Lola, Robbie & Cecilia as Victims

English Lit: AQA A Level Atonement - Specification B, topic 7.4.1

Victims in Atonement - Lola Quincey

Lola is the first victim in the novel. She is presented as a rather lonely and insecure figure in the opening chapters.

Lola has been forced out of her family home because of her parents’ very public divorce.
She is now in the care of an aunt (Emily) who has little time for her.

At 15 years old, Lola is caught between childhood and adulthood: she tries to be a protective parent figure for her two younger siblings, Jackson and Pierrot, who are both deeply affected by their parents’ divorce but she is not yet on a par with Emily’s older children, Leon and Cecilia. Instead, she has to socialise with the younger children, the 13-year-old Briony and the even younger twins.
Marshall exploits Lola’s vulnerability and her desire to be treated as a grown-up, offering Lola the attention from an adult that she longs for.

Lola endures trauma during and following the sexual assault upon her.
The description of her “hugging herself and rocking” (p165) after being discovered by Briony suggests she is deeply shaken.

However, McEwan also creates some ambiguity over her status as victim.
In Part Four, the older Briony names Lola first in a list of those who had committed a crime (“There was our crime – Lola’s, Marshalls, mine” p369) and, at the very least, Lola’s silence over the identity of her attacker condemns Robbie to prison.

McEwan provides us with a tantalising moment when it looks like Lola may reveal the truth and perhaps admit some complicity in the act (“she may have been about to embark upon a long confession” p166) but Briony cuts her off.
At the end of the novel, Briony sees her as resembling the cartoon villain, “Cruella de Vil”.

Robbie is the victim that the novel focuses on most. Cecilia is another victim in the novel.

Robbie can be seen as a victim of the strict class divisions and “snobbery” (p209) in English society. The Tallises and Paul Marshall are more than willing to close ranks against him.
In this reading, Robbie is punished for his use of an obscenity frowned upon in upper-middle-class society and for having sexual contact with someone above his station.
He can also be seen as the victim of Briony’s childish infatuation with him.

Robbie is also the victim of war. He is mortally wounded by the shrapnel in his side and he is haunted by the horrors of what he has seen.
You should consider whether Briony presents us with an idealised version of Robbie, particularly in Part Two of the novel where he is a quietly heroic figure – brave, sensitive and a leader to those around him. Is Briony’s portrayal of him an act of atonement from her, a subtle rewriting of history as a means of assuaging her feelings of guilt?

Cecilia is another victim in the novel.
She has to endure a forced separation from Robbie.
She cuts off all contact with her own family.
Briony imagines the physical effects of the whole ordeal on her when she describes Cecilia’s eyes as betraying a sense of “fatigue” or “sorrow” (p322) before she provides the shattering revelation that she and Robbie died within months of each other.