justice/punishment Flashcards
Briony is punished by her own guilt (6)
How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime’ p173
‘She would never be able to console herself that she was pressured or bullied. She never was.’ P170
‘She trapped herself, she marched into the labrynth of her own construction, and was too young, too awestruck, too keen to please, to insist on making her own way back’ p170
‘She would never undo the damage. She was unforgivable.’ P285
‘Did she think she could… drown her guilt in a stream – three streams – of consciousness?’ p320
‘Secret torment’
Briony’s self-punishment is shown by her confrontation with Robbie and Cecilia (2)
‘I’m torn between breaking your stupid neck here and… throwing you down the stairs.’ Robbie p341
‘She had thought about this conversation many times, like a child anticipating a beating. Now it was happening at last… She knew his words would hurt her later’ p341
Briony is punished with dementia (5)
I thought of those sad inmates of Bedlam who were once a source of general entertainment, and I reflected in a self-pitying way on how I was soon to join their ranks’ p354
‘My brain, my mind, is closing down.’ P354
Briony punishes herself as a nurse (7)
‘A memory came to her from childhood, of seeing at an afternoon birthday party the famous tablecloth trick.’ P296
‘The leg was black and soft, like an overripe banana’ p296
‘They could not have begun to describe their time in the wards, or how it had changed them’ p311.
‘They saw the field ambulances among the lorries, and coming closer.’ P290
‘Everywhere – a soup of smells – the sticky sour odour of fresh blood, and also filthy clothes, sweat, oil, disinfectant, medical alcohol, and drifting above it all, the stink of gangrene.’
Briony doesn’t change (1)
‘I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been’p356
Briony is given what she has always wanted - a successful career, a long life, and the final production of the trials of Arabella (1)
every second person wanted to tell me something kind about my books
Briony cannot publish in her lifetime, so she isn’t punished (4)
might outlive Paul Marshall, but Lola would certainly outlive me. The consequences of this are clear. The issue has been with us for years. As my editor put it once, publication equals litigation’ p359
‘She was the superior older girl, one step ahead of me… I will not be able to publish in my lifetime’ p359
‘my forensic memoir could never be published when my fellow criminals were alive.’
‘I know I cannot punish until they are dead. And, as of this morning, I accept that they will not be until I am.’ P370
Robbie is unfairly punished with war (3)
‘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
‘It was a perfect leg, pale, smooth, small enough to be a child’s.’ P192
Robbie is unfairly punished with prison
He could smell the concrete floor, and the piss in the bucket, and the gloss paint on the walls, and hear the snores of the men along the row’ p202
‘The stupidity and claustrophobia. The hand squeezing on his throat.’ P202
Lola and Paul aren’t punished
but the scratches and bruises were long healed, and all her own statements at the time were to the contrary.’
‘Nor did the bride appear to be a victim… More than that, surely; a chocolate magnate, the creator of Amo.’ P325
Lola’s benefits in the wedding scene. This may show that they are unpunished. Alternatively, Lola appears elevated, above her attacker. (5)
Lola… still as lean and fit as a racing dog, and still faithful’ p358
Lola and Paul’s class (2)
‘Or perhaps he just swept onwards without a thought, to live the life that was always his’ p357-358.
‘Lord and Lady Marshall’ p357
The police fail (9)
they knew their own minds, they knew what they wanted and how to proceed. She was asked again and again, and as she repeated herself, the burden of consistency was pressed upon her.’ P 169
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
‘the police had you to prosecute. They didn’t want their case messed up’ Cecilia P3 to Robbie
‘London, 1999’ erases this justice
Who would want to believe that they never met again, never fulfilled their love?’ p371
‘Briony will be as much of a fantasy as the lovers who shared a bed in Balham and enraged their landlady’ p371
how can a vovelist achieve atonement when with her absolute power of dedciding outcomes nshe is also God?
Robbie and Cecilia get the ending they deserve
There was a crime. But there were also lovers.’ P370
They said they loved each other… and knew their future was together’ p207
It is only in this last version that my lovers end well, standing side by side on a South London pavement as I walk away. All the preceding drafts were pitiless.’ P370
A final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair, to let my lovers live and to unite them at the end. I gave them happiness, but I was not so self-serving as to let them forgive me’ p372
