Chapter 1 Summary

Two little girls, Cosima and Halimeda, sleep curled together in one bed even though there is a second unmade bed in the room. Their father, Dr. Homer Noline, watches them. In the morning, they will rumple the second bed in an attempt to make their father believe that they have slept apart. The children are tired from playing in the cemetery with their friends, helping Viola Domingos decorate the grave of an ancestor.

The father decides, while watching the girls, that he will not permit them to participate in the Day of All Souls again because, he thinks, "there are too many skeletons down there." His heart is touched by everything the children have already lost in their little lives and how close they are.

Chapter 1 Analysis

In writing about or analyzing a story, it's important to talk about its theme; in other...