Atonement is defined as reparation for a wrong. Briony spends her life trying to make right her accusations at age thirteen. To do this she becomes a nurse and writes a novel in the hopes of clearing Robbie’s name. Briony never reaches this atonement. It took her five years to come forward with the truth, she could have apologized to her sister but did not, and finally, the book is not released by the end of the novel and she continues to lie in it. Briony was a child when she made false accusations against Robbie Turner. She was not positive of who she saw raping her cousin, but because she misunderstood Robbie and Cecilia’s intimacy she tells everyone she was certain it was him. She had doubts from the beginning but does not voice them for five years, or so the reader thought she actually does not reveal the truth until she is 77 years old. “Today on the morning of my seventy-seventh birthday, I decided to make one last visit to the Imperial War Museum library in Lambeth” (333). When Robbie died everyone still thought he was a rapist and he never got the happiness and life he wanted. This effectively helps the reader to decide that she does not reach atonement because despite all that she had done to right her wrongs she waited too many years and her novel won’t be published until after her own death. By the time the novel is published everyone who bears witness to the events that occurred that summer will be dead and therefore the novel is not really effective. Additionally, Briony had the opportunity afters Robbie’s death to face her sister Cecilia and apologize. She could have come clean and told her that she made a mistake. Instead Briony could not face her sister and admit her wrongdoing.“[...] that a cowardly Briony limped back to the hospital,unable to confront her recently bereaved sister” (350). For this reason I feel Briony only writes for her own atonement, not for the benefit of Robbie or Cecilia. Had she honestly been able to feel remorse she should have been able to talk to her sister in person. Furthermore, the novel was supposed to be her final words telling the world what she did as a child and how she ruined the lives of two people. For the most part she is honest about her actions and she uses all of their real names. However, Briony still lies. She was supposed to finally be telling the truth of Robbie’s innocence and she does but despite telling this truth she comes up with another lie, suggesting that Robbie and Cecilia lived. “I tried to persuade my reader by direct or indirect means, [...]”(350). Ian McEwan executing the novel like this is effective because it further pushes the perception theme. It also brings the novel full circle by starting and ending with a lie. To conclude, Briony never reaches her goal of atonement because she waited too long to tell the truth, could not tell the truth in person, and never gets the novel published before her own death. Had she never lied or come clean sooner it is possible she could have been redeemed for her actions but this was not the case. It is also possible that had she actually taken the time to apologize to those she affected in real life it may have been easier to forgive her.