In witnessing the rather bizarre interaction at the fountain between her sister and Robbie, Briony attempts to carry out her aforementioned realization, that others are just as alive as she is, by seeking to write a story about the incident from three different viewpoints:
"She could write the scene three times over, from three points of view; her excitement was in the prospect of freedom, of being delivered from the cumbrous struggle between good and bad, heroes and villians. None of these three was bad, nor were they particularly good. She need not judge. There did not have to be a moral. She need only show separate minds, as alive as her own, struggling with the idea that other minds were equally alive" (38).
This passage seems to assert that Briony's realization is complete and that instead of disregarding her earlier contemplations, she wholeheartedly embraced them. This assertion, however, is a direct contradiction of her earlier statement in regards to the existence of other minds as alive as her own, "She knew this, but only in a rather arid way; she didn't really feel it"(34). In fact, just after the former quote about the incident by the fountain, the author Briony goes on to call the reliability of her total realization that day into question:
"...it was not the long-ago morning she was recalling so much as her subsequent accounts of it. It was possible that the contemplation of a crooked finger, the unbearable idea of other minds and the superiority of stories over plays were thoughts she had had on other days...However she could not betray herself completely; there could be no doubt that some kind of revelation had occurred When the young girl went back to the window and looked down, the damp patch on the gravel had evaporated. Now there was nothing left of the dumb show by the fountain beyond what survived in memory, in three separate and overlapping memories" (39).
This acknowledgement by the adult Briony calls into question the accuracy of her above statement. If she had followed her realization, that other minds are as equally alive and significant as her own, all the way through then she would have contemplated the letter and the scene in the library further. She would have taken into account Robbie and Cecilia's viewpoints, instead of jumping to the wrong conclusions which led to Robbie's wrongful incarceration. As Briony was still very much a child, it is possible that she simply did not understand these incidents. However, in keeping with her revelation and her aforementioned decision of withholding judgement, Briony should not have condemned Robbie. Rather, as with the scene by the fountain, she should have viewed these incidents cautiously and with the full knowledge that perhaps there were things at work here that were beyond her comprehension. The acknowledgement that perhaps she hadn't fully come to this conclusion on this fateful day by the author Briony makes sense in the unfolding of events in the rest of the novel. It seems much more likely that perhaps the thought may have crossed her mind but, as she stated earlier, "She knew this, but only in a rather arid way; she didn't really feel it"(34). It was there, yet unacknowledged. Her realization in watching the scene by the fountain seems out of place in regards to her later actions in the novel. Indeed, it is right after this incident that Briony goes out to the island to thrash nettles out of anger for her ruined play - hardly the actions of an enlightened novelist. Also, I think that it is much easier for the reader to forgive Briony for her crime in believing that she committed it unintentionally, out of innocence and her inability to grasp the concept of other points of view. Alternatively, it is much easier to condemn her in believing that she did grasp the full extent of her realization and instead disregarded it, in favor of her childish views of good vs. evil.
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