the end when she comes to terms with the guilt that has been building up inside of her is a result of realism. She explains how her imagination had carried her away in the past causing the false accusation of Robbie. Briony uses realism to take responsibility and for atonement of her actions. Because she is finally able to admit her mistakes to the reader and come to terms with them, she feels a sense of satisfaction. If superheroes, vampires, or any other mythical/fantasy creatures were featured in the novel, the novel would not work because of how they would take away the believable but false parts of the majority of the storyline. The reader would know that the story was made up from their knowledge that mythical creatures do not exist in the real