Briony as a modern manifestation of old-fashioned morality (G) 3/15/2010

Precocious little girls often spell doom. Nabokov most famously penned the “nymphet” archetype in Lolita, with the fanatically pedophilic main character describing one girl as “the deadly little demon among the wholesome children.” While Lolita describes a girl who is sexually precocious while being still that, an immature girl, Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement is centered upon a thirteen-year old girl obsessed with morality, order, and ideals. Briony Tallis is thusfar a fascinating character, unlike any I’ve seen in literature before. Her linguistic intelligence is evident in the tales she writes, short stories and plays littered with large, albeit misused words, and her prolific output either indicates an innate talent for writing or her fascination with creating perfect romance. The Trials of Arabella might seem hilariously infantile, but the play shares roots with the morality plays of the Church during the Dark Ages of Europe. As someone who had to sit through theatre history in the eleventh grade, I was surprised to see such a blatant parallelism between Briony’s play and, say, Everyman. Pageant plays, as they were called, were tautological, didactic affairs where you literally had the Hell scared out of you. The Trials of Arabella follows Arabella as she first chooses to be with a “wicked man”, and then punishes her for running away from her family. Arabella is only rewarded with true love after making the correct decision of man. (3) Briony’s moral compass doesn’t seem to come from the adults around her, making it all the more odd that she would have such a specific and fierce sense of justice. In fact, Briony does not seem to fit in much at all. Her room is a shrine to organization, the only one on the top floor. (5) She shows disinterest in her surroundings and adult problems, such as the divorce of her cousin’s parents. This sense of detachment towards what should be another juicy morality play is interesting and places her attention solely toward stories of her own construction.

In lieu of having her own problems and secrets, Briony creates flawed characters and rules their fate based on repentance. (5) Verdicts in Arabella change after the main character repents; she finds true love only when she realizes her mistake. While this is jumping ahead, one might compare Arabella to Briony’s generic version of Cee, seeming to foreshadow what is to happen. The headstrong daughter has flirtations with a questionable man and runs off with him. Perhaps this is Briony’s prediction of Cee’s behavior; although the play is written for her brother Leon’s homecoming, Cecilia will be sure to attend a small family affair like this. Briony, in her childish fantasy, controls the wayward sister to make everyone else happy- restoring family balance and giving everyone a happy ending. Her tales are really like classic fairy tales in that they warn listeners to behave a certain way and are rather extreme about doing so. This takes place in the early 20th century, long before Disney softened the originally gruesome fates of the stepsisters in Cinderella. You’ve likely heard that in Aschenputtel, the stepsisters traditionally cut off parts of their feet to fit in the shoes of their stepsister. Many versions have birds pecking their eyes out to penalize their deeds. Steely Briony delivers justice in a similar vein, at least in her morality play. One can suspect from foreshadowing and the title of the novel, however, that Briony will be punishing herself much like she punishes her characters. The introduction lets us know how adamantly Briony believes in retribution, and her anal character flaws may in fact be her redemption.