crimes Flashcards
Briony is only a child
Cecilia had always loved to cuddle the baby of the family’ p44
‘poor darling Briony, the softest little thing’ p 65
Briony genuinely believes what she is saying
She had interrupted an attack, a hand-to hand fight… he looked so huge and wild’ p123
‘She had no doubt. She could describe him. There was nothing she could not describe.’ P 165
‘When she said… I saw him, she meant it, and was perfectly honest’ p 169
Robbie’s false imprisonment (1)
‘Robbie between them. And handcuffed! She saw how his arms were forced in front of him… The disgrace of it horrified her. It was further confirmation of his guilt, and the beginning of his punishment. It had the look of eternal damnation’ p184
Cecilia suffers (1)
‘Her older daughter shrank into private misery’ p175
Lola’s omissions (2)
‘Lola.. was able to retreat behind an air of wounded confusion, and as a treasured patient, recovering victim, lost child, let herself be bathed in the concern and guilt of the adults in her life’ p168
‘She had little more to do than remain silent behind her cousin’s zeal. Lola did not need to lie, to look her supposed attacked in the eye and summon the courage to accuse her, because all that work was done for her, innocently… Lola was required only to remain silent about the truth, banish it, and forget about it entirely..’ p168
Crime against the reader (3)
‘I merged them in my description to concentrate all my experiences into one place. A convenient distortion, and the least of my offences against veracity.’ pg. 356
‘I cannot think what purpose would be served if, say, I tried to convince my reader… that Robbie Turner died of septicaemia at Bray Dunes on 1 June 1940, or that Cecilia was killed in the September of the same year by the bomb that destroyed Balham Underground station’ p370
Hints about the crime against the reader
She was under no obligation to the truth’ p280
‘Did she think she could… drown her guilt in a stream – three streams – of consciousness?’ p320
impact of the rape on Lola
‘Lola’s face was so white and rigid, like a clay mask’ p 154
‘Lola was sitting forward, with her arms crossed around her chest, hugging herself and rocking slightly. The voice was faint and distorted, as though impeded by something like a bubble’ p165
‘The body was bony and unyielding… Lola hugged herself and rocked’ p 165
‘Weak submissive voice’ p165
Description of the rape in the wedding scene (1)
‘She felt the memories, the needling details, like dirt on her skin: Lola coming to her room in tears, her chafed and bruised writs,
The Leg (5)
‘There were horrors enough, but it was the unexpected detail that threw him and afterwards would not let him go.’ P191
‘He saw it… It was a leg in a tree. A mature plane tree, only just in leaf. The leg was twenty feet up, wedged in the first forking of the trunk, bare, severed cleanly above the knee. From where they stood there was no sign of blood or torn flesh.’ P192
impact of war on Robbie (3)
‘He felt hostile to everyone around him. His feelings had shrunk to the small hard point of his own survival’ p217
‘Turner grabbed the man by his tie and was ready to smack his stupid face with an open right hand’ p217
but now she understands how the war
might compound her crime. if he didn’t come back
to marry
her rapist
but the scrateches
and bruises long healed and all her own steatemtns were to the contrary
there was our crime
Lola’s, Marshall’s, mine
