Emily Tallis Flashcards
Neglectful
Emily Tallis is the focalizer in Chapter 6.
She is a very self-absorbed character, consumed by her fear of an oncoming migraine which she personifies as“a caged panther”. (p63)
“But though she sometimes longed to rise up and intervene, especially if she thought Briony was in need of her, the fear of pain kept her in place”(p66-7).
Emily is conscious that her frequent absences mean that she has perhaps failed her children. But tellingly, this is not enough to make her rise. She instead becomes distracted by a list of household chores which need her attention.
The chapter ends with Emily tentatively beginning “The hunt for her dark glasses” - metaphorically she wishes to stay in the dark.
In part 3 when Briony visits Cecilia they do not use their parents names, which creates distance:
‘Have you heard from the old man?’
‘No, I haven’t’
‘What about from home?’
‘She writes now and then,’
‘And what’s her news, Briony?’
Naivity/poor judgement
‘Poor darling Briony, the softest little thing, doing her all to entertain her hard-bitten wiry cousins with the play she had written from her heart.’ (pg65) - Dramatic irony. Briony is no longer the innocent child that Emily still sees her as.
Emily disastrously misinterprets what is happening around her: ‘There was a little squeal of laughter abruptly smothered. Lola then, in the nursery with Marshall… This wealthy young entrepreneur might not be such a bad sort, if he was prepared to pass the time of day entertaining children.’ (p69) - Dramatic irony. Marshall’s high status means Emily doesn’t suspect anything bad of him at all.
‘She lay in the darkness and knew everything’ p66 - dramatic irony
she is impressed by Marshall and even considers him as a potential husband for Cecilia - ‘Was he suitable?’ (ch2p152)
Emily’s disapproval of Cecilia
Emily Tallis disapproves of Cecilia’s studies, thinking that she should be concentrating on“a husband to find and motherhood to confront”(p.65).
This reflects Emily’s status as an upper-middle class, middle-aged woman of the time. Cecilia and Briony point to new identities for women in society with both attempting to find self-realisation through education or a career.
‘Illness had stopped her gicing her children all a mother should. Sensing this, they had always called her by her first name. Cecilia should lend a hand, but she was too wrapped up in herself too much the intellectual to bother with children…’ p66 - Ironic as Cecilia looks after Briony during nightmares.
‘Downstairs, her mother, guilt-stricken by her absence from the family, would be spreading anxiety and confusion all about her.’
Chapter 9, page 102
evoking pity for Emily
Self-absorbed/ignorant
dark glasses metaphor
Chapter 12 (when the twins go missing), Emily Tallis is our narrative viewpoint as she remains in the “thick walls of silence” of her home which hissed in her ears”. (148)
McEwan uses a semantic field of silence: ‘stubborn silence’, ‘smothered’, ‘there was no sound’ ‘mute forests’ ‘muffled’ (145) at the beginning of the chapter to show how Emily shuts out the drama.
During the telephone call with Jack Tallis (153), Emily tells him about her day and leaves the news about the twins until last and there is a change in Jack’s tone:
‘I’m going to put the telephone down now, Emily, because I’m going to call the police.’
‘Is it really necessary? By the time they get here… 9154)
Emily’s childhood
In chapter 8, Emily reflects on her childhood while pondering how Briony’s is coming to an end and descending into self-pity:
‘here was the ghost of her childhood… to remind her of the limited arc of existence’ (151) - she feels that her life’s path was determined by her childhood.
she remembers ‘her aggrieved, overlooked ten-year old self’ (151) and sums up her life in the phrase ‘wronged child, wronged wife.’ (148). The repetitive sentence structure illustrates the extent to which one’s childhood shaped one’s future life - a key theme in the novel.
Victim
affair
‘That he worked late she did not doubt, but she knew he did not sleep at his club, and he knew that she knew this’
‘wronged child, wronged wife.’ (ch12p148)
‘She belonged to a generation that treated policemen as menials, whatever their rank’ (ch14p178)
Emily treats the policemen“as menials”i.e. as being of a much lower social status, and there is evidence that the police officers defer to her when they allow her to read Robbie’s obscene letter to Cecilia.
Emily’s class prejudice may explain her treatment of Robbie.
AO3: emily suspicious of pc vockins, trade unions made campains to narrow gaps between rich and the poor.
