Cecilia in Part Three
English Lit: AQA A Level Atonement - Specification B, topic 6.3.2
Cecilia in Part Three in Atonement
In Part Three, Cecilia betrays signs that her separation from Robbie and her family has taken its toll.
Briony's descriptions of Cecilia
- Briony detects a “hardness to her tone” and notes that her eyes convey a sense of “fatigue” or “sorrow” (p322).
Cecilia's caring nature
- In the closing pages of Part Three, Briony recalls Cecilia’s acts of “unthinking family love” (p349) when Cecilia would “rescue her from a nightmare” using the refrain “come back”.
- This caring side to Cecilia’s nature is seen elsewhere in the novel, for example when comforting the twins, Jackson and Pierrot, and in the “tenderness” she displays when soothing an agitated Robbie, suddenly confronted with the person who had ruined his life.
Briony's confession about Cecilia
- Briony admits in Part Four that the visit to her sister did not happen and that Cecilia in fact died when Balham tube station was bombed later that year.
- As with Robbie, readers must question how ‘true’ Briony’s depiction of Cecilia in Part Three is. Is it an idealised portrait of her sister, masking the emptiness of the ‘real’ Cecilia’s life?
Test yourself on Cecilia in Part Three
When does Cecilia show her caring side?