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Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Uncle Clem’s Vase

Cecilia and Robbie’s first interaction in the novel occurs while Cecilia is trying to fill a vase with water from the fountain. The vase has been in the Tallis family since World War I, when Uncle Clem was gifted it by villagers he helped evacuate. During Cecilia and Robbie’s interaction, rife with awkwardness caused by their latent attraction toward one another, the lip of the vase is broken, though Cecilia is able to repair it. Although they have known each other for most of their lives, it is only during this exchange that Robbie understands his feelings for Cecilia, and he writes her a letter that will eventually lead to their lovemaking later that evening. The breaking of the vase represents the inciting incident of their relationship. However, in Part Three, Briony tells Cecilia that the Tallises’ cook broke the vase irreparably. It is later revealed that this meeting between Briony and Cecilia never happened as Cecilia and Robbie were dead, the shattered vase symbolizing their destroyed relationship.

The Island Temple

On the Tallis family property is an island in the middle of a lake, and on that island is a temple. Though it looks charming from afar, it has been in a state of disrepair for many years. This temple mirrors the state of the Tallis family at the beginning of the novel. Though they are relatively well-to-do and may seem happy from afar, in truth they have several problems, such as Emily’s illness and the strain in Emily and Jack’s marriage. It is by the island temple where Paul Marshall rapes Lola, which Briony briefly witnesses. When Briony returns to the property for her seventy-seventh birthday, the island and the temple are both long gone. Just as Paul and Lola’s marriage created a wall around the truth of who Lola’s assaulter was, the eventual destruction of the temple shows how crime and truth can be erased or covered up with time. As the scene of the crime is gone, the Tallis family shame associated with the crime has been erased as well.

The Trials of Arabella

Atonement is bookended by Briony’s play The Trials of Arabella. The novel begins with Briony writing the play and ends with her finally seeing its first performance. In many ways, the play represents Briony’s need for control. When Briony first has her cousins rehearse the play, she is horrified that their performances do not match up to what she had imagined while writing it. This reaction leads her to abandon playwriting altogether to pursue a genre over which she can have complete control. Briony also uses the play to show how star-crossed lovers can have a happy ending, just as she does with her own story of Cecilia and Robbie. The fact that the novel begins and ends with the play shows that while Briony has grown up as much as she can, her need for control has not changed much between the writing of The Trials of Arabella and the writing of her final book.

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