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narrative as a form of pleasure should include an role as a form of self-knowledge, and the extent to which
investigation of its representation in literary fiction. Briony interprets her life as a story. For Briony, a
narrative is a way of creating a more pleasing world (7),
Storied Perception in Atonement giving her a sense of autonomy and agency.
To what extent do we control the narratives that are such Atonement metafictively explores the way we
an essential feature of our minds? Do we control them or understand in terms of what a novel can do regarding the
can they control us? What happens if what we believe representation of a thinking mind and the human
becomes confused with what we imagine? If false beliefs tendency to automatically leap into narrative mode when
are on a continuum with normal beliefs, if imaginings are attempting to understand the world. What we perceive
hard to distinguish from beliefs at the level of inference affects our beliefs: when Briony sees her sister Cecelia
(Currie, 2000), and we are all prone at times to and Robbie standing by the fountain on a beautiful
confabulation (Dennett, 2000), which is the production of summers morning, the scene is so perfect and formal that
false stories, this suggests that our ability to decouple or at first she thinks it must be a proposal of marriage; then
cognitively separate the real from the imagined might not when she watches as her sister removes her clothes and
be that easy in practice. Some psychologists contend that steps into the fountain, she thinks it must be at Robbies
people must engage in active, deliberate processing to command. Briony is the mind observing: she is the artist,
disbelieve narratives, or otherwise they will have an the watcher of Henry Jamess metaphor of the novel as
impact on the real world (Gerrig and Rapp, 2004). a house of windows (1881), looking out of her window at
Narrative, especially the human capacity to confabulate, the world. The window operates as a trope for her
as explored in Atonement, can become a matter of life and separation from the reality of the events she observes, and
death. also of the boundary she will cross in terms of blurring the
Through a combination of characterisation and what imagined with the real. Briony does not understand what
narratologists call free indirect discourse, where the voices she has just witnessed, it makes no sense and she
of the narrator and the character merge, a dual perspective determines to make sense of it through narrative.
is established in Atonement; the reader can look at Briony Brionys active response to what she perceives is in the
from a critical distance and also understand her cognitive form of writing a story. Her perception is storied.
processes from within, from her point of view. Free Writing a narrative is a form of thinking for Briony, and a
indirect discourse functions to simultaneously both tell heightened state of arousal: what she wanted was to be
and show the workings of a characters mind. Atonement lost to the unfolding of an irresistible idea, to see the black
invites the reader, through the overt presentation of Briony thread spooling out from the end of the scratchy sliver nib
as a burgeoning writer, to reflect upon the power of and coiling into words (115). Porter-Abbott explains that
narrative and the novel as a magical process, a form of narrative templates in our minds are activated immediately
telepathy (37). At one point Briony thinks, only in through the act of perception itself (2002). Brionys
fiction can you enter a mind and show it at work (282), pleasurable narrative imaginings merge in her mind with
and this is McEwans abiding concern. The unique her perceptions wasnt writing an achievable form of
capacity of the literary novel is its ability to communicate flight, of fancy, of the imagination? (157) making the
what Virginia Woolf famously described as moments of realignment (76) or decoupling difficult for her, and
being (1939), the subjective, qualitative hard problems culminating in her catastrophic confabulation.
(Chalmers, 1995) of consciousness. McEwans recent While Briony is presented as a thirteen-year-old child,
novels such as Enduring Love, Atonement and Saturday, Robbie ruefully reflects not every child sends a man to
with their explicit focus on mental processing, and their prison with a lie (228). Atonements concern is with
attempts to take the mould of that queer conglomeration narrative as a fundamental form of knowledge, pleasure
of incongruous things, the modern mind (Woolf, 1927), and potential pathology. Briony is seduced by her own
can be viewed as part of the new momentum between the false narrative and it functions to seduce her listeners.
sciences and the humanities. Jacques Lacan writes that the first object of desire is to
Crossing the border from fact into fantasy is not be recognised by the other (McQuillan, 2000), and this is
necessarily pathological, but if the desire for narrative is an essential aspect of narrative exchange evident in
so strong as to motivate behaviour, narrative becomes Atonement. It is through narrative alone that Briony makes
dangerous. McEwans epigraph from Jane Austens sense of the social world around her, receiving total
Northanger Abbey alerts us to the danger of the attention (7), and recognition by others as Briony Tallis
imagination from the outset: Dearest Miss Morland, the writer (4).
consider the nature of the suspicions you have entertained.
What have you been judging from?... Dearest Miss Confabulation and Narrative Fiction
Morland what ideas have you been admitting? In the first Hlne Cixous see writing as a kind of production of
chapter Briony is presented as lost to her writing desire (Sellers, 1994), and Brionys act of confabulation,
fantasies (21), urgently desiring to construct a possible when she narrates her story to the policeman about Robbie
and preferable world through narrative. The word story attacking Lola in the dark, is described as like love
is foregrounded semantically as well as thematically, (174): she experiences the onset of a sweet and inward
appearing fifty-three times in Atonement, signifying the rapture (179) as she shapes her narrative of Robbie as a
novels concern with the role story plays in our lives, its real life... villain (158). She felt a strange weight lifting
from her and a warm submissive feeling spread from her justify them: perceptions and beliefs have the same
stomach to her limbs (174). These physical sensations are content (Currie & Ravenscroft, 2002). Brionys
the embodied pleasures she has repeatedly felt when perplexing perceptual experiences on this hot summers
writing and constructing a narrative and reflect the well- day form cumulative background beliefs in her mind,
known psychological benefits the sense of peace and functioning to disturb and inflame her desire for narrative
well-being the disclosing of a narrative creates (Fivush et which is her means of understanding her world.
al., 2007). Brionys confabulation is the peak of her joy. Brionys desire to shape her world to fit her narrative
Her beliefs about Robbie have combined with what Greg demonstrates her passion for order, her belief that the
Currie and Ian Ravenscroft call her desire-like events she has witnessed must be causally connected:
imaginings (2002). everything fitted (168). Narrative as a source of
Briony desperately wants Robbie to be the villain. She knowledge for Briony is also a clear source of pleasure.
readily encodes his strange behaviour with her sister by Her desire for narrative is depicted through her
the fountain and in the library, and his brutal (113) letter delicious (29) obsessive yearning (4) to cast her
as evidence of Robbies trait-based behaviour that narrative spell (7).
confirms and justifies her beliefs. She has formed a Confabulation may be more common than we think. A
narrative about him in her attempt to interpret his psychological process, it is different from lying because
behaviour. He is the only son of a humble cleaning there is no intention to deceive, but rather, it involves self-
lady... it made perfect sense (38) and there was truth in deception. In Brionys mind she had cast herself as her
the symmetry (169) of the strange events. Briony exhibits sisters protector (123). William Hirstein believes there is
the distinctive kind of narrative practice (2008) that a clear connection [between confabulation] and the
Daniel Hutto believes is the core way in which we human gift for storytelling (2005), suggesting the
understand others. He claims that the way human beings potency of what Aristotle described as a convincing
come to understand one another is through a knowledge of impossibility; of the artistic value of what might happen
the persons story and when others actions are unusual or over what actually happens. When Briony says she saw
deviant, the only way we can make sense of them is by Robbie attacking Lola, she believes that she did. The
acquiring a narrative that has as its subject matter the truth-value of her proposition is critical; she had no
reasons why a person acted: he calls these folk intention to deceive, she was without guile (168). In
psychological narratives (2008). Because Briony engages Part Three of the novel she says she was weak, stupid,
in an active process to believe rather than disbelieve that confused... but she never thought of herself as a liar
tales of simple good and evil exist in the real world, her (336). Confabulators do not have access to reasons
early narrative encounters and current narrative desires (Bortolotti, 2008), and by providing an answer to her own
have an impact a destructive impact in the real world. question, Lola. Who was it? (165), It was Robbie,
wasnt it? (166), her narrative functions as a form of
Belief and Desire power and authority. Her confabulation also serves a
While we ordinarily allow that beliefs may be produced defensive role, protecting herself from any awareness that
by wishful thinking (Davies & Coltheart, 2000), Brionys she does not understand herself or what is happening in
imaginings become so strong as to overcome any her world. Confabulation involves the absence of doubt
resistance to the terrible real world consequences, about something one should doubt says Hirstein (2005),
exposing narrative as pathology. Brionys confabulation is and an interesting issue in Atonement is the eagerness of
presented as an extreme form of narrative pleasure. Brionys listeners to believe her story, appealing as it did
Adamant that there is nothing she could not describe to their class prejudice.
(156), she is determined to find ways of conjuring The context in which Briony finds herself as the sole
[Robbie] safely on paper (157) and that through desire witness to the rape of her fifteen-year-old cousin
alone (157) she could construct the right story. Shaun requires her to confabulate, as any qualification of her I
Nichols explains how motivation affects both saw him (181), such as I know it was him (181), would
interpretation and recall, that what we care about imply she did not know for sure, and the I dont know is
structures both the inferences and the memories that ensue not an option (Bortolotti, 2008) for Briony the writer and
(2006). Brionys all-consuming desire is to construct the confabulator. The paradox of this situation is, as James
narrative that she believed was writing itself around her Wood points out, that only through fiction itself can we
(166), her spontaneous belief that everything connected see how mistaken Briony is (2002). The western
(166). Nichols explains that want we want affects our philosophical tradition linking seeing with knowing is
understanding because desires are like beliefs, and reflected in Brionys confabulation when she said I saw
desiring in the imagination and believing possess a him (181) she actually meant she knew (181) it was
common code, a shared pathway to the brain (2006). him. Her perceptions, desires and beliefs had become
Briony wants to understand the strange events from her inseparable.
day as a narrative, desiring that this narrative will turn out Brionys zeal (168) to understand the consistent...
the way she wishes. symmetrical (168) events suggests the epistemic benefits
Brionys tendentious reasoning is a function of her of confabulation and the link between confabulation and
beliefs. Her beliefs have been formed by her perceptions the human need and desire for narrative. Brionys
and not only can perceptions cause beliefs, they can confabulation is filling a gap, not in her memory, but in
her understanding which is her narrative. This reflects extreme form of narrative pleasure; an extreme form of
the brains tendency to produce complete coherent what is an essential feature of the mind. Confabulation
representations of the world (Hirstein, 2005), just as a and narrative are linked to creativity, self-deception,
narrative does. Desiring in the imagination may render an knowledge and desire. My aim has been to explore the
individual more likely to desire in reality (Currie, 1999), connections between narrative and the phenomenon of
and Atonements conclusion, its resistance to closure, self- confabulation, focusing on what literature, as a non-
reflexively explores this. Narrative immersion such as empirical form of truth, and literary analysis, can
Brionys, and indeed the readers, can change the time contribute to the quest of cognitive science to understand
course in which information becomes available explains the human mind. Atonement invites the reader to reflect
Richard Gerrig (1993), so that real world decisions can be upon the function of narrative in the way our mind
affected by fictional narratives as they become part of our operates, and its twin role as a source of knowledge and
self-perception. illusion. Atonement celebrates the pleasure we derive from
Through the characterisation of Briony, Atonement narrative while exposing its pathological potential.
explores the human instinct and desire to seek both
pleasure and knowledge from narrative. The jarring effect
of the novels ending, a coda, bridging a narrative gap of Acknowledgments
fifty-nine years, denies the reader the narrative satisfaction Research for this presentation was funded by Macquarie
they expect and the outcomes they would prefer. We learn University and conducted in collaboration with the
that the lovers Robbie and Cecelia did not survive the Australian Council Discovery Project of Antonina Harbus
war, and that the novel is entirely Brionys construction.
The coda frustrates reader alignment and interaction by
creating a competing text, inviting us to reflect on the way References
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