On our last meeting we talked about Atonement (Ian McEwan). Discussion
regarded guilt and death, love and jealousy, mistakes and recti
fication.
Also Atonement, the movie , was mentioned. Mainly the breathtaking scene on the shore of Dunkirk.
And we have written two alternative endings of the story, that in fact has an unhappy solution.
First group has created this ending:
We tried to imagine the three main characters near the end of their lives.
Briony is a Proffessor of Literature (Cambridge University). She is also very famous because of her books, she has got a lot of money and fans. She spends a lot of time with her brother´s children and grandchildren. Robbie and Cecilia are old happy married couple, living in Paris, far away from bad memories, in spite of that they have forgiven Briony long time ago.
They are pensioners now, but Robbie used to be a doctor, as he always dreamed and Cecilia used to assist him as a nurse. Now they spend most of their time making charity.
Second group has written this ending:
Robbie was lucky to survive the war and when he returned back home, he married Cecilia. Within a year their son was born. They lived a peaceful life till a car accident broke their family happiness.
Parents were killed and a five year old Robbie remained alone. There were only two possibilities for him - either to be placed in a children´s home or to live with his aunt Briony, a famous writer.
He knew nothing about her. His parents had decided not to confuse him with the past. And now he was to be a part of Briony´s life. As time went by, Robbie grew up with loving care of his aunt. It was a satisfaction for her to make up for what she did to his father. As much as she tried to keep Robbie away from the past he unexpectedely got to know what had happened and wasn´t able to reconcile to it and fully blamed his aunt.
A couple of days later there was a very bad weather forecast. Robbie and his friend wanted to go out sailing but according to what the radio said, his friend refused to go. Robbie persuaded him and so they went. The weather got worse and worse and the boys had a lot of trouble with the boat. A terrible storm had broken and they nearly got drowned. After returning home, Robbie realized that it is so easy to get in a situation when you have full responsibility for the life of someone else and that it´s humanly to make mistakes.
What do you think? Do you like it? Or do you have your own idea? (Use commentary)
