Genre
Psychological Fiction / Domestic Fiction
Setting and Context
Set in New Orleans, Louisiana
Narrator and Point of View
Narrator: Omniscient speaker;
Point of View: Third person
Tone and Mood
Resentful, Elegiac, Solemn
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is Laurel Hand and the antagonist is her step-mother Fay McKelva.
Major Conflict
Laurel has to travel back home due to his father’s recent surgery however the trip turns to be much more than she anticipated. After his father succumbs to his injury, Laurel has to cope with her stepmother while making peace with her past and present.
Climax
The climax reaches when Laurel confronts Fay and angrily raises the wooden breadboard that her late husband made for her mother.
Foreshadowing
The dream Laurel has about the train trip with her husband to Mount Salus foreshadows her issue with eluding the complications of human relationships.
Understatement
“I don’t know what you’re making such a big fuss over. What do you see in that thing?”
Fay understates the significance of the breadboard to Laurel who has a deep attachment to the object as it is linked to his late husband and mother’s memory.
Allusions
The novel alludes to the literary works of the author Charles Dickens.
Imagery
“Set deep in the swamp, where the black trees were welling with buds like red drops, was one low beech that had kept its last year’s leaves, and it appeared to Laurel to travel along with their train, gliding at a magic speed through the cypresses they left behind. It was her own reflection in the windowpane—the beech tree was her head. Now it was gone. As the train left the black swamp and pulled out into the space of Pontchartrain, the window filled with a featureless sky over pale smooth water, where a seagull was hanging with wings fixed, like a stopped clock on a wall.”
Paradox
The novel explores the paradox of family in that familial relationships can be nurturing yet smothering at the same time.
Parallelism
The narrative parallels a chimney swift with the protagonist to express the emotional turmoil that Laurel is undergoing.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“…here was the Dickens all in a set, a shelf and a half full”
Personification
Birds are frequently personified in the story.
