Briony
- Created by: emi2266
- Created on: 19-01-22 18:30
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- Briony
- Crimes
- Framing R for ****
- Manipulating L to believe her lies
- Understanding she was wrong but not doing anything to put it right
- Allowing P & L to get married
- Crime against the reader
- About Her
- Age 13 - young, innocent girl; an expected victim
- Impulsive, committed, intense, extreme imagination
- Recieves no attention, no one to turn to
- Demands attention, secrets. She is bored
- Key Moments
- The Fountain misinterpretation
- Letter from R to C
- Convo w/ L abt R
- R & C having sex in the library
- Witness to L's **** & insisting it was R; causing L to believe her
- Telling the police abt the letter & saying she saw R
- Swimming Lessons FLASHBACK*
- Becoming a nurse, not going to Cambridge
- Writing to Horizon
- Convo w/ Luc
- Going to L & P's wedding
- Visiting C & R, making amends *LIE*
- Avoiding P & L in London
- Birthday Party
- Revealing her lie to the reader
- Criminal
- Unreliable Narrator - tries to get sympathy
- Cyclical Structure - fanciful imagination, doesn't understand the consequences.
- Actively searched for something interesting to write abt.
- Before the crime made R out to be a villain.
- manipulated to fit her story
- Reader sickened by nature of the crime - took pleasure from the attention she got.
- Didn't care about or understand the consequences
- R&C's prolonged suffering after finding love.
- Her inability to withdraw/change the evidence even after 5 yrs. Unforgivable
- her temp suffering vs R's real suffering - 'irreparable damage'
- Enjoyed nursing - no punishment & follows on to have a happy and successful life
- Happy w/ her illness
- Caught up in fantasies till the end - doesn't face the truth that R&C are dead
- Self-Serving actions
- Victim
- Craves forgiveness, self hatred, haunted by guilt
- Just a child - misunderstood, didn't understand
- Victim of justice system - like R
- Unable to withdraw evidence
- Unable to do anything - b/c of marriage to L, P is immune
- Difficult life as a nurse
- C will never forgive her - she was a mother figure
- Sufferer of vascular dementia
- Motives
- Internal
- Lonely - allows her imagination to go wild, makes her live in her fantasies
- Passion for secrets & desire for order
- Atonement & forgiveness from reader
- External
- Class - accusing R automatically
- Patriarchy - R has power over C, assumptions made
- Internal
- Quotes
- 'one of those children possessed by a desire to have the world just so'
- 'rites and conventions she knew nothing about'
- 'how easy it was to get everything wrong completely wrong'
- 'Briony's sense of obligation, as well as her instinct for order, were powerful'
- ‘She would simply wait on the bridge, calm and obstinate, until events, real events, not her own fantasise, rose to her challenge, and dispelled her insignificance’
- ‘it was wrong to open people’s letters, but it was right, it was essential, for her to know everything’
- ‘she could never forgive Robbie and his disgusting mind’
- ‘A maniac. The word had refinement, and the wright of medical diagnosis’
- ‘what she saw must have been shaped in part by what she already knew, or believed she knew’
- ‘her immediate understanding was that she had interrupted an attack’
- ‘there was nothing she could not describe'
- ‘nothing was expected of her, she was a child after all in their eyes’
- ‘in an instant, Briony understood completely'
- ‘she had no doubt. She could describe him. There was nothing she not describe’
- ‘It was her own discovery. It was her story, the one that was writing itself around her'
- ‘If her poor cousin was not able to command the truth, then she would do it for her. I can. And I will.'
- ‘There were no opportunities, not time, no permission. Within a couple of days, no, within a matter of hours, a process was moving fast and well beyond her control’
- ‘so many decent people could not be wrong, and doubts like hers, she’s been told, are to be expected’
- 'her own vile excitement’
- 'Briony was their only source’
- 'she was able to build and shape her narrative in her own words and establish the key facts: there was just sufficient light for her to recognise a familiar face’
- taken on nursing as a sort of penance’
- ‘Here she was, offering 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 no longer bear’
- Yes, she was just a child. But not every child sends a man to prison with a lie. Not every child is so purposeful and malign, so consistent over time, never wavering, never doubted’
- 'perhaps she was the last person in the hospital to understand what was happening…she had been too wrapped up in her own tiny concerns’
- the girls’ eyes met and something passed between them, shock, or shame that they had been laughing in the park when there was this’
- the words that had convicted him had been her very own…the sentence had already been served. The debt was paid. The verdict stood. She remained in her seat…and humbly inclined her head’
- 'did everything have to be her fault? She wondered stupidly. Couldn’t it also be the war’s?’
- I count myself an unreliable witness’
- Crimes
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