Genre
Literary Fiction / Canadian Literature
Setting and Context
Set in Manawaka, Manitoba during the Great Depression
Narrator and Point of View
First-person narration from the perspective of Rachel.
Tone and Mood
Depressing, Morbid, Sarcastic
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is Rachel Cameron while the antagonist is the boredom, sexual frustration, and existential crisis she faces.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is in Rachel’s path towards self-autonomy and sexual awakening from the loneliness and trappings of spinsterhood.
Climax
The climax reaches when Dr. Raven informs Rachel that it is not pregnancy but rather a benign tumor that is the issue.
Foreshadowing
The turbulence, incompatibility, and Rachel's unhealthy atatchement to Nick foreshadow the doomed nature of their relationship.
Understatement
Rachel’s reaction to her cancer diagnosis is understated as she is more relieved that she was not pregnant after all.
Allusions
The novel makes Biblical allusions for instance referencing Jonah to liken the protagonist’s reluctance towards faith.
Imagery
“Japonica Street. Around our place the spruce trees still stand, as I remember them forever. No other trees are so darkly sheltering, shutting out prying eyes or the sun in summer, the spearheads of them taller than houses, the low branches heavy, reaching down to the ground like the greenblack feathered strong-boned wings of giant and extinct birds. The house is not large – it often surprises me to realize this.”
Paradox
Rachel has to reconcile the paradox that to gain control of her life she has to lose control of it.
Parallelism
The narrative parallels the women through their relationships, most importantly the mother-daughter relationship that compares Rachel and her overbearing mother.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“The Book, of course, not jacketed severely in black”
The Book is a synecdoche for Bible.
Personification
"The spruce trees bend, bend down, hemming in and protecting."
