Genre
novel; bildungsroman
Setting and Context
The novel takes place primarily in Australia over the course of 70 years.
Narrator and Point of View
Third-person focalized primarily through Hurtle Duffield.
Tone and Mood
imaginative, inspired, gruesome, bleak
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is Hurtle Duffield. There is no clear antagonist, and indeed Duffield can also be considered the antagonist of his own life in the way he privileges his art over all else.
Major Conflict
The major conflicts arise from Hurtle's artistic desire to dissect the people in his life as artistic subjects rather than consider them as individual people.
Climax
The novel reaches its climax when Hurtle Duffield meets Kathy Volkov, the young violinist who he believes to be his spiritual child.
Foreshadowing
The main character is described as having the tendency to draw on the walls as a child. This tendency foreshadows his later artistic inclinations.
Understatement
Duffield repeatedly saying he is an artist as a way to dismiss his deep, violent solipsism.
Allusions
The novel makes frequent allusions to other literary texts about artists, artistry, and relationships, including Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and James Joyce's The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Imagery
Important imagery includes the chandelier, the lantana plants, Nancy Lightfoot's corpse, and Rhoda's deformity.
Paradox
N/A
Parallelism
There is an explicit parallel drawn between the work of the vivisectionists and the work of the artist, Hurtle Duffield, as he dissects the people around him to discover some hidden weakness or truth.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
N/A
