Summary’s Atonement and Macbeth
Atonement (Long)
Chapter 1
The novel opens with Briony Tallis, youngest daughter of a civil servant father and a semi-invalid
mother, awaiting the arrival of visiting cousins and her older brother. The family lives in a solid, large
house in the English countryside with servants and land. It is a very hot day in the summer of 1935.
Briony has written a play – a melodrama – which she intends to perform with her three cousins to
impress her brother. She has previously written stories which she has shared with her family. Her
parents, sister, and brother have indulgently praised and encouraged her work and Briony revels in
what she sees as her success as a writer. She experiments with new words she reads in a dictionary and
thesaurus, and examples of her inexpert use of these is given, inviting us to laugh gently at her.
Briony’s real life is uneventful and isolated. She doesn’t have any secrets, or anyone to keep secrets
from, although she would like to have. Instead, she pours her energies into writing and imagining. This
thirst for real drama in her life will shape later events!
As soon as her cousins arrive, Briony tries to drag them off to rehearse her paly, but Briony’s mother,
Emily and elder sister, Cecilia, intervene to give the cousins a gentler welcome. By late afternoon, all
four children are in the library and Briony struggles to get the twin boys interested in her project.
Briony has assumed she will have the lead role, but ends up giving this to Lola and resenting it. Lola
tries to behave as much like an adult as she can. This is threatening and confusing to the younger
Briony who does not always know how to respond to her. The twins are not capable of say their lines
in the dramatic style that Briony would like, and the chapter ends on a tense note as they are “steadily
wrecking Briony’s creation” until called away for a bath.
Chapter 2
Cecilia has been asked by her mother to put flowers in the guest bedroom for Paul Marshall. She
avoids talking to Robbie, the son of the family’s cleaning lady, who is working in the garden. Robbie
has been educated at the Tallises’ expense and treated like a member of the family since his father’s
disappearance many years ago. Relations between Cecilia and Robbie have become strained since they
both went to Cambridge University.
Cecilia goes into the house, where she arranges the flowers in a valuable vase with a dramatic family
history. The vase had been presented to her father’s brother Clem as a token of gratitude by a French
village that he had helped to liberate during the First World War.
Cecilia takes the vase outside to fill it at the fountain. She has an awkward discussion with Robbie
about literature and his plans to become a doctor. Robbie offers to help Cecilia fill the vase with water,
but she refuses. He persists, and between them they break off part of the rim, the fragments falling into
the bottom of the fountain. Cecilia punishes Robbie by silently undressing and plunging into the
freezing water to retrieve the pieces, then stalking back into the house without speaking to him.
,Chapter 3
One of the twins, Jackson, has wet the bed and is having to wash his sheets in the laundry, preventing
him from rehearsing. Briony, meanwhile, struggles with Pierrot’s inability to intone his lines
convincingly and Lola’s distance. She fears that Lola things her childish and is only indulging her.
Left alone for a while, Briony plays at flexing her fingers and wondering about the gap between
thought and action, and whether other people have as full a consciousness as she does herself. She
concludes that they probably do, but finds the implications of this quite alarming. She then decides
that she should have written a story and not a play, since a play is mediated through actors who can
destroy her work.
Looking from the window, she sees Cecilia and Robbie. The scene from the previous chapter is played
out again, this time silently, and Briony misinterprets what she is seeing. At first, she expects a
proposal of marriage, then she assumes that Robbie is commanding Cecilia to undress. She reflects on
what she has seen, trying to take a grown-up, detached view of it and move away from the childish
view that it was somehow act out for her benefit. She wants to write about what she has seen, and
imagines presenting three different points of view and versions of the action – her own, Robbie’s, and
Cecilia’s.
Chapter 4
Cecilia successfully repaired the vase so that barely-visible cracks are the only evidence of the
accident. In the hallway, she meets Briony who has clearly been crying. Briony dramatically tears
down her poster but refuses to be consoled, wandering outside barefoot and making her way towards
the island in the lake. Cecilia takes the flowers to Paul Marshall’s room and through the window sees
Leon and Paul arrive, the horse-drawn trap stopping while Leon talks to Robbie.
Cecilia leads Paul and Leon to the terrace near the swimming pool where they talk – or, rather, where
Paul tells them about his confectionary business and its success, and explains his ambitions to make
money out of the widely predicted war by selling special “Amo” bars with camouflage patterned
wrappers. Leon and Cecilia exchange the special “look” that they used as a weapon as children. United
by this, they are immediately set at odds by Cecilia’s anger at discovering that Leon has invited
Robbie to dinner. Leon refuses to cancel the invitation. They retire to the house for a cocktail.
Chapter 5
Briony has not told Lola and the twins that she is cancelling the performance, but simply walks out
without comment. They only realize that the rehearsals are ended for good when Lola wanders into
Paul Marshall’s room and see Briony walking near the island.
Disappointed, the twins go to Lola’s room. They are bored, homesick, and hungry. She tries to
reassure them, but Jackson says they won’t ever go home because their parents are divorcing. Lola is
furious with him for saying a word they had all avoided.
Paul Marshall surprises them by speaking from the doorway straight afterwards. In the exchange that
follows, Lola acts as maturely as she can, but struggles sometimes to know what she should be saying
and doing. She reprimands Paul for saying in front of the twins that he has read about their parents in
the press, and Paul is contrite.
, Paul brings out an Amo bar, but as the twins contradict his prediction that there will be a war and are
rude about the name of the bar, he gives it to Lola. He watches her eat it, until Betty’s voice calls the
boys to their bath.
Chapter 6
The first we see of Emily Tallis she is lying in a darkened room hoping to avoid a migraine. The
chapter is taken up with her pondering on her family, her role in it, and her account of how migraine –
or threat of migraine – has affected her life. We learn that she considers herself hampered, almost
imprisoned by the danger of a migraine and that her fear of it has prevented her from taking an active
part in her family’s life.
Finally, she decides that she is not going to succumb on this occasion. She spends some considerable
time planning what she will do when she is out of the room, and then delays her emergence further by
deciding to search for dark glasses and flat shoes so that she can go outside and look for Briony
Chapter 7
The action of the novel is now reverted to the moments before the arrival of Leon and Paul Marshall.
Briony has gone to the ruined temple on the island and is venting her frustration by attacking stinging
nettles with a peeled hazel switch. She imagines that they represent her cousins and punishes them for
spoiling her play. She then turns on playwriting as her victim, and finally the earlier stages of her
childhood, in an act of “self-purification” to make way for her new, older self.
Briony imagines her talent in slashing nettles being recognized and she plays out a fantasy drama of
performing at the Olympics. Leon approaches in the trap, but she refuses to acknowledge him. When
he passes without stopping, she gets tired of hitting nettles and makes her way towards the house, but
is not ready to go in so waits on the bridge for something to happen
Chapter 8
Robbie has returned home and bathed and the chapter opens with him looking at the landscape in the
fading evening light. The house is small and cramped, and we feel aware of his bulk crammed into the
tiny room in contrast to the open spaces of the garden and the Tallises’ house. He runs over in his
mind Cecilia’s undressing and plunge into the pool, realizing that although he has never thought about
her as anything other than a childhood companion, he is now drawn to her sexually. Realizing she
must be annoyed that he is coming to dinner, he drafts a letter to her. He makes several attempts
before successfully typing a letter that he feels has the right balance of seriousness and levity. Then he
spontaneously types an obscene ending to his letter and rips it from the typewriter. He copies the letter
out longhand, without the obscenities, and then gets dressed for dinner.
Robbie walks slowly to the Tallis house, contemplating the happy future he envisages as a successful
and cultured doctor. It is a sad irony that he is so certain of this ideal future. He meets Briony on the
bridge and asks her to take his letter to Cecilia. When it is too late to stop her, he realizes with terrible
certainty that he left the hand-written copy of the letter on the anatomy book in his study and has given
Briony the obscene version
Atonement (Long)
Chapter 1
The novel opens with Briony Tallis, youngest daughter of a civil servant father and a semi-invalid
mother, awaiting the arrival of visiting cousins and her older brother. The family lives in a solid, large
house in the English countryside with servants and land. It is a very hot day in the summer of 1935.
Briony has written a play – a melodrama – which she intends to perform with her three cousins to
impress her brother. She has previously written stories which she has shared with her family. Her
parents, sister, and brother have indulgently praised and encouraged her work and Briony revels in
what she sees as her success as a writer. She experiments with new words she reads in a dictionary and
thesaurus, and examples of her inexpert use of these is given, inviting us to laugh gently at her.
Briony’s real life is uneventful and isolated. She doesn’t have any secrets, or anyone to keep secrets
from, although she would like to have. Instead, she pours her energies into writing and imagining. This
thirst for real drama in her life will shape later events!
As soon as her cousins arrive, Briony tries to drag them off to rehearse her paly, but Briony’s mother,
Emily and elder sister, Cecilia, intervene to give the cousins a gentler welcome. By late afternoon, all
four children are in the library and Briony struggles to get the twin boys interested in her project.
Briony has assumed she will have the lead role, but ends up giving this to Lola and resenting it. Lola
tries to behave as much like an adult as she can. This is threatening and confusing to the younger
Briony who does not always know how to respond to her. The twins are not capable of say their lines
in the dramatic style that Briony would like, and the chapter ends on a tense note as they are “steadily
wrecking Briony’s creation” until called away for a bath.
Chapter 2
Cecilia has been asked by her mother to put flowers in the guest bedroom for Paul Marshall. She
avoids talking to Robbie, the son of the family’s cleaning lady, who is working in the garden. Robbie
has been educated at the Tallises’ expense and treated like a member of the family since his father’s
disappearance many years ago. Relations between Cecilia and Robbie have become strained since they
both went to Cambridge University.
Cecilia goes into the house, where she arranges the flowers in a valuable vase with a dramatic family
history. The vase had been presented to her father’s brother Clem as a token of gratitude by a French
village that he had helped to liberate during the First World War.
Cecilia takes the vase outside to fill it at the fountain. She has an awkward discussion with Robbie
about literature and his plans to become a doctor. Robbie offers to help Cecilia fill the vase with water,
but she refuses. He persists, and between them they break off part of the rim, the fragments falling into
the bottom of the fountain. Cecilia punishes Robbie by silently undressing and plunging into the
freezing water to retrieve the pieces, then stalking back into the house without speaking to him.
,Chapter 3
One of the twins, Jackson, has wet the bed and is having to wash his sheets in the laundry, preventing
him from rehearsing. Briony, meanwhile, struggles with Pierrot’s inability to intone his lines
convincingly and Lola’s distance. She fears that Lola things her childish and is only indulging her.
Left alone for a while, Briony plays at flexing her fingers and wondering about the gap between
thought and action, and whether other people have as full a consciousness as she does herself. She
concludes that they probably do, but finds the implications of this quite alarming. She then decides
that she should have written a story and not a play, since a play is mediated through actors who can
destroy her work.
Looking from the window, she sees Cecilia and Robbie. The scene from the previous chapter is played
out again, this time silently, and Briony misinterprets what she is seeing. At first, she expects a
proposal of marriage, then she assumes that Robbie is commanding Cecilia to undress. She reflects on
what she has seen, trying to take a grown-up, detached view of it and move away from the childish
view that it was somehow act out for her benefit. She wants to write about what she has seen, and
imagines presenting three different points of view and versions of the action – her own, Robbie’s, and
Cecilia’s.
Chapter 4
Cecilia successfully repaired the vase so that barely-visible cracks are the only evidence of the
accident. In the hallway, she meets Briony who has clearly been crying. Briony dramatically tears
down her poster but refuses to be consoled, wandering outside barefoot and making her way towards
the island in the lake. Cecilia takes the flowers to Paul Marshall’s room and through the window sees
Leon and Paul arrive, the horse-drawn trap stopping while Leon talks to Robbie.
Cecilia leads Paul and Leon to the terrace near the swimming pool where they talk – or, rather, where
Paul tells them about his confectionary business and its success, and explains his ambitions to make
money out of the widely predicted war by selling special “Amo” bars with camouflage patterned
wrappers. Leon and Cecilia exchange the special “look” that they used as a weapon as children. United
by this, they are immediately set at odds by Cecilia’s anger at discovering that Leon has invited
Robbie to dinner. Leon refuses to cancel the invitation. They retire to the house for a cocktail.
Chapter 5
Briony has not told Lola and the twins that she is cancelling the performance, but simply walks out
without comment. They only realize that the rehearsals are ended for good when Lola wanders into
Paul Marshall’s room and see Briony walking near the island.
Disappointed, the twins go to Lola’s room. They are bored, homesick, and hungry. She tries to
reassure them, but Jackson says they won’t ever go home because their parents are divorcing. Lola is
furious with him for saying a word they had all avoided.
Paul Marshall surprises them by speaking from the doorway straight afterwards. In the exchange that
follows, Lola acts as maturely as she can, but struggles sometimes to know what she should be saying
and doing. She reprimands Paul for saying in front of the twins that he has read about their parents in
the press, and Paul is contrite.
, Paul brings out an Amo bar, but as the twins contradict his prediction that there will be a war and are
rude about the name of the bar, he gives it to Lola. He watches her eat it, until Betty’s voice calls the
boys to their bath.
Chapter 6
The first we see of Emily Tallis she is lying in a darkened room hoping to avoid a migraine. The
chapter is taken up with her pondering on her family, her role in it, and her account of how migraine –
or threat of migraine – has affected her life. We learn that she considers herself hampered, almost
imprisoned by the danger of a migraine and that her fear of it has prevented her from taking an active
part in her family’s life.
Finally, she decides that she is not going to succumb on this occasion. She spends some considerable
time planning what she will do when she is out of the room, and then delays her emergence further by
deciding to search for dark glasses and flat shoes so that she can go outside and look for Briony
Chapter 7
The action of the novel is now reverted to the moments before the arrival of Leon and Paul Marshall.
Briony has gone to the ruined temple on the island and is venting her frustration by attacking stinging
nettles with a peeled hazel switch. She imagines that they represent her cousins and punishes them for
spoiling her play. She then turns on playwriting as her victim, and finally the earlier stages of her
childhood, in an act of “self-purification” to make way for her new, older self.
Briony imagines her talent in slashing nettles being recognized and she plays out a fantasy drama of
performing at the Olympics. Leon approaches in the trap, but she refuses to acknowledge him. When
he passes without stopping, she gets tired of hitting nettles and makes her way towards the house, but
is not ready to go in so waits on the bridge for something to happen
Chapter 8
Robbie has returned home and bathed and the chapter opens with him looking at the landscape in the
fading evening light. The house is small and cramped, and we feel aware of his bulk crammed into the
tiny room in contrast to the open spaces of the garden and the Tallises’ house. He runs over in his
mind Cecilia’s undressing and plunge into the pool, realizing that although he has never thought about
her as anything other than a childhood companion, he is now drawn to her sexually. Realizing she
must be annoyed that he is coming to dinner, he drafts a letter to her. He makes several attempts
before successfully typing a letter that he feels has the right balance of seriousness and levity. Then he
spontaneously types an obscene ending to his letter and rips it from the typewriter. He copies the letter
out longhand, without the obscenities, and then gets dressed for dinner.
Robbie walks slowly to the Tallis house, contemplating the happy future he envisages as a successful
and cultured doctor. It is a sad irony that he is so certain of this ideal future. He meets Briony on the
bridge and asks her to take his letter to Cecilia. When it is too late to stop her, he realizes with terrible
certainty that he left the hand-written copy of the letter on the anatomy book in his study and has given
Briony the obscene version
