In the novel Atonement by Ian McEwan we see Briony as a adolescent child, a guilt striken 18 year old and an elderly woman. How does Briony change?

I think it is actually possible with this novel to take a
rather novel perspective and consider the ways in which Briony doesn't actually change
that much as we see her in her three separate time periods. As a child she is shown to
be deceitful. Although it is suggested that Briony as a child struggles to separate the
real world from the imaginary worlds that she creates in her head, the guilt that she
suffers after her testifying against Robbie indicates that at some level she consciously
lied about what she saw. Also, if we look carefully at the story, we could argue that
Briony is actually jealous of the way that Robbie pays more attention to her sister than
he does to her, which presents us with another more disturbing motive for her
actions.

However, if we have a look at the ending of this
excellent novel, we could argue that the deceit of Briony as a child is something that
Briony as an old woman continues to practise. She deceives us as readers by presenting
us with a happy ending, while the real ending of the characters was anything but happy.
Briony justifies this by saying that as the author she is able to decide on the kind of
ending that she gives us in her novel. Whilst this is true, we could also view this as
yet another example of Briony's deceit and her difficulty distinguishing between reality
and fiction.