A Circle in the Fire Chapter Summary & Analysis | Detailed Summary & Analysis

Summary

It is afternoon, and Mrs. Pritchard and Mrs. Cope are working in Mrs. Cope's garden. Mrs. Pritchard, a large woman with a small face, works for Mrs. Cope. She is describing a wake she had recently attended for a woman who had died giving birth while confined to an iron lung. As they work, Mrs. Cope's young daughter watches from an upstairs window in the house.

Mrs. Cope is a small, trim woman who has little patience for Mrs. Pritchard's stories. As a result, she often tries to steer the conversation to more pleasant topics, a tactic that seems to annoy Mrs. Pritchard.

As the child watches from the window, she thinks about her mother's obsessive worry that a fire will start in the woods that surround their property. She thinks about the evenings they spend on the porch watching the woods and her mother's nightly requests for prayers to...
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