Genre
A novel
Setting and Context
The events of the story take place in the beginning of the 20th century in England.
Narrator and Point of View
The story is told from the first-person point of view. Leo Colston is the narrator.
Tone and Mood
The tone is contemplative; the mood is worrying.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Leo Colston is the protagonist. Marian is the antagonist.
Major Conflict
Person vs. self is the main conflict of the story. Leo tries to revive his memories and find the answers; to do that, he needs to conquer himself.
Climax
Ted's suicide is the climax of the novel.
Foreshadowing
“But as the day of departure drew nearer, my feelings underwent a change. Now it was I who wanted to get out of going, and my mother who held me to it.”
Leo's instincts warned him against going there and readers were supposed to feel that too.
Understatement
"I’m glad you see it so," she said, "for you were our instrument—we couldn’t have carried on without you."
Marian had never seen Leo as something more than an instrument. She used him and played with his feelings to her heart's content.
Allusions
The novel alludes to a French folktale "The Bluebeard."
Imagery
N/A
Paradox
“In equal measure I wanted to open it and not to open it.”
Those conflicting feelings create a paradox.
Parallelism
“Once a go-between, never a go-between”
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“A village is a hive of gossip”. (The village is synecdoche that means its villagers.)
Personification
“They were the fault of this hideous century we live in, which has denatured humanity and planted death and hate where love and living were.”
