Characters

Briony Tallis

• Protagonist
• Precocious girl with a gift for writing which leads to a necessity to control everything around her
  • Much older siblings and absent parents, so used to having control over her own insulated life
  • Writing fulfils this need, as she can create entire worlds that she controls
  • Sees herself as much smarter than everyone around her
• Her childishness is emphasised by how little she questions her own assumptions and views about the world
• Misinterprets the fountain scene, which leads her to wrongly accuse Robbie
  • Driven by her love of storytelling, illusion that she is already grown up and preconception that she understands things that she really does not
• Later becomes a nurse and works to make up for what she did to Robbie
• Revealed at the end that she has written the novel in an attempt to atone
  • Understands that she can never be forgiven
• Narrates the conclusion as an elderly woman who has been diagnosed with terminal dementia

Cecilia Tallis

• Briony’s sister
• Realises early in the story that she is in love with Robbie
• When Briony accuses Robbie, Cecilia cuts off her ties with her family and promises to wait for Robbie
• She becomes a nurse
• Briony and Cecilia reconnect slightly during the war as Briony tries to take back her false testimony
• At the end, Briony says that Cecilia died in a bombing soon after Robbie died

Robbie Turner

• Son of Grace and Ernest Turner
• Studied at Cambridge and plans to become a doctor
• Education is funded by the Tallises, who treat him like a son
• Realises he is in love with Cecilia
• Wrongly imprisoned for Lola’s rape
• After three years in prison, enlists in the army in exchange for a reduced sentence
• In Part Three, he is at Cecilia’s apartment and is still furious with Briony
  • Revealed at the end that Briony made this bit up to give him a life with Cecilia
• Actually died the night before the Dunkirk evacuation

Lola Quincey

• Briony’s older cousin
• Acts mature but is only 15
• Raped by Paul Marshall and is so traumatised that she accepts Briony’s testimony
  • Seems likely that she knows Paul was her rapist
• Later marries Paul, implied to be an agreement to both hide their complicity in Robbie’s imprisonment and because she will become wealthy
• Becomes a well-known London socialite

Paul Marshall

• Leon’s dull friend who is making a fortune in chocolate
  • His company manufactures Amo bars
• When he visits the Tallis family, they think he may be a good match for Cecilia, but he is uninterested in her
• He rapes Lola but lets Robbie take the blame
• Later marries Lola
• Becomes a philanthropist

Emily Tallis

• Briony, Cecilia and Leon’s mother, Jack’s wife
• Relatively absent parent, partially due to her debilitating migraines
• Snob, condescending towards Robbie, dislikes Jack funding his education
• Hates her sister Hermione, sees her as always stealing attention
  • Thinks Lola is exactly the same

Jack Tallis

• Briony, Cecilia and Leon’s father, Emily’s husband
• Absent parent because he works as a high-ranking bureaucrat in London
  • During tensions leading up to WW2
• Seems to be a kind man- funds Robbie’s education and supports Grace
  • Aid abruptly stops when Robbie is blamed for Lola’s rape

Pierrot and Jackson Quincey

• Lola’s little brothers
• At the beginning, they are rowdy young boys, and the events of Part One pass over their heads
• Pierrot appears at the end, when he leads his grandchildren in a performance of The Trials of Arabella

Nettle and Mace

• Robbie’s comrades during the war
• Briony communicates with Nettle to write Robbie’s portion of the story

Fiona

• Briony’s friend from nursing
• From a rich London family

Leon Tallis

• Oldest Tallis child
• Brings Paul Marshall to the house
• Old man at the family reunion at the end

Nurse Drummond

• Briony’s strict supervisor at the hospital

Danny Hardman

• Servant of the Tallis family
• Cecilia and Robbie wrongly suspect him of being Lola’s rapist

Old Hardman

• Danny Hardman’s father
• Servant of the Tallis family

Betty

• Servant of the Tallis family
• Works in the kitchen

Hermione and Cecil Quincey

• Lola, Pierrot and Jackson’s parents
• In the middle of an unpleasant, public divorce, so they send the children to stay with the Tallises

Grace Turner

• Robbie’s mother
• Charlady of the Tallis family

Ernest Turner

• Robbie’s father, Grace’s husband
• Quit his job as the gardener and abandoned his family when Robbie was young