Atonement Study Guide

Atonement Plot Summary

Preview of Atonement Summary:

Atonement follows a 13-year-old aspiring writer, Briony Tallis, from the failure of her first childish attempt at drama, The Trials of Arabella, to its presentation, six decades later, by the grandchildren of the ginger-haired, freckled cousins who had wanted to be its stars. Briony is the youngest of the Tallises' three children, raised virtually as an only child because a decade separates her from Cecilia and their 12-year-older brother Leon. Leon, an easy-go-lucky banker in London, brings a rich and vapid friend, Paul Marshall, home for a summer holiday, occasioning Briony's play and a formal dinner party in his honor.

The cousins, 15-year-old Lola Quincey and identical twins Pierrot and Jackson, age 9, arrive at the Tallis estate as refugees from parental divorce. Frustrating rehearsals and rivalry with Lola contribute to the collapse of the play, but its demise is more motivated by Briony's decision to write a story about...
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