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Examples Of Mistakes In Atonement

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Good morning, today I am going to talk about the ability to learn from mistakes. I’ve based my oral presentation on the novel “Atonement” by Ian McEwan. It can be said that it is in the nature of all of us, human beings, to make mistakes. Of course, there are different kinds of mistakes; there are some that are innocent and harmless and others that can affect ourselves and/ or other people’s lives. Still, it is mainly by making this second type of mistakes that we can learn important life lessons. They can help us to identify our flaws, and thus help us mature and achieve personal growth. Yet, not everybody may be able to learn from mistakes. This seems to be the case of Briony Tallis, one of the main characters of the novel “Atonement” by …show more content…

Even though Briony undeniably felt remorse for what she had done and tried to atone for what she did, she actually did not take a strong course of action to mend things. As we get to know in the last part of the novel, Briony never really went to see her sister to try to mend her mistake, and thus we can deduce that she also probably did not talk with her parents in order to clean Robbie’s reputation, which she had seriously damaged. Thus, we can say that the only thing that Briony did to atone for her “sin” was to write this book and give Cecilia and Robbie the possibility to end up together and fulfill their love, even when she herself admitted that there is “no atonement for God, or novelists”. Briony also explained that “she could not do that to them”, that is to say, she could not prevent them from fulling their love, at least in her novel. Still, it becomes evident that she actually did nothing to correct her mistake, which would have entailed a demonstration of real regret and of a real change and maturation in …show more content…

For instance, like the young Briony that was unable to put herself in another person’s place, the older Briony kept displaying this selfish and arrogant type of behavior. An example of this occurs when she came across the aged Lola and Robert, she did not stop to think about their lives or feelings but only thought about how many years more it would take to publish her book as this couple should be dead before publishing it for a question of avoiding legal problems. Briony realized that “she would outlive Robert, yet Lola will definitely outlive her”. Also, Briony unconsciously admitted her lack of change when she expressed when reflecting about herself “that busy, priggish, conceited little girl [...]was not dead…”. Thus, despite all the years that passed, Briony was incapable to achieve enough maturation to rectify her

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