The Trials of Arabella
The Trials of Arabella is Briony's first venture into drama, written for her brother Leon's homecoming. The play is abandoned in 1935, but it is touchingly staged by young relatives in 1999 at the author's 77th birthday celebration. Its childish, fairy-book theme of forbidden love fulfilled is lived out, tragically, by Cecilia and Robbie.
The Tallis Estate is the scene of the novel's first part, located in the Surrey Hills in southeast England. It was built grandly in the 1880s and more prosaically after a fire in 1930. Two bridges lead over a lake, where a dilapidated decorative temple stands in the center that young Briony considers her domain. A fountain, visible from Briony's upstairs window, is the site of an encounter between Cecilia and Robbie that Briony misinterprets, leading to.....
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