Anna

Anna is the main character and narrator. She is a housewife and mother. She is anxious, isolated, and intensely inward-looking. The story is shaped by her attempt to impose order and meaning on experiences she finds threatening and destabilizing.

From the beginning, Anna is defined by withdrawal. She is almost entirely confined to her room and experiences the outside world primarily through the window and the garden. This physical limitation mirrors a psychological one. Anna rarely engages directly with others, and when she does, she prefers observation to interaction. Her closest relationship is with her son Wolfgang, a bond that appears intense and exclusive. His later desire for independence is therefore experienced by Anna as a severe rupture, and this loss frames much of her emotional life in the narrative.

Anna’s sense of self is closely tied to powerlessness, but this is a powerlessness she actively maintains...