Genre
Mystery, Historical Fiction
Setting and Context
The novel is set in England between the Great War and World War II
Narrator and Point of View
First-person narration through Grace’s point of view.
Tone and Mood
Earnest, Distressing, Evocative, Foreboding
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist of the novel is ninety-eight-year-old Grace Bradley. The antagonist is the secrets in the family that led to the tragedy
Major Conflict
Years after a mysterious incident in Riverton Manor, Grace – the former maid – is approached to disclose the betrayals and secrets in the family for a film adaptation.
Climax
The climax reaches when Robbie is shot during a traumatic episode while confronting Hannah to defend Emmeline.
Foreshadowing
“It was the first time in over seventy years that anyone had associated me with the events, had remembered that a young woman named Grace Reeves had been at Riverton that summer. It made me feel vulnerable somehow, singled out. Guilty.”
The statement akin to several instances in the narrative foreshadows the involvement of Grace in the tragic incident in Riverton Manor.
Understatement
“Obstinate, I own. But I am not deaf and do not like it when people assume I am – my eyesight is poor without glasses, I tire easily, have none of my own teeth left and survive on a cocktail of pills, but I can hear as well as I ever have.”
Grace understates her loss of hearing in old age despite acknowledging other physical issues that come with age.
Allusions
The novel alludes to the lives of aristocratic families after the First World War as it immensely affected their subsequent lifestyles with the rise of the labor class.
Imagery
“Across the end of the mattress was a gray blanket, one of its corners patched by a competent hand. A small, framed picture, the only hint of decoration in the room, hung on the wall: a primitive hunting scene, an impaled deer, blood leaking from its pierced flank.”
Paradox
Hannah writes to Grace in short-hand despite knowing she cannot read shorthand.
Parallelism
N/A
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“They need good old Britannia to get in there and sort it out. Give those Huns a jolly good shake-up”
Personification
“…but an old structure with ivy climbing the walls, twisting itself through the windows, strangling the pillars.”
