Atonement Chapters Three & Four Summary & Analysis

Chapters Three & Four

Summary: Chapter Three

Briony’s attempts to organize another rehearsal for The Trials of Arabella are once again thwarted as one of the twins, Jackson, has wet the bed during the night and is forced by the family’s cook Betty to wash his own sheets and pajamas, which takes a good deal of his time and effort. While Briony tries to rehearse with only Lola and Pierrot, she feels frustrated by Lola’s continued condescension toward the play and Pierrot’s stilted delivery of his lines. While taking a break from rehearsing, Briony regards her own simple white dress and wonders if she should try to dress more like an adult, as Lola does. Briony also wonders at the nature of her own identity and human consciousness in general. She examines her fingers, wondering if she controls them or if they have a life of their own. She considers how complicated the world must be if everyone has as many complex thoughts as Briony herself does. Briony laments at how the rehearsals have been out of her control and thinks that she should have just written a story to give to her brother, Leon, as stories do not require any props, actors, or anything else that is not on the page itself.

Briony looks out the window and sees Robbie and Cecilia at the fountain. At first, Briony thinks that based on his formal posture, Robbie is proposing to Cecilia, which tracks with Briony’s understanding of stories involving romance across social classes. Then she sees Cecilia removing her clothes and stepping into the fountain and expects Robbie to act as Cecilia’s rescuer. Briony realizes that what she is seeing is beyond her own comprehension and decides to simply watch what happens. After Cecilia retrieves the pieces of the vase and returns to the house, Briony wonders at how such a scene that she could never have thought up on her own could play itself out. She is suddenly inspired to write a scene like the one she saw between Cecilia and Robbie to show what she only just began to understand earlier, that all people equally have just as many unique thoughts and feelings as anyone else and the confusion that arises from that truth. However, for now she must finish what she has started and return to the rehearsal of The Trials of Arabella.

Summary: Chapter Four

After repairing the vase, Cecilia runs into Briony, who appears to have been crying. Cecilia is reminded of waking Briony up from nightmares when she was younger and is tempted to try to comfort her but sees that Briony wishes to be in control of the situation. Briony sputters out that her play is the wrong genre but mispronounces genre and storms off, so Cecilia does not know what was truly bothering her sister. Cecilia goes to put the vase filled with flowers in the room where Paul Marshall will be staying. Looking out the window, she sees Briony crossing the bridge to a man-made island on the Tallises’ lake on which there is an old temple. She also sees Hardman, one of the family’s servants, coming up the driveway in a carriage with Leon and Paul Marshall, and Robbie on his way back to his mother’s bungalow. She goes downstairs to greet Leon and Paul, whose luggage is being carried in by Hardman’s son, Danny. Cecilia explains that her mother is lying down due to one of her migraines and that their father, Jack, is staying the night in London. As Cecilia directs Danny where to put Paul’s luggage, she notices that, at sixteen, he is no longer a young boy and wonders if he is interested in Lola.

Cecilia leads Leon and Paul out to the pool, where Paul dominates the conversation with talk of his family’s chocolate-manufacturing company. Cecilia, who, upon meeting Paul, had wondered if she would be attracted to him, thinks of how horrific it would be to be married to such a boring and stupid man. As Paul continues, Cecilia tries to make eye contact with Leon, who is determinedly not looking at her. Cecilia recalls how she and Leon could bring each other to tears of laughter with a simple look as children. Drawing Leon’s attention, Cecilia gives him the look, and Leon attempts to hide his silent laughter from his friend. Once Paul finishes talking, Leon tells Cecilia that they ran into Robbie on their way to the house and invited him to dinner that night. Cecilia is angry and tries to convince Leon to rescind the invitation. Leon refuses, and Cecilia wonders how the affections between siblings can change so easily. Cecilia understands that there is nothing she can do now that the invitation has been issued and suggests they go inside to fix themselves some cocktails.

Analysis: Chapters Three & Four

In these chapters, the theme of childhood versus adulthood is explored further. As Briony’s rehearsals are stalled due to Jackson’s accident, a common mishap for young children, Briony wishes to distance herself further from that stage of life. She compares her own simple white dress, signaling innocence, to Lola’s more mature attire, implying Briony no longer wishes to be seen as a child. Although many of Briony’s actions show that she is still rather immature, in these chapters she begins to understand more of the world. Prior to this day, she had seen herself as the center of the universe, with thoughts and ideas more complex than anyone else could possibly have. However, with the complication that her cousins have introduced to her world, she is beginning to realize this might not be the case. This understanding is cemented when she sees Cecilia and Robbie at the fountain, and she is astounded that there are motivations behind their actions that she cannot fathom. Cecilia seems to be recognizing this gradual change in Briony, as she holds off from comforting her sister as she usually would when she sees that Briony is upset.

Briony’s reaction to the scene between Robbie and Cecilia also develops the theme of the power of storytelling and its importance to Briony in particular. Briony seems to see all of real life as a story. Looking at Robbie and Cecilia, she assumes they are fulfilling the archetypes of the lowly servant and high-class damsel falling in love and is utterly perplexed when they do not fill their roles accordingly. This scene shows Briony not only that she has much to learn and that the actions of others are outside of her control, but that there are endless possibilities of things she can write and worlds she can create. However, Briony’s reaction indicates that she sees Cecilia and Robbie more as characters in a story than as actual people. Despite her earlier realization that all individuals are complex, she has cast both Cecilia and Robbie in roles that make sense to her.

The scene at the fountain also introduces the theme of the nature of perspective. While Cecilia and Robbie know what is happening between the two of them, Briony has certain expectations, which are then upended as the scene plays out. Briony’s perspective in this moment is shaped by her role both as an outsider and as a child with no real knowledge of adult relationships or sexuality. This perspective leads her to make her own assumptions about both Cecilia and Robbie, which to Briony seem to be the objective truth. These assumptions will later color how Briony sees both of them and will have consequences for them all. This scene is an early indicator that one’s own perspective does not always directly mirror reality.

These chapters contain the first time the Tallis siblings interact with one another in the novel, building the motif of familial relationships. The absence of both the Tallis parents upon Leon’s arrival is surprising to no one in the story, revealing why Cecilia is often the one to console Briony. However, as Cecilia and Leon are closer in age, they view each other more as peers. Although Cecilia and Leon are both in their twenties, Cecilia employs a childish game between the two of them, demonstrating how even grown adults never fully leave their childhood behind.

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