Genre
Fiction / Magical Realism
Setting and Context
Set in the First Nations community of Otter Lake.
Narrator and Point of View
Third-person narration from the perspective of an omniscient speaker.
Tone and Mood
Humorous, Honest, Positive
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: Maggie; Antagonist: Nanabush
Major Conflict
The story follows a dying matriarch who is connected to a trickster spirit that makes a comeback. Through her family, the spirit disguised as a white man begins a romantic relationship with Maggie which the son is not happy about it. As such, the son together with his uncle Wayne seek to learn about the mysterious man as the narrative delves into supernatural elements.
Climax
The climax happens when John tells Maggie to go skinny-dipping and they later kiss.
Foreshadowing
Lilian saying that Jack from the Three’s Company show was a trickster foreshadows John being the trickster Nanabush.
Understatement
“A sunken tree stump and a motorboat at full throttle in the fading evening light had combined, with devastating consequences.”
Allusions
“He threw his leg across the fabled 1953 Indian Chief motorcycle, admiring its ageless beauty. Yeah, he’d seen Harleys and Hondas and Kawasakis in magazines and on television, but he had to admit, there was something very different about this machine.”
Imagery
“His hair and face still dripping, he walked to his lone window and looked out. Outside he saw concrete and telephone poles. Mail and newspaper boxes. Cars. And the odd half-dead tree rising out of the sidewalk. As he stared off into this world he’d surrendered to, he was barely conscious of the cockroach that approached his wet feet, drawn to the water. The cockroach and the man had been roommates for the past couple of months. Sensing a bond with the man, a fellow reject relegated to existing on the fringes of society, doing what it could to survive, the cockroach didn’t fear him.”
Paradox
“There are no such things as dead ends. Only people who find dead ends.”
Parallelism
N/A
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“I mean, besides the fact that Nanabush is make-believe”
Personification
“The skies continued to open up and it seemed like the very forces of nature were fighting atop this tiny plot of land. A scant ten metres away a bolt of lightning hit a hydro pole, showering the area in sparks that were quickly doused by the torrent of rain.”
