Genre
Fiction
Setting and Context
1930s, south of England
Narrator and Point of View
The narrator is Cassandra Mortmain, youngest daughter and middle child in the Mortmain family. She tells the story from her own point of view.
Tone and Mood
Worried and stress-filled; also filled with anticipation.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Cassandra is the protagonist; in many ways her sister is the antagonist because she is engaged to marry the man Cassandra has fallen in love with.
Major Conflict
The is conflict between the Cottons and the Mortmains at the start of the novel because Rose is so inept in flirting with Simon that the brothers consider her vulgar and decide to cut off all ties with the entire family.
Climax
Neil and Rose elope, leaving Cassandra and Simon to pursue a relationship.
Foreshadowing
Fear that Simon is still in love with Rose foreshadows Cassandra's reluctance to tell him how she really feels about him and to encourage him t make a commitment to her.
Understatement
Rose understates how much of his role of Cotton family heir has caused her to fall in love with Neil.
Allusions
Rose alludes to Jane Austen several times, as she wants to live in the castle as a character from a Jane Austen novel, waiting for a handsome suitor to sweep her off her feet.
Imagery
N/A
Paradox
Rose and Neil act as though they hate each other when in reality they are madly in love.
Parallelism
There is a parallel between Cassandra's secret feelings for Simon and Rose's secret feelings for Neil.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The Cottons is the way in which the author refers to the family as a whole and not as individual members of the family within it.
Personification
N/A
