In the book “Atonement”, Briony is Cecilia’s sister, but, she is considered more imaginative and lets her imaginative side take control of the world around her. Her narcissist behavior takes toll on the novel and the implications that emanate from her choices ruined her sister’s life by giving a witness account that had her sister’s lover, Robbie, arrested. Briony does not care for anyone but herself. She fails to disclose her harbored feelings towards Robbie and opts to incriminate him falsely. Many critics have put forward different perspectives regarding Briony’s personality and decisions in the book which bring out the character that she is. For instance, some argue out that her character is spurred by her deep regard for her sister while other claims that she loves Robbie but has never confronted him t
...o confess her love for him (Childs 54). The perspectives of the critics to the book are founded on different angles and they focus on various components when giving verdict on Briony and her conduct. Nevertheless, Briony is jealousy of her sister and feel that she should be in her position. I believe that Briony can be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder and brings out the narcissist symptoms in her quite explicitly. She feels that Robbie’s love should be directed to her rather than her sister. As we look in to the book as well as the perspective presented by the book’s critics, we will realize that Briony has deep regard for her thoughts and does not have sympathy for others no matter what harm she causes them. Her fragile self-esteem embedded in her narcissistic personality can be considered to be he
deepest drawback.
Briony is quick to judge Robbie after reading the letter where he indicated the acts he intended to do with her. First, she labels Robbie a sex maniac before her cousin Lola and secondly, she concludes that it is Robbie who raped Lola since he is a sex maniac. She trusts her ill-judgment without considering the potential falsity of her imaginations. Such conduct can be perfectly matched with narcissistic personality disorder symptoms (Trevisan 191). Throughout the first part of the book, her actions and thoughts are unique and they reflect the deep regard she has for her self-importance. She has a powerful sense of entitlement and confuses her thoughts with reality in a consistent and equal measure. Briony has a talent for writing and view her talent as the most important thing in her life. She is puzzled at the way her mind works and believes the creativity her mind presents is unmatched. Therefore, it is this obsession with her mind that lands her sister’s lover in jail and ruins her sister’s life. Also, the obsession with her unique mind is responsible for confusing her thoughts. Her ideas of love are unrealistic and they consistently conjure up in her mind as we see in the first part.
Since individuals with narcissistic personality disorder are associated with being conceited and arrogant, we can relate this behavioural aspect to Briony in various instances in the book. However, one that comes out clearly is her constant fascination with her own mind. She often wonders if there exists someone as unique as her. Apparently, she overestimates her writing talent for which she is overly impressed about. Because she is
so convinced with her skill and compares it to no one, we can see how conceited she is with her skill (Mathews 147). She is arrogant in her judgement and conclusion about herself and her talent in equal measure. Her writing skill can only be matched by her penchant nature of make up stories with she utilizes quite proficiently. Briony wishes to control everyone and everything around her. She even feels that the thoughts of others are wrong save for hers alone. She wishes everything around her to follow her thoughts. She intends to model everyone and their thoughts based on what she thinks is right. Therefore we realize that she has an exaggerated sense of her importance to the people around her. Things should be done in her way alone since it suits her and that should mean it suits everyone else too. Quite frankly, this is the peak of her narcissistic personality.
Cathrin Sernham (13) notes that, Briony chiefly lacks empathy and does well to exploit the relationships of others. She does not regard her sister’s relationship with Robbie which is why she has implicated Robbie for the rape on Lola. Having read the sexually explicit letter Robbie sent to Cecilia, she waits for the perfect opportunity to get even with him. In her mind, she conceives that Robbie has a disgusting mind. It is strikingly surprising that she does not consider the way she is using her mind as disgusting (Childs 47). First she keeps an eye of on Robbie and Cecilia without their consent and intercepts her sister’s letter and goes ahead to negatively judge Robbie on a matter than least affects
him.
She most definitely developed jealousy for her sister and thought all those things should be done to her instead. She envies them both and sees that they are separated from each other without giving the situation a second thought. Her remorse is well held for a long time until she is much older when she confesses the truth of the situation and her reasons for implicating Robbie. Perhaps she feels bad for ruining her sister’s life and wishes to make amends by seeking forgiveness from her and Robbie but it is too late for that. This situation explains well the title of the book, “Atonement.”
In psychology, most behavioural conduct disorders are associated with one’s childhood memories that were mostly traumatic. Hidalgo (83) asserts that such memories are repressed in individuals and they cannot be able to recall unless they go for therapy sessions. In the case of atonement, the case of the false memories comes out clearly through Briony. However, these memories are realistic rather than fictional (Finney 69). For instance in the instance of rape, Briony claims that she "recalls" seeing Robbie's face on the fleeing rapist. Briony is biased against Robbie and we cannot attribute this to a repressed memory; rather, it is a false memory at work. She was quick to blame Robbie since she believed he was a sex maniac. If she had not experienced such thoughts, perhaps the situation could have been different and the story could have ended quite differently.
The fact that she is imaginative and impressionable puts her in a position to be affected by the false memory. For Robbie and Cecilia, Briony is either being imaginative or
lying and they are overtly angry at her. When she implicated Robbie, she was sure of the memory she had and chose to trust it. She was very sure the fleeing man she had seen was Robbie. Later, an aged Briony comes to terms with the gravity of her actions and she explains, she was unsure of her previous memory. At that point, Briony is overcome by guilt since she realized her memory had failed her. In light of all these revelation, we often wonder if she would earn any trust for her sister and Briony who have now married (Mathews 147). Her earlier account came out as false and there is no sufficient apology or confession that can overturn the woes he caused.
In her story, Briony has assigned different roles to the people around her which make it hard for her to realize their real characters. She has innate and predetermined roles and cannot see the actual behavioural dispositions of these individuals. In the end, we realize that she is the one who has been giving the entire story and the characters she created were intended to play the part they did (O'Hara 76). Therefore, for her, she fails to notice people for who they potentially are. In that aspect, she takes the central figure and controls everyone and everything she wishes to create. Briony does not take advice from anyone and the story she intends to create is the one going through her imaginative mind and nothing else. She perceives her surrounding including the people around her as a story and that she is the main character in the story. In the ideal
world, such thoughts can only be associated with narcissistic personality disorders where individuals explicit such thoughts as over thinking their importance and being pre-occupied with fantasies (O'Hara 81). The disorder attracts arrogant behaviours as well as envy to others. Even as we analyses the behavioural dispositions that Briony expresses, we cannot fail to notice their close association with the disorder. It is what she would be diagnosed of in the current times if she were subjected to psychological therapy.
Briony fails to understand that the real world is not her story and that the world around her world cannot entirely fit in the story. Briony constantly fails to demarcate her fictional world that unfolds in the story form the real world. The failure to differentiate the two sets of worlds has created problems for her and cost those around her i.e. the characters she seeks to create and fit into her story. The worst part of it all is that Briony does not give it a thought that she could be hugely mistaken (O'Hara 94). She does not consider that possibility which further reinforces our belief on the narcissistic behaviour she could be developing without ever noticing. Narcissists believe they are always right and they never conceive the thought that they could be wrong even for once. They expect total compliance to their thoughts by others and they often have a deep regard of their achievement that is spurred by their unlimited imaginations sense of self. It is common for narcissist people to confuse their own minds and thoughts into thinking that they are confident than their friends or associates and should be treated in high
regard (Finney 78). When narcissism is taken for confidence, then it becomes apparent that one is experiencing a personality disorder and the symptoms are coming out clear.
The confidence that Briony shows in her stories is considered to be great. For instance, we have already realized that Briony is the author and the main character in the book, Atonement and she expresses great confidence in her stories has great confidence in her stories. She had a deep regard for her talent too and wrote stories about everything and everyone one around her; in her mind. She had established a common trend whereby she read completed stories aloud to her to her parents as well as their elder sister. From the narrative, the expression, “it (surprises) her parents and older sister to hear their quiet girl perform so boldly…” as she “unapologetically demanding her family’s total attention … casts her narrative spell” (6-7) sums up the case of Briony and her stories quite significantly (Sernham 17). The same confidence that Briony upholds while giving out the stories is exemplified when she made accusations at Robbie. She was quick to give the police the story about how Robbie had raped Lola and due to her skill, everyone tended to believe her save for Cecilia and Robbie’s mother. What she gave out is considered as her own discovery rather than the true version; she was controlling her story and the characters she had created whereby each of them had a role to play (166).
In the viewpoints presented by other critics, they understand Briony’s situation as related to the circumstances she has been exposed to and to which she has
been part of. For instance, we realize that the parents are pre-occupied with their own activities. The father rarely stays home while the mother has plenty of time spent trying to avoid migraines by lying down in her quarters. Her siblings are of age and most of their quality time is spent at school. Finney (70) contends that in such settings, Briony is left alone and cannot think of anyone better as a playmate than herself. She has therefore resolved to live in her head by using her imaginative and impressionable character and skill. Since then, Briony would let her mind wander in attempt to conceive a world only known to her and one which she can solve the miseries of her real world (Trevisan 204). Perhaps Briony is not entirely bad as projected and her conduct could emanate from a genuine course. Her fault lies in her choice of failing to include others in her thoughts, an action that possibly aggravated the situation since no one understood her thoughts.
As the name of the narrative suggest, Atonement is not easily achieved and the feat has been proved through the author and main character of the story. The choice of the topic was influenced by the desire to understand how atonement can be challenging and how easy it is to confuse a narcissist from a confident individual. Through the topic and synthesis of different critic’s viewpoints, we get a firm grasp of the book and learn various sufficient lessons. For instance we get to associate the personality disorder with its symptoms and how Briony has exhibited those symptoms and behavioural dispositions associated with this personality. The
topic also helps in understanding how fiction and reality are contrasting and how failure to different them from one another could cause confusion among individuals who cannot afford to trust their memories and minds. One valuable lesson from the story is that life is not pre-determined and it neither follows a specific path nor thoughts.
Work Cited
- Childs, Peter. "The fiction of Ian McEwan: a reader’s guide to essential criticism." Basingstoke, Eng.: Palgrave (2006).
- Finney, Brian. "Briony's stand against Oblivion: the making of fiction in Ian McEwan's Atonement." Journal of Modern Literature 27.3 (2004): 68-82.
- Hidalgo, Pilar. "Memory and Storytelling in Ian McEwan's Atonement."Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 46.2 (2005): 82-91.
- Mathews, Peter. “The impression of a deeper darkness: Ian McEwan's Atonement.” English Studies in Canada 32.1 (Mar. 2006): p147.
- O'Hara, David K. "Briony's Being-For: Metafictional Narrative Ethics in Ian McEwan's Atonement." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 52.1 (2011): 74-100.
- Sernham, Cathrin. "Briony Through Her Own Eyes; a Discussion of the Three Brionys in Ian McEwan’s Atonement." (2009).
- Trevisan, Piergiorgio. "“How to begin to understand this child’s mind?”*: Mind Presentation of Briony Tallis in Atonement." Textus 23 (2010): 187-208.
