Memory and the Past

The primary characters’ experiences during the War fracture their relationships with the past. The novel is set between the years of 1864 and 1883 and therefore examines the psychological effects of the American Civil War on American citizens. In ConaLee’s, Eliza’s, O’Shea’s, Dearbhla’s, and Dr. Story's storylines, the War is a form of upheaval that alters their understandings of who they have been and who they can become. In Part I, when Papa takes Eliza and ConaLee to the Asylum, he tells ConaLee that “There's nothing back there. It’s all give away” (16). Papa wants ConaLee to discard her past in order to free himself. Meanwhile, for Eliza, the past is a place so fraught that she chooses not to return to it. In Part III, Dr Story notes that her “recall of childhood, normally a preoccupation of patients, was...