The End of the World as We Know It

Although he was just the son of the Tallis’s maid, Robbie Turner had been living a charmed life. It seemed to have been like a story out of a fairy tale. Jack Tallis, his mothers employer, had agreed to pay for his education, regardless of where he intended to go and how long he planned on attending. He was good friends with Jack’s kids while he grew up, and rarely had to do much work. His fantasy, however, came crashing down on his head just while another persons fantasy was getting started.  Briony’s fantasy about how she saw Robbie rape Lola changed Robbie’s life forever. He went from a promising young man with endless possibilities ahead of him to a rapist faced with jail time and a record marred forever by this terrible event. Robbie faces reality for possibly the first time when he goes to war.

“These rear-area maps were rare. He also took the dead captain’s revolver. He wasn’t trying to impersonate an officer. He had lost his rifle and simply intended to survive.(pg 191)”

Robbie was not trying to pretend to be something he was not, he only wanted to go on living. The war was really the first time Robbie had to worry about anything more difficult than his studies. It appears that this is the first time he is presented with real hardships and must deal with life or death decisions and all simply based on a little girls fantasy. At times one could wonder just what Robbie has to live for considering the permanent mark on his record and his reputation being tarnished. Why not take the easy way out? Then we are introduced to another sort of fantasy and that is the future of Robbie and Cecilia. Robbie holds on to the hopes of a future together with the love of his life, Cecilia. It is seen constantly throughout his travels in France that Robbie clings to this hope as his lifeline in his frantic rush to escape the country. He often feels to make sure that he still has her letters in his pocket and finds himself remembering back to a small moment they shared together or looking ahead to one he hopes to share in the future with her. It is interesting to note that fantasy is what caused Robbie to be in this situation to begin with, but fantasy also helped him to escape it. Fantasy and reality share an interesting relationship in that they can seemingly coexist and sometimes need each other to survive.