Chapter Summaries part 3

Question 3

part 3 section 3 summary?

Answer 3

(briony)
- Briony finally understands that the war will be coming to Britain.
- She gets a letter from her father telling her about the upcoming marriage of Lola and Paul.
- This prompts her to call her father and to wonder whether his conveyance of this specific information means “he was trying to tell her that he knew the truth.”
- However, she does not reach him.

Question 4

part 3 section 4 summary?

Answer 4

(briony)
- The probationer nurses are given a half-day off, and Briony goes to the park with her friend Fiona.
- Briony has fantasies of London being overrun to prevent Lola and Paul’s upcoming wedding.
- Despite these dark thoughts, Briony has a good time with Fiona.
- When they return to the hospital, they are immediately thrust into action, however.
- Wounded soldiers have returned from France.
- Briony carries stretchers, cleans wounds, comforts patients, and thinks how one of these men might be Robbie.
- She speculates he might be thankful enough for her help to forgive her.
- As she is pulling shrapnel from a soldier’s leg, he curses at the pain.
- Sister Drummond defends Briony, telling him not to speak to her nurses in such a manner.
- Briony assists other men with injuries, including a French boy who has lost part of his head.
- He mistakes her for his hometown sweetheart and she comforts him as he dies.
- At long last, Briony receives a letter of rejection from the literary magazine for the story she submitted.

Question 5

part 3 section 5 summary ?

Answer 5

(briony)
- Briony walks across London, trying to find the church in which Lola and Paul are to be married.
- While she walks, she considers the truth of the magazine’s rejection letter.
- When she arrives at the church, she notices it is nearly empty.
- Only her aunt and uncle, the twins, and three members of the Marshall family are there to witness the marriage.
- She considers interrupting the ceremony and confessing what she knows: Lola is marrying her rapist.
- Lola recognizes Briony on her way out after the ceremony, but Paul does not.
- The wedding party drives off, leaving Briony on her own.

Question 6

part 3 section 6 summary?

Answer 6

(briony)
- After the wedding, Briony eats at a café.
- Instead of returning to the hospital, however, she goes to visit Cecilia at her apartment.
- Cecilia is not happy to see her, but she allows her to come in.
- She tells Briony that Robbie’s case will not get an appeal because Briony is an “unreliable witness.”
- Briony declares that she will go to the family and confess what she knows, but Cecilia only laughs derisively.
- Robbie enters the room, and Briony is shaken but relieved to see him alive.
- They clear up that it was not the Hardman boy but Paul who raped Lola.
- Cecilia realizes that Paul is immune because Lola will “always cover for him.”
- Cecilia and Robbie accompany Briony to the tube station.
- Briony finally apologizes, but they do not forgive her.