Goh Qi Shuen (16A0B1), Option 1

The passage comes from the first few pages of the novel and establishes
Brionys characterization in the readers mind. It might be important to
note that the author chose to introduce Brionys literary imagination
before we come to understand her as a character and child. The passage
establishes two key ideas about Brionys character firstly, that she is an
orderly spirit with a passion for tidiness and secondly, that she has a
passion for secrets. These two key aspects of Brionys character are to
have severe consequences later in the book. While Brionys portrayal here
is carefully balanced with a reminder of her youth and naivety, we are also
made aware of how Brionys simplistic worldview due to her lack of
maturity and experience will lead to the crime she will commit later in the
book, and spend the rest of her life atoning for. The use of irony in this
passage also functions as foreshadowing and an allusion to metafiction.
Directly preceding this passage is a description of Brionys tidy and
orderly room and it is here that we discover Brionys love for secrets.
However, there is a constant juxtaposition between Brionys exaggerated
self-importance and her child-like nature. For example, the contrast
between toy and safe and six secret numbers creates a sense of a
child trying to grow up and act adult-like but in reality is really still a child.
Similarly, Brionys old tin petty cash box was tucked away and hidden
under her bed as if there were something so valuable inside it had to be
hidden under a removal floorboard but in reality her treasures remind
us that she is still only a child. This is consistent with other portrayals of
Briony in Part 1, for example in a two-day tempest of composition which
is followed up by causing her to skip a breakfast and a lunch, which
again reinforces our sense of Brionys naivety and youth because to the
reader, the implication of two-day tempest might suggest something
very severe but then we realise that to Briony, the equivalent of a severe
outcome is just missing a few meals, suggesting her simplistic and
childish worldview because she lacks an understanding of what a severe
consequence can be, and this also creates a sense of foreboding because
this inability to comprehend and consider the severity of consequences is
what allows her to continue on with her lie that condemns Robbie to a life
of imprisonment and ultimately death.
As we continue with the extract, Briony is portrayed as being very selfassured and self-aware in terms of her wish for a harmonious, organized
world and the implications of her desire for orderliness, denied her the
reckless possibility of wrongdoing. However, there is a great sense of
irony in this sentence because in the end, it is precisely Brionys attempt
to impose her order onto the real world that creates the mayhem and
destruction. Furthermore, her sense of self-awareness becomes
dangerous because her belief that she is incapable of wrong-doing
perhaps gives her the false perception that even as she lies to the police,
she is not committing a grave crime or wrong, allowing her to bypass any
reconsiderations of her actions because she is merely reinstating order in

the world, which by her definition, denied [] the possibilities of wrongdoing. It is her unwavering belief in this idea that the real world can be as
neat and orderly as the fictional world, the affair was too consistent, too
symmetrical to be anything other than what she said it was that
encouraged Briony to assume the identity of Lolas rapist.
Brionys love for secrets has severe consequences as we learn later, and
the reason for these consequences is established here. Brionys love for
secrets alone is insufficient to explain Brionys lie. Given that Briony
herself has no real secrets, the danger of realizing that imagination itself
was a source of secrets is that in order to resolve her affliction of
having no secrets, Briony will turn to her imagination which will work to
confuse the real with the fictive, thus resulting in her adamant and
stubborn belief that Robbie was the rapist. Ominously, once she had
begun a story, no one could be told. Under normal circumstances, this
would have been perfectly acceptable except the most important story
that she tells (that of Robbies sexual depravity) is one that should be
tempered by another more mature perspective, but by the time the story
was finished, all fates [were] resolved and the whole matter sealed off
at both ends. It would have been too late to reverse Brionys disaster for
an imposing congregation had massed itself around her first certainties,
and now it was waiting and she could not disappoint it.
We are then introduced to a different aspect of Briony her self-centered
nature and desire for attention, unapologetically demanding her familys
total attention as she cast her narrative spell. Her disregard for the needs
and welfare of other people, and preoccupation with only herself is
consistent with other portrayals of Briony in the novel, for example when
Lola and the twins arrive, Briony pays little heed to their emotional plight
or needs (especially given that they are arriving in a completely foreign
environment without their parents, and the thought of their parents
separating) and instead were it up to her, would have asked of them to
begin rehearsals for her play immediately. Even when Lola is clearly in a
state of distress later in the novel, Briony is concerned more with what she
has to gain from this experience, her cousins distress produced in her a
state of restlessness, an agitation that was close to joy. While this is selfcenteredness is likely typical of a child, the problem lies in that Briony is
straddling the adult and child world, and thus while her failure to consider
other people may have been forgiven in another context, her unique
situation makes it such that this character trait will create irreversible
consequences. In the later parts of the novel when Briony is committing
her crime, her main concern is not of the consequences that will befall
Robbie, but rather she is concerned with being the heroine, and having
the attention focused on her, hence when Robbie turns up with the twins,
she feels a flash of outrage and believes that all her work, all her
courage and clearheadedness [] for nothing because no one would
come to Briony, no one would talk to her now. Clearly Brionys focus is
not on establishing the truth, but in making herself the heroine, and hence
yet more was lost, when there was no witness to her sorrow. The

significance of this trait is thus that her disregard for others and
preoccupation with herself contributes to her crime as she never pauses
to consider the consequences of her actions on Robbie and her family.
Lastly, most worryingly, it is Brionys passion for tidiness that results in
her imposing the patterns of fiction onto real life, and forcing real people
and events to conform to the orderliness of literature. In this extract,
Brionys perception that an unruly world could be just so through
literature is not untrue because in literature, everything can be made
orderly, however it is when she combines the two distinct worlds that
tragic consequences ensue. Her simplistic understanding of the world,
most clearly seen in her conception of the principles of justice where
death and marriage are the main engines of housekeeping where death
is for the morally dubious and marriage a reward, becomes harmful
because the real world cannot be miniaturized and clearly reveals young
Brionys lack of the vital knowingness about the ways of the world. This
sense of there being a clear structure, hero and heroine is what further
cements Brionys assumptions about Robbie because the moment she
begins to consider Robbie as a maniac or as someone dangerous, all her
interactions and observations of Robbie is tainted with this assumption,
ultimately resulting in her accusation. The response to Brionys naivety
and inexperience is best seen in the fate of the characters. Not only is
Paul Marshall, the perpetrator of Lola rape, still alive at the end of the
novel, he is rich and married, rewards that are supposedly given only to
the good whereas Robbie and Cecilia, arguably the novels protagonists
are dead and never get to reunite or marry each other, the punishment
meant for the morally dubious. This makes us question the validity of
Brionys principles of justice and we realise (as does Briony) that real life
is far messier and less orderly than the fictional world, and to impose the
structure of the literary world onto real world will have tragic
consequences.
In conclusion, this extract establishes two main character traits of Briony
that she loves secrets and order. More importantly are their implications.
Her penchant for secrets combined with her rich imagination and a
tendency to thus blur the lines between the real and fictional world is
consistent throughout the novel, and is ultimately what propels her to
commit her crime.