This links to McEwan’s own ideology that pointed to a “study in cognitive psychology” suggesting that “the best way to deceive someone is first to deceive yourself”, highlighting the evolving narrative voice that eventually breaks free from Briony’s deception. The reader is lulled by the elongated Part One into the security associated with the classic realist novel (exaggerated by McEwan’s use of chapters and detail into characters’ psyche that builds anticipation before the crime) many critics dismissed the final coda as an example of “postmodern gimmickry”, as expressed by Brian Finney. Despite the description Briony gives in Part Three of Robbie and Cecilia living together after his return from Dunkirk, the reader learns on the penultimate page that Robbie died before he could be evacuated from Dunkirk and that Cecilia was killed by a bomb three months later. This is measured in structural patterning, as Cecilia is displayed from an omnipresent voice in contrast to Briony’s own interpretation (affected by childhood naivety). While her sisterly relationship and the guilt of her crimes heavily influences her portrayal, Briony’s older self uses McEwan’s language to transform Cecilia into a fully realised character able to incite empathy. It is Briony’s older self in 1999 that recognises her own “illogical” perspective. 39), as she doesn’t understand why they have not followed her intended plot. She even calls the sequence “illogical” (pg. This conflict does not align with the story she has written, where she imagines Robbie and Cecilia as her creations. From the very beginning, McEwan uses repetition of negatives to demonstrate Briony’s derision towards Cecilia’s life (“unfolded”, “unmade”, “unemptied”, page 4), acting in binary opposition to the protagonist’s: The readers first meet Briony finishing ‘The Trials of Arabella’, and whose finished product they are themselves reading, whilst Briony herself foreshadows Cecilia’s unfinished life.

She is initially presented through an unsympathetic lens as McEwan appropriates Briony’s childlike voice of disdain for her sister. Cecilia’s initially cold, unsympathetic character thus produces a cathartic, sympathetic response, uniting her with McEwan’s audience as Briony’s victims.Ĭecilia only becomes sympathetic through Briony’s evolving narrative voice. Both the readers and Cecilia are victims of Briony’s imagination, yet McEwan manipulates structure to reveal Briony’s re-writing of the narrative at the novel’s end. To what extent do you agree with this view? Remember to include in your answer relevant detailed exploration of McEwan’s authorial methods.Ĭecilia never escapes the fictionalisation of her life. Study Cecilia ’ s role in the novel and McEwan ’ s presentation of her.

Cecilia burney novel