Robbie Flashcards
‘Everything he did was designed to distance her’ 3,27
Ironic
Marginalised
‘Her father had subsidised Robbie’s education all his life. Had anyone ever objected?’ 3:27
‘They had fallen out of touch at Cambridge. It had been too difficult to do anything else.’ 3,26
“Occasionally, they passed in the street and smiled. She always seemed to find it awkward – That’s our cleaning lady’s son, she might have been whispering to her friends as she walked on”(ch8p79).
Later in the same paragraph, Robbie professes that “he didn’t care”about the differences in social class which exist between him and Cecilia, but he is clearly aware that it“might”lie at the root of her feeling“awkward”.
Chapter 8
Robbie is the focaliser in chapter 8 and McEwan alludes to romantic and contempory poets to established Robbie’s educated and cultured tone, unusual for an individual in his social position.
There is the sense of two young adults struggling to interpret their emotions. Robbie blames Cecilia for this awkwardness/tension. But his behaviour later in the chapter shows his own confusion and perhaps reveals his own barely suppressed desires. The references to Sigmund Freud (the founder of psychoanalysis) in this chapter are perhaps meant as hints that Robbie’s delivering the obscene version of the letter is due to his subconscious desire to make his feelings known to Cecilia.
Foreshadowing & ymbolism:
Robbie as Malvolio - We learn that Robbie has previously played the part of Malvolio in Shakespeare’sTwelfth Night, a failure in love who suffers public humiliation and is imprisoned. The parallels with Robbie’s life will soon become clear - foreshadowing.
Narrative shift and dark Irony:
On pages 90-92, as Robbie walks to the Tallis house, the narrative perspective shifts to the future. The shift in time perspective creates a dark sense of irony as Robbie’s fortunes are about to change dramatically for the worse: ‘In the years to come he would often think back to this time, when he walked along the footpath… He could not have contained his optimism - he was happy and therefore bound to succeed. One word contained everything he felt, and explained why he was to dwell on this moment later. Freedom.’ p20
‘He thought of himself in 1962, at 50, when he would be old, but not quite old enough to be useless, and of the weathered, knowing doctor he would be by then, with the secret stories, the tragedies and successes stacked behind him.’ p92
McEwan uses the narrative shift to serve as a reminder of Robbie’s potential, of what he life should’ve been, emphasising the tragedy of Briony’s crime.
‘He was without social unease - inappropraitely so, in the view of many.’ ch8,p86
While Robbie thinks of himself as someone“without social unease”thanks to a“childhood moving freely between the bungalow and the main house”(ch8p86), he is still conscious of his lower-class status, and worries that this is why Cecilia acts awkward.
Robbie doesn’t feel the affects of his lower class until he is persecuted because of them. Paul’s higher class seemingly makes him immune from suspicion. Heightens the tragedy
‘Framed rectangle of sky’
Chapter eight p78
Allusion to Wilde reading Goal
Foreshadows punishment
McEwan represents Robbie’s confinement by his class through framing: ‘The scene, or a tiny portion of it was visible to Robbie Turner through a sealed skylight window’ (ch8p78) There is only so much he has access to and foreshadows his confinement later on.
‘nothing can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes’
chapter 11 (131)
Intertextuality to twelf night
Malvolio (who Robbie’s wants played at college) mistakenly states that nothing with prevent him from finding love an happiness with Olivia. This allusion acts as a possible foreshadowing of the future heartbreak for Robbie.
‘if he could not be with Cecilia, if he could not have her to himself, then he too, like Briony, would go out searching alone. This decision, as he was to acknowledge many times, transformed his life.’
chapter 11 (144)
Time shift; foreshadowing some transformative event is Robbie’s life. Builds tension as the novel moves towards its climactic moment. The
‘That they were old friends who had shared a childhood was now a barrier - they were embarrassed before their former selves.’
chapter 11 (134)
- Class acting as a barrier to love - ironic as this barrier will strengthen.
- Past impacting present
Emily’s disapproval of Robbie
‘She liked him well enough, and was pleased for Grace Turner that he had turned out to be bright. But really, he was a hobby of Jack’s, living proof of some levelling principle he had pursued through the years. When he spoke about Robbie, which wasn’t often, it was with a touch of self-righteous vindication… she had opposed Jack when he proposed paying for the boy’s education, which smacked of meddling to her, and unfair on Leon and the girls.’ chapter12 (151)
AO2: Emily’s thoughts expose how superficial Emily and her husband are. There is a condescending tone in Emily’s dismissal of Robbie as a ‘hobby’ which foreshadows how Robbie will soon be abandoned by them.
‘A maniac. The word had refinement, and the weight of medical diagnosis. All these years she had known him and that was what he had been’ (ch10p119)
Repetition of the word ‘maniac’ throughout this chapter, creates the sense that Lola and Briony are trying to force this damning perception of Robbie’s behavior, however they make a tragic misdiagnosis.
The reference to ‘medical diagnosis’ is a reminder of Robbie’s potential future, before the following events in the next chapters change the outcome of his life.
The reference to the ‘years’ Briony has known Robbie is an ironic echo of Cecilia’s epiphany in the previous chapter: ‘How had she not seen it? Everything was explained. The whole day, the weeks before, her childhood. A lifetime, It was clear to her now.’ ch9,p111
The contrasts in their new perceptions of Robbie is significant and highlights Briony’s misinterpretation of the letter.
‘Villains were not announced with hisses or siloloquies, they did not come cloaked in balck, with ugly expressions’
‘her life now beginning, had sent her a villain in the form of an old family friend’
ch13,p158
Robbie is now, in Briony’s eyes, a“maniac”and a“brute”.
Defence of Robbie
‘Cecilia’s repeated suggestion that is was Danny Hardman they should be talking to was heard in silence.’ (ch14118)
Even Cecilia’s attempted defence of Robbie perhaps reveals an element of class prejudice.
'’Liars! Liars! Liars!’ Mrs Turner roared… ‘Liars! Liars!’’ (ch14p187)
Grace Turners’ anguished cry can be read as a condemnation of the entire Tallis family and the upper-class society they represent in the way that they have closed ranks and participated in the conspiracy against Robbie.
Robbie’s arrest
Chapter 14 page 184
The visual metaphor of Robbie ‘handcuffed’ between the two inspectors and being led to the police car, mirrors how is now trapped by the law. Briony is watching through the window and McEwans uses framing to reflect Briony’s limited view of the events. Briony precieves it as the ‘beginning of his punishment. It had the look of eternal damnation’ (184).
Prison
‘The hand squeezing on his throat’ (202)
‘The hand on is throat again.’ (203)
The hand on Robbie’s throat becomes a recurring motif in part 2 expressing how trapped and claustrophobic Robbie felt in prison. He would rather be in this war than be back in prison, thus McEwan may be making a social criticism towards the justice system.
‘He had shrunk in every sense. Prison made him despise himself’ (206)
“So they wrote about literature, and used characters as codes … Tristan and Isolde, the Duke Orsino and Olivia (and Malvolio too), Troilus and Criseyde, Mr Knightley and Emma, Venus and Adonis. Turner and Tallis.”(p204).
By referencing famous pairs of lovers, Briony (the ‘true’ narrator of Part Two) suggests that Robbie’s and Cecilia’s love is of a heroic status. However, readers may be troubled by the fact that most of the love affairs alluded to here end in failure or tragedy, a possible foreshadowing of the fate awaiting Robbie and Cecilia.
In the bitterest week of winter, raging drunk on cognac, he had even conjured her onto the end of his bayonet.
In the bitterest week of winter, raging drunk on cognac, he had even conjured her onto the end of his bayonet.
Robbie fantasising about his revenge on Briony conveys how war and time have made him bitter and unforgiving- a transformation from his personality in part 1
Graphic imagery employed plays into his villain role. Immoral acts: drinking and murder.
‘Conjuring’ suggestion of a supernatural ritual to place her there.
Revenge crime/tragedy
Bayonet- instrument of war used to impale and harm enemy soldiers.
Portrays Briony as the enemy.
“I’ll wait for you. Come back”(p203)
Cecilia’s words become a mantra of hope for Robbie throughout the war, although they remind us of Briony as Cecilia used to say this to her.
“A dead civilisation. First his own life ruined, then everybody else’s.”(p217).
Robbie’s thoughts move from the personal to the universal.
Just as he has suffered for a crime he did not commit, he sees the whole world as suffering from another crime – war – a crime against humanity.
The thought that“civilisation”is dead suggests that humanity has regressed to a primitive state.
Robbie’s wound and exhaustion
‘he felt only tender, ruptured flesh’ (215)
‘he felt hostile to everyone around him. His thoughts had shrunk to the small hard point of his own survival.’ (217)
‘It was possible, Turner found, to fall asleep while walking’ (218)
The narrative breaks down into individual steps to convery his fatigue: ‘He walked / across / the land / until / he came / to the sea.’ (219) The section ends with ‘silent head-down trudging.’ (226) to refelct the monotony of war.
Revengful
In the bitterest week of winter, raging drunk on cognac, he had even conjured her onto the end of his bayonet.” (229)
Robbie fantasising about his revenge on Briony conveys how war and time have made him bitter and unforgiving- a transformation from his personality in part 1
Graphic imagery employed plays into his villain role. Immoral acts: drinking and murder.
‘Conjuring’ suggestion of a supernatural ritual to place her there.
Revenge crime/tragedy
Bayonet- instrument of war used to impale and harm enemy soldiers.
Portrays Briony as the enemy.
Past incident with Briony
Par 2, pages 229 -234
‘Only one theory held up.. she would have been about 10 years old’
(3 years before the events described in part 1)
While by a river, Briony deliberately falls into the water so that Robbie dives into the water and saves her, forcing Robbie into the role of a hero: ‘he heard, but did not see, her jump in.’
‘I wanted you to save me… you saved me.’
‘‘thankyou,’ she kept saying. ‘Thank you, thank you.’’
‘Because I love you.’ ‘I love you.’ ‘I love you.’ (231/232)
Robbie’s reflection: ‘For three years she must have nurtured a feeling for him, kept it hidden, nourished it with fantasy or embellished it in her stories. She was the sort of girl who lived in her thoughts.’ (233)
‘She was shocked, and not only by a word. In her mind he had betrayed her love by favouring her sister.’ (233)
‘He would never forgive her. That was the lasting damage.’ (234)
The incident at the pool mirrors the romantic story written by Briony in childhood: ‘She herself had written a tale in which a humble woodcutter saved a princess from drowning and ended by marrying her.’ (38)
Suggests that Briony’s fall was to re-enact one of her fantasies/stories, blurring the line between fiction and reality.
Briony dismisses the incident in part 3 when she reflects on ‘the memory of passion she’d had for him, a real crush that had lasted days. Then she confessed in to him one morning in the garden and immediately forgot about it.’ (342)
However, Briony may be trying to manipulate our responses.
‘Each dive brought every man, cornered and cowering, to face his execution. When it did not come, the trial had to be lived through all over again and the fear did not diminish.’ (239)
Metaphor for what Robbie has to go through because of Briony.
Links to punishment
Ambiguity over Robbie’s fate
‘The water tasted metallic.’ (263) - A reminder of Robbie’s physical state and a probable suggestion of internal bleeding.
Robbie’s final words (…‘you won’t hear another word from me.’) creates ambiguity around his fate as it can be read as a suggestion of his death.
Robbie’s guilt and responsibility
‘But what was guilt these days? It was cheap. Everyone was guilty, and no one was.’ (261)
Robbie is troubled by the thought that he could have done more to help others. ‘He must go back and get the boy from the tee… and make him a decent burial.’ (262) He wants to go back ‘and ask the Flemish lady and her son if they held him accountable for their deaths.’ (263)
The trauma and guilt experienced by Robbie in the cellar juxtaposes Briony’s lack of responsibility.
Robbie’s potential forgiveness
While reflecting on his own guilt and trauma, Robbie imagines he and Briony hiding and suppressing their respective feelings of guilt (“We’ll sleep it off, Briony.”) suggests that Robbie is making some sort of peace with her. However we must remember that as the author Briony may be manipulating our responses to her crime
‘Oh, when I was in love with you, then I was clean and brave.’ (262)
Robbie quotes a line from A.E Housman, looking back at a purer and more innocent self, defined by his loved for Cecilia, before the stain of guilt and still free from the squalor of war and prison.
As Robbie lies in the cellar, his thoughts return to Cecilia and the repeated mantra “come back” (265). They are metaphorically together until his death.
Robbie’s reaction to Briony’s visit
“In the confined space he was desperate in his movements, as though suffocating.”
“he was angry, very angry…” (340)
“The hardness in his gaze was new, and the eyes smaller and narrower… his face was thinner… the cheeks were sunken.” (342)
“…he stared at her, into her, with a rigidity, a savagery in his look.”
“The muscles in his throat tensed and knotted. He too was fighting off an emotion he did not want witnessed.” (343)
“she would never know what scenes were driving this turmoil.” (343)
Robbie’s death
“Robbie Turner died of septicaemia at Bray Dunes on 1 June 1940…” (370)
