Reflection (G)

Now that the year is over, I suppose it is time to reflect on my experience in this class. I really enjoyed this class, despite the early hour. I feel that I have improved in my writing, especially when it comes to clarity. The goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year were to improve my level of comfort writing conclusion paragraphs and transitions. I do think that I am better at writing transitions. Talking about my first essay one on one was extremely helpful in this area because I hadn't ever really talked in depth about what makes a good transition sentence before. I also found that Nadi's presentation about revisions was very relevant to the clarification of transitions. I admit, I still feel uncomfortable with conclusions. I have never found a formula that I liked to write conclusion paragraphs, and while sometimes I am happy with what I write, more often it feels contrived. It is possible that one simply has to find inspiration to write a good conclusion, but I don't know how to find inspiration on command. Other than my discomfort with conclusions, I felt very comfortable with the pace of this class. I very rarely felt like I was flying blind, and over the course of the semester, I have come to really appreciate our workshops, to which I attribute my feelings of preparedness.
After class on Tuesday, I sat down to look at the four pieces I wrote for this class. I could see, by comparison, the improvements that I have made, and I think that I am aptly prepared for the writing that I will have to do from this point on.

First Hand Knowledge

I read this amazing story that I want to use for my end of the year project. It's called Beasts of No Nation, and it's one of those stories that leaves you feeling gutted. The problem is that I read the about the author, and I expected him to have survived the situations he talks about or to have some deep connection to the topic. He doesn't. He is an American, and the closest he ever got to the situations he writes about were interviews. Somehow I felt a bit cheated. I mean, I recognize that the fact that the stories aren't a first hand account don't make them any less true, (and I know that Tim O'Brian is disappointed in me right now) but I can't shake the feeling that there is something not fair about writing such a powerful book about something that may or may not have ever really happened in the order or density that it happens in the writing.

Understanding and Forgiveness (Section G) 3/18/2010

The most striking theme of the book so far has been the question of forgiveness. The first time this appears is when Briony is watching out the window. She sees Cecilia and Robbie have an interaction that she cannot hear as Robbie is arrested.
“It seemed a kindly gesture, and Briony was touched by her sister’s capacity for forgiveness, if that was what it was. Forgiveness. The word had never meant a thing before...” This scene is the second time Briony misinterprets a situation s she watches it out of the window, and the paralleled situation highlights the foreshadowing in the first scene.
“The ordinary people that she knew, and what power one could have over the other, and how easy it was to get everything wrong, completely wrong.”
Together the two scenes illustrate one central irony of Atonement. Briony sees the situation incorrectly and does not understand until later that she is the one who needs to ask forgiveness. Briony’s misunderstanding leads to the question how much understanding is necessary for betrayal and in opposite, for forgiveness. Interestingly while Briony sees turning in Robbie as a kind of new maturity, it is her youth which keeps her from understanding the situation, and drives her to tell the police officers that Robbie was the rapist.
The question is brought up again when Briony sends Cecilia a letter saying that she knows that she was wrong, and that she wants to help Robbie. When Cecilia writes to Robbie about this he recognizes that he does not forgive Briony. He knows that it is irrational to blame her for what happened because she didn’t understand, but he feels that she is only trying to help him out of guilt. “Here she was, offering a possibility of absolution. But it was not for him. He had done nothing wrong. It was for herself, for her own crime, which her conscience could not longer bear.”
At the same time he encourages Cecilia to reunite with her family. He does not want her to forgive her family, he simply wants her to reconnect with them to assuage his own guilt. “He would never forgive himself if he did not encourage her [to connect with her family].”
Atonement keeps returning to this idea of forgiveness and whether understanding necessary to forgive. Each of the characters feels that the characters want to be forgiven for their own wrong doings, but they do not want to have to come to peace with the acts beforehand.
One of the biggest hurdles in the book is that Briony did not understand her crime when she committed it. After she grows up she comes to understand, but the version of Briony who committed the crime never understood the situation well enough to be sorry for it. How could she be forgiven for an act that she committed believing it was the right thing to do to protect her sister?