Overview of Emily Tallis
English Lit: AQA A Level Atonement - Specification B, topic 6.6.1
Overview of Emily Tallis in Atonement
Emily Tallis is the 46-year-old mother of Leon, Cecilia and Briony.
Emily's role in the narrative
- Although two chapters in Part One (Chapters 6 and 12) are at least partly focalized through her perspective, she is a rather shadowy presence in the novel - on the periphery, rather than the centre, of the action.
Emily's distance from her family
- Emily is described as being rather “distant” (p20) from her children. Cecilia finds that her mother is not particularly interested in catching up with her oldest daughter who has just returned home for the summer, but instead would rather share her “tiny frets about the household”.
- That Cecilia considers these worries as “tiny” only emphasises how Emily has her priorities all wrong.
"Emily's lying down"
- In Chapter 2, we learn that “Emily’s lying down”, and that this is clearly something her children have become used to.
- Emily suffers from crippling migraines and her children have learned that “it was hardly necessary to say” that their mother is in bed, suffering from, or trying to prevent, another one.
Sympathy for Emily
- Readers may well feel some sympathy for Emily with regards to her poor health (she personifies an oncoming migraine as a “caged panther” which helps to convey its ferocity) and to her suspicion that the reason her husband often stays overnight in London is because he's having an affair.
Test yourself on Overview of Emily Tallis
Which of these are true of Emily Tallis?