Briony Tallis: The Trials Of Arabella

Briony Tallis: At the start of the story Briony is a young, naive, 13 year old girl. She is the youngest of her siblings. She enjoys writing and performing stories, and plays to impress her family. At the time she is working on a play The Trials of Arabella to be performed for her eldest brother Leon when he returns home. She does not understand the feelings of others and gets very upset when people do not behave as she wishes. She does not yet understand certain things about the world and mistakes Robbie’s love for Cecilia for the actions of a sex maniac. This mistake leads to her blaming him for the rape of her cousin Lola, a mistake she must live with for the rest of her life, and what she wants atonement for. She eventually goes off to become a nurse, as her sister did before her, and by this time she had matured some and understands the wrong she caused. In the end of the book she appears as an old woman to reveal that the book was written by her and was her way of finding atonement, when she could not in

In the beginning all Lola wanted was to be an adult. She tried to dress like one and act intelligent, and this was likely what drew Paul Marshall to her, but she was still just an immature child and did not know what she was getting herself into. When Lola was raped she was forced to mature quickly, but still being a child, she let Robbie take the blame. Briony was also an immature thirteen year old at the beginning of the story and was therefore very naive and did not quite understand love, and sex, and the strange things that were happening around her. She was too young to understand other’s points of view and therefore pinned Robbie as a sex maniac and later a rapist. The guilt she had from this decision of hers forced her to mature. Becoming a nurse forced her to mature as well and she grew up while treating the wounded soldiers. Once mature she finally realized how wrong she had been, but it was a slow