"I can still picture him, lanky, loose-jointed, tall as a tree to my eyes, wearing his favorite faded baseball jersey untucked over a pair of worn jeans and scuffed brown boots" (3).
This quote from Cassandra helps demonstrate how much she misses Christopher. She remembers him in such great detail and has no trouble holding on to that loving memory.
"I barricaded my door that night and spent hours memorizing my brother's narrow freckled face, his edgy voice, his gawky mannerisms, his lame jokes, the Christopherness of him, so I could hold him as long as possible in the decaying cradle of memory" (5).
As time goes on after Christopher's death, it becomes apparent that her father has stepped in to fill the void that her brother left. Her mother is not mentioned in a positive light throughout this chapter at all. This makes me feel as though Cassandra really isn't that close with her mother at all.
"...stunned by my mother's disappearance from our lives, and inspired, warmed, and moved by my father, who, however much 'd loved him before, was a revelation to me. The man was possessed, in a quirky way, of genius. I thought so then and still do now, even in the wake of all these intervening years" (6).
This quote from Cassandra's conscience tells me that her father is really the only person in her family that she can relate to. It's clear that she was always closer to her father than her mother, but Christopher's death amplified the relationship. Cassandra sees her father as a true role model.
The book appears to be in past tense. I believe it starts with a flashback to the time of Christopher's death, which must have been during her childhood. After finishing her insights about her family, she says:
"I was feeling okay. My twins were in school" (9).
This tells me that we've jumped ahead in time and she must be old enough to have children. She must have been telling the reader of her childhood from an adult perspective. This perspective helps reveal a more in-depth emotional view of the traumatic event of Christopher's death. The writing style is much more calm and composed than it would be if her brother had truly just died. It seems as though a lot of time has definitely passed.
Morrow also includes a few mythological allusions in Chapter 1:
- "I could do worse than wander behind Odysseus for a few months..." (9)
- "...twelve tasks of Hercules..." (9)
- "...story of Pandora's box" (9).
- "...Jason and the Argonauts..." (9)
- "...sword-wielding skeletons..." (9)
- "...ravenous Cyclops..." (9)
- "...and serpent-haired monster Medusa" (9).
Cassandra talks about these allusions as references to her favorite subject: mythology. Her acute emotional awareness corresponds with her interest in mythology, in my opinion. Mythology includes a lot of philosophy in things such as religion and morals, which seem to be well developed in Cassandra's narrative. Morrow chose to use a sophisticated array of vocabulary to show Cassandra's stream of consciousness.
Cassandra appears to be deeply moved by things in her environment. I feel as though Morrow chose to describe her feelings in a way that connects to her passion of divining. A diviner must be spiritually connected to his or her environment in order to sense where the water or artifacts are originating from. Cassandra's narrative states:
"Then, without warning or any clear reason my mood should change, a black sensation just poured in, over, and through me" (9).
This gives me the impression that she's sensing something morbid and unpleasant before she really witnesses it. This is similar to how a divine can sense water before seeing it. It's like she has a kind of sixth sense when in the woods.
When Cassandra stumbles upon the dead body of a teenage girl hanging in a tree, see first becomes overwhelmed with depression and then with regret for her death. Although she did not do anything to harm the young girl, she hugs her and tells her that she is sorry and means it with "all [her] heart" (10). This makes me like Cassandra as a character. She seems to have a generally good soul.
Yes, Cassandra seems to be good hearted, but I also get the sense that she may be insane. First, she mentions seeing "a few psychiatrists over the years" (13-14). Then she claims to, "without knowing it" (15) ,"[begin] to divine the girl" (15). Then she returns to the place of the hanging only to find the body missing. She was also "seized by the sickening prospect that someone was nearby taking [her] in" (10). Is she going insane from the trauma of her brother's death?
Cassandra's name is also an allusion to Greek mythology:
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