Genre
Fiction, Philosophical
Setting and Context
The setting of the novel changes as the narrator travels to different places. The narrator was in The Yakima Valley, in South America and in church. The time that the novel is set varries as well and the context is that it was a time when the narrator was intrigued by natural phenomena.
Narrator and Point of View
The narrator is the author Annie Dillard, in the first person. The point of view of the narrator is that natural phenomena answers life's complex questions.
Tone and Mood
The novel carries a curious tone as the narrator explores natural phenomena and seeks to understand it. A melancholy mood is also present as the narrator talks about human suffering.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist of the story is the narrator who seeks to understand human life from natural phenomena. There are no anatagonists in the novel.
Major Conflict
The major conflict in the novel is that the narrator sought to understand the meaning of life. The narrator explores natural phenomena such as eclipses.
Climax
Every chapter in the novel has its own climax when the narrator has understood the meaning of certain phenomena to human life. For example, in the chapter about polar expeditions, the climax is arrived at when the narrator understands that in life, everyone must be prepared for bad conditions unlike the explorers who went on the expeditions without the necessary gear.
Foreshadowing
N/A
Understatement
The narrator said that the Crab Nebula looked like a small ring .This is an understatement of its size for it is big. It has been exploding for millennia and has never disappeared.
Allusions
Historical allusion to Emperor Louis of Bavaria who saw an eclipse in 840 and died on the spot.
Imagery
The description of the hotel lobby as , 'The hotel lobby was a dark, derelict lit room , narrow as a corridor and seemingly without air.' The description contains visual imagery. The imagery has been built by the adjective 'dark' and the simile, ' narrow as a corridor'.
Paradox
The narrator claims that she felt more or less alive. This is a paradoxical situation for one can feel more alive or less alive but not both at the same time.
Parallelism
The narrator draws a parallel between the time before the eclipse which was full of light and bright and during the eclipse where it became dark and cars had their headlights on.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
The narrator personifies the highway when she said that, 'The highway ran between hills.'
