In McEwan's Atonement ventures into the lives of the Tallis sisters and the complexities that naivety and selfishness can inflict. Briony Tallis's perjury against Robbie Turner, in the criminal rape case of her cousin Lola, disrupts the Tallis family dynamic and the budding romance between Cecelia Tallis and Robbie. Briony's maturation and realization of her wrongdoings implores her to become a nurse during World War II. In Atonement, McEwan describes a family in turmoil over young Briony's lies during World War II. The imagery and symbolism portray Briony's characterization through her attempts to serve penance for her betrayal with symbolism and imagery. Briony's limited point of view influences the tone of the novel through an unreliable eyewitness account of what she witnessed and acknowledgment of her mistakes. The symbolism of innocence in Atonement shows Briony's youthful naivety and blameless intentions. The symbolism of lost innocence not only affects Briony, but also Cecilia and Robbie. Robbie and Cecilia venture into the world of adult sexuality together, but are interrupted by Briony's curiosity. Witnessing the debauchery taking place, Briony distorts her testimony to the police regarding her encounter with Lola and her rapist at the temple: “The events she herself witnessed foretold the calamity of her cousins. If only she, Briony, had been less innocent, less stupid. Now she saw that the relationship was too coherent, too symmetrical to be anything other than what she said it was. She blamed herself for her childhood belief that Robbie would limit his attentions to Cecilia. What was he thinking? He was a maniac after all. (158) Briony took the obscene note written to Cecelia as a warning of what Robbie was capable of, although the note with... half the paper... Rpt. In contemporary literary criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. vol. 269. Detroit: Gale, 2009.Literature Resource Center. Network. December 09, 2011.Mathews, Peter. “The Impression of a Deeper Darkness: The Atonement of Ian McEwan.” English Studies in Canada 32.1 (2006): 147+. Literary Resource Center. Network. January 3, 2012. McEwan, Ian. Atonement. New York: Anchor, 2003. Print.Finney, Brian. "Briony's Stand Against Forgetting: The Creation of Fiction in Ian McEwan's Atonement." Journal of Modern Literature 27.3 (Winter 2004): 68-82. Rpt. In contemporary literary criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. vol. 269. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Literature Resource Center. Network. January 2, 2012. Shine, Tom. "White Lies: Ian McEwan's novel chronicles the disintegration of an English family's idyllic life." New York Times Book Review, March 10, 2002: 8+. Literary Resource Center. Network. January 5. 2012.