The Lamp at Noon Literary Elements

Realist fiction; domestic realism; Canadian prairie fiction

Set during the Great Depression, the action takes place on a Canadian prairie farm in the midst of a dust storm

Third-person omniscient narration that shifts between the husband's and the wife's points of view

Hopeless, tense, claustrophobic, surreal

With a shifting point of view, the story has two protagonists: Ellen and Paul. Their competing visions of the future lead them to antagonize each other.

The story's major conflict is that Ellen sees no future in their failing farm, while Paul's delusion about a profitable future means he is willing to endure years of hardship.

The story reaches its climax when Paul discovers that Ellen has fled the house with their child; he soon finds Ellen lying on the ground with their dead child in her arms.

At the beginning of the story, Ellen worries that the dust that creeps into her house will compromise her baby's health; this moment foreshadows the child's death when she takes him into the dust storm.

When Ellen suggests that the red sky means there is fair weather ahead, she is alluding to an ancient rhyme: "Red sky at night, sailors' delight. / Red sky at morning, sailors take warning."

In Ellen's mind, the wind is personified as two creatures that hunt each other, one taking refuge in the house before being chased out by the other, more violent wind.