Genre
Collection of prose poems
Setting and Context
The action in "The Letter from Home" takes place inside the narrator's childhood home over the course of a few hours.
Narrator and Point of View
The action in "Girl" is told from the perspective of a first-person subjective point of view and the narrator is the mother.
Tone and Mood
The tone and mood in "In the Night" is a threatening one.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonists in "At Last" is the mother and the daughter and the antagonist is the outside world.
Major Conflict
The major conflict in "Wingless" is an internal one and is between the narrator's desire to gain her independence and the desire to remain by her mother's side because it would be more comfortable.
Climax
The story "In the Night" reaches its climax when the young girl sees her house in the distance.
Foreshadowing
The narrator's lack of identity present in "Girl' foreshadows the depression which the narrator will experience in "Blackness".
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
The main allusion we find in "Girl" is the idea women are the ones to be blamed if they are raped and sexually assaulted.
Imagery
In the writings appearing at the begining of the collection, the narrator describes her mother as a hero and as her strength. This image changes in "My Mother" and here the mother is portrayed as a tyrant who is extremely controlling. This difference between images is important because it transmits the image that the narrator has grown over the years and no longer feels overly attached to her mother.
Paradox
We have a paradoxical element in "What Have I Been Doing Lately". Here, the narrator claims she does not want to be close to her mother. This is paradoxical because in the previous writings the narrator mentioned all the efforts she made to get closer to her mother.
Parallelism
A parallel is drawn in "At Last" between the fears of the mother and the fears of the daughter. Even though the fears are extremely different, they have the same impact on the person who experienced those fears. This parallel is important because it transmits the idea that no fear should be disregarded and dismissed.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The narrator's home is used in the prose "In the Night" as a general term to make reference to the idea of safety.
Personification
We have a personification in the line "Young girl, listen to what the skies have to say".
