Fire on the Mountain Title

Aspects of the natural world describe the characters and provide context for what they are experiencing. For example, the women are compared to birds, Raka means "moon," and Raka is fascinated by fire, dust, and wildness. Elaine Yee Lin Ho notes that the characters seem to want to "return to nature, or to be transformed into part of the environment, to reintegrate the human self into the ecological system. However, in this desire, there is also paradoxically a death-wish, and it is through this death-wish that the text undermines the promise of Carignano."