Chapter 25
Summary:
Briony wakes up one day thinking about how it felt like Christmas day-- the sleepy thrill you get when you know you have presents waiting for you downstairs-- until she is fully conscious and realizes that the presents aren’t really there and it’s people waiting for her, needing her help to do things (since patients aren’t even allowed to get up to use the restrooms by themselves). The hospital isn’t as busy as it was when the first round of troops were hauled in, making things routine. Though there were still a lot of men she was able to switch her day off with Fiona. She notes that all the men still in the hospital are sick of the war effort-- everything came down to “shambles” around them. On Saturday, her day off, she took off for a walk. She didn’t know exactly where her destination was, but she knew to keep along the river. After a while, she self consciously (she thought she looked like a German spy in her nurse uniform) asked a milkman for directions. He was friendly and pointed her towards a path under a bridge. As she walks, she thinks about the retique she got, “Might she come between them in some disastrous fashion?” She marches forward. Finally, she reaches the church, the church Lola and Paul will (are) marry(ing) in. She is surprised to see a Greek temple-like church covered in trees and not a gothic church with bright stain glass (is she suggesting something?)
Briony, as she is watching them in their marriage ceremony, thinks about the day when she was thirteen. The day when Paul, not Robbie, raped Lola. She wishes to stop the wedding. Tell everyone at the ceremony the truth, but she realizes it is too late-- the bruises and scratches were gone. She sits for the rest of the ceremony until the bride and groom begin to walk out. Then she stands and looks at Lola, who doesn’t say anything but seems displeased at Briony’s presence, walking out of the church with Paul. Telling the reader she only wants Lola’s curiosity for her presence, she is left standing alone in the church.
Analysis:
The author of the book (hmmm..) doesn’t want us to know where Briony is going. Instead the pages of this chapter is full of descriptions of everything Briony sees that day-- the men she sees, her alarm clock, the road, the milkman, the bridge, the buildings, the sky, the people she meets while on her walk towards Clapham Church... The author is trying to distract us from concluding with where is going and for what purpose she is going by sticking us with details we need to read to reach the next paragraph (and eventually figure it out).
The Greek temple is a reference to the temple near Briony’s house. The one Lola was raped near. (hmmm...)
- All the same comments from Ch. 23 apply, especially about the depth of analysis and language formality...
Briony wakes up one day thinking about how it felt like Christmas day-- the sleepy thrill you get when you know you have presents waiting for you downstairs-- until she is fully conscious and realizes that the presents aren’t really there and it’s people waiting for her, needing her help to do things (since patients aren’t even allowed to get up to use the restrooms by themselves). The hospital isn’t as busy as it was when the first round of troops were hauled in, making things routine. Though there were still a lot of men she was able to switch her day off with Fiona. She notes that all the men still in the hospital are sick of the war effort-- everything came down to “shambles” around them. On Saturday, her day off, she took off for a walk. She didn’t know exactly where her destination was, but she knew to keep along the river. After a while, she self consciously (she thought she looked like a German spy in her nurse uniform) asked a milkman for directions. He was friendly and pointed her towards a path under a bridge. As she walks, she thinks about the retique she got, “Might she come between them in some disastrous fashion?” She marches forward. Finally, she reaches the church, the church Lola and Paul will (are) marry(ing) in. She is surprised to see a Greek temple-like church covered in trees and not a gothic church with bright stain glass (is she suggesting something?)
Briony, as she is watching them in their marriage ceremony, thinks about the day when she was thirteen. The day when Paul, not Robbie, raped Lola. She wishes to stop the wedding. Tell everyone at the ceremony the truth, but she realizes it is too late-- the bruises and scratches were gone. She sits for the rest of the ceremony until the bride and groom begin to walk out. Then she stands and looks at Lola, who doesn’t say anything but seems displeased at Briony’s presence, walking out of the church with Paul. Telling the reader she only wants Lola’s curiosity for her presence, she is left standing alone in the church.
Analysis:
The author of the book (hmmm..) doesn’t want us to know where Briony is going. Instead the pages of this chapter is full of descriptions of everything Briony sees that day-- the men she sees, her alarm clock, the road, the milkman, the bridge, the buildings, the sky, the people she meets while on her walk towards Clapham Church... The author is trying to distract us from concluding with where is going and for what purpose she is going by sticking us with details we need to read to reach the next paragraph (and eventually figure it out).
The Greek temple is a reference to the temple near Briony’s house. The one Lola was raped near. (hmmm...)
- All the same comments from Ch. 23 apply, especially about the depth of analysis and language formality...