Genre
Historical Fiction.
Setting and Context
19th Century Ireland.
Narrator and Point of View
Third-person narration from the perspective of Lib Wright.
Tone and Mood
Judgmental, Mysterious, Cold.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is Lib Wright, and the antagonist is Anna’s family.
Major Conflict
The news of a girl surviving for several months without food draws the attention of the town. This creates a division between the people as each group has a different explanation of the phenomenon. As a nurse, Lib is tasked with investigating the authenticity of the girl’s ability to survive without sustenance.
Climax
The climax occurs when Lib finds out about the abuse Anna had been going through at the hands of her family.
Foreshadowing
“Most correspondents presume that the O’Donnells are cheats, conspiring to feed their daughter secretly and make fools of the world.” This assumption foreshadows the revelation of the truth behind the girl’s survival.
Understatement
n/a
Allusions
“She’d heard Matron describe veterans of Miss N.’s Crimean campaign as uppish.” The novel references Florence Nightingale and her contribution to nursing during the Crimean War.
Imagery
“Up ahead, whitewash glared from a building with a pointed roof and a cross on top, which meant a Roman Catholic chapel. Only when the driver reined in did Lib realize that they’d arrived at the village, although by English standards it was no more than a sorry-looking cluster of buildings.”
Paradox
The paradox is in the phenomenon of the little girl who shows that what is actually real is different from what is just perception.
Parallelism
There is a divide between the Catholic townsfolk and the Protestants in terms of their beliefs and approach to their doctrines.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“If they’d thought the Englishwoman too high-and-mighty to get her hands dirty…” Getting hands dirty is a metonymy for doing something dishonestly.
Personification
n/a
