Atonement - Briony in Both Term Paper

This could or has happened to many individuals -- saying or doing something without thinking and then not knowing how to get out of the web of lies.

But what about Briony when she is older and supposedly wiser? Does she remain a sympathetic character in her aging years? Based on the definition above of atonement, this cannot be the case. She knows what she has done and reveals her account of the crime of a wrong accusation. Yet, she cannot clearly face herself in the mirror and admit to that inner self exactly what she had set in motion that day. At the end she instead turns away from reality into fiction and states: "How could that constitute an ending? What sense or hope or satisfaction could a reader draw from such an account? Who would want to believe that, except in the service of the bleakest realism? I couldn't do it to them." Is it that she could not do it to "them" or to "herself"? She is the one who needa the happy ending, because she still cannot cope with her actions.Still, Briony is no villain. She does not act out of evil doing. Though, she is not sympathetic, either. Her self-centered way of handling this situation makes her unlikeable, but not….....