"In the aisles of country churches and grand city cathedrals, her heroines and heroes reached their innocent climaxes and needed to go no further" (9).

The aborted play, The Trials of Arabella, that appears at the beginning of the novel is something that I have never really given much thought to. The play is a characteristic fairy-tale-esque romance - complete with two lovers, a terrible villain, and finally, the reward of marriage. I vaguely recall hearing, however, through the veil of my drowsy senioritis-afflicted mind, my AP Literature teacher saying that this play serves to reveal Briony's naive knowledge about relationships which directly impacts her actions later in the novel. This vague memory, together with my re-reading of the novel, prompted me to further investigate this subject.

Briony is a precocious child in many ways - her extraordinary writing ability, vocabulary, and passion for learning - however, it is important to keep in mind that she is still very much a child in many ways. The characters of her play go through their various trials and then they are married. "A love of order also shaped the principles of justice, with death and marriage the main engines of housekeeping, the former being set aside exclusively for the morally dubious, the latter a reward witheld until the final page" (7). As a rather sheltered girl of 13, combined with her need for order and her driving need to make sense out of the universe, Briony is unable (or unwilling) to look past the act of marriage to what happens next. Sexual relations, procreation, and child-rearing, are notably absent from Briony's works - they are too messy, too passionate, too unorganized - to have a place in Briony's carefully planned out universe. This mindset, combined with the innocence of her age as well as her virtual isolation from other children by the secluded location of the Tallis household, combined together to shape her views of the world. "A good wedding was an unacknowledged representation of the as yet unthinkable-sexual bliss. In the aisles of country churches and grand city cathedrals, her heroines and heroes reached their innocent climaxes and needed to go no further" (8-9). These words, written by a much older Briony reveals that indeed she did not consciously acknowledge the inherent sexuality of her characters. This revelation could also be used to explain her actions in regards to the scenes witnessed between her sister and Robbie. As her organized, innocent world had no place for love expressed through sexual relations, Briony interpreted these interactions as violent. Thus, when Briony "saw" Lola being molested, her logical conclusion - based on her witnessing of the scene by the fountain, her reading of Robbie's note, and her interruption of the scene in the library combined together in her mind to reach the conclusion that made sense  - that Robbie was to blame. She could not believe that her sister and Robbie were in love, as this emotion (in her universe) would be expressed by a proposal of marriage followed by a beautiful and elaborate wedding. Sexuality as an expression of love was impossible for Briony to understand. Adult sexuality is too passionate, too unpredictable and inexplainable to fit neatly into Briony's little universe and it would only be through the experience of growing up that Briony would learn to accept it.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that this passage was written by Briony and it remains a distinct possibility that Briony (whether intentionally or unintentionally) could have included this information as a sort of excuse for her actions. It is human nature to attempt to maintain our self esteem by unconsciously censoring oneself in an attempt to paint ourselves in a more flattering light. As this novel is written by Briony concerning her own life experiences, the reliability of her narration is always in question. As this is the only text of this fictional story, however,  the real "truth" remains unknown and irrelevant. We simply have to accept Briony's words as truth and that the motivation of her extreme guilt and need for atonement drove her to tell this story as truthfully as possible.