Briony Tallis in Atonement

Briony is the novel’s protagonist. At the novel’s outset, she is a precocious girl with a gift for writing. However she is also a petulant child, both naïve and certain of her understanding, and her selfish stubbornness leads her to misinterpret a romantic encounter between her sister Ceciliaand Robbie Turner. This jealous misconception leads her to wrongly implicate Robbie in the rape of her cousin, Lola Quincey, a crime for which Robbie serves three years in prison. Later in the book, Briony becomes a nurse and works to make up for the wrongs she has committed against Robbie. Towards the end of the novel, it is revealed that she has written the story o of the novel in an attempt to atone for the damages she has caused and rectify the falsehoods she spread. She narrates the book’s conclusion as an elderly woman who has been diagnosed with encroaching terminal dementia.