which is the fabulous lie for which she attempts to atone for the rest of her life.  But, she writes her dramas, her letters, her "biography," her failed perspective stories, her novels.  First and foremost, Briony is a writer in a book about writing.  My students really struggle to grasp that this is metafiction--the author, McEwan, using Briony, a writer, to talk about words, stories, and lies.  How many times do we refer to the author of the book as Briony Tallis rather than McEwan?  One reason the movie just did not work as well as the book was the centrality of writing/words/fictions to the characters (Robbie, Cecilia, Luk, etc.).

I find Briony a fascinating and dynamic character.  Ian McEwan has a talent for creating well-rounded, flawed, and appealing characters, and Briony is, in my opinion, one of his best.  In the opening scenes, he paints her as an obsessively ordered child who craves attention and has a vivid imagination.  He manages to convey all of those personality traits in just the first half of the opening sentence:

"The play-for which Briony had designed the posters, programs and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper-was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition."

So, from the very start we get a glimpse of her intense personality.  I personally find her a bit irritating; we have all known that child that likes to show off, and to have things just so, and it is usually hard to not be annoyed by them.  They have a hard time just going with the flow, and accepting life for what it really is, and tend to get upset when they feel out of control.  They are emotional and difficult to deal with, relate to, or enjoy.  So, I find her a bit annoying, and I can relate to that annoyance, because it brings to mind people that I know that are like that.

Of course, when she falsely accuses Robbie, it is hard not to have harsh feelings against her.  However, McEwan had done such a good job of painting her character by then, that it is entirely consistent with who she is.  I couldn't imagine her NOT having done that.  Of course I wish she hadn't, but it was in line with her personality.

Later, after a few years have passed and she has become fully aware of her awful mistake, I found myself feeling bad for her.  What an awful predicament to be in!  Her remores, and her work as a nurse helping dying soldiers has added an element of compassion to her, and she has loosened a lot of the rigid structure of her personality as a result.  She is more likeable, not only because she realizes her mistake, but because she has learned from it, and is striving to change what made her make the mistake in the first place.

Those are my thoughts on Briony.  She is a brilliantly crafted character, one that elicits strong emotions from the audience; if she can do that, then McEwan has succeeded in fleshing out a person that seems real enough to feel something for, whether good or bad.  It will be interesting to hear other people's thoughts too!

I think it is actually possible with this novel to take a rather novel perspective and consider the ways in which Briony doesn't actually change that much as we see her in her three separate time periods. As a child she is shown to be deceitful. Although it is suggested that Briony as a child struggles to separate the real world from the imaginary worlds that she creates in her head, the guilt that she suffers after her testifying against Robbie indicates that at some level she consciously lied about what she saw. Also, if we look carefully at the story, we could argue that Briony is actually jealous of the way that Robbie pays more attention to her sister than he does to her, which presents us with another more disturbing motive for her actions.

However, if we have a look at the ending of this excellent novel, we could argue that the deceit of Briony as a child is something that Briony as an old woman continues to practise. She deceives us as readers by presenting us with a happy ending, while the real ending of the characters was anything but happy. Briony justifies this by saying that as the author she is able to decide on the kind of ending that she gives us in her novel. Whilst this is true, we could also view this as yet another example of Briony's deceit and her difficulty distinguishing between reality and fiction.