Atonement

Although I truly feel no one achieved atonement in the novel "Atonement", I believe the closest person to achieving this is Briony. She never got to right what she did wrong, but the way both Robbie and Cecilia died and left Briony with all of the sorrow of what she had done might be her atonement.

I believe though, that no one truly achieved atonement. Briony was the catalyst in the "crimes" in the book, but she wasn't the only one who did wrong. Marshall and Lola had also done wrong. They knew that Robbie didn't rape Lola, yet they went along with what Briony. The only way in my opinion for them to reach atonement, would be for them to fail in their future, but obviously that doesn't happen.

I don't fully blame Briony for what Robbie and Cecilia went through, but I do not have sympathy for her. She could have easily realied earlier that she knew what she did was wrong, but she did not. She let it go too long, and it jumped up and bit her.