Longing

The author uses his main character Zorrie's recurrent feelings of longing as a source of narrative tension throughout the novel. Indeed, in the novel's opening chapter, the narrator interrupts her vivid description of Zorrie's daily life with this sudden and profound onslaught of feeling. "One morning," says the narrator, "well before it was time to lie down, she looked over at the pillow and blanket and soft leather and realized, with a shudder that seemed to chill and warm her both, that she was filled with longing" (4). This unexpected sensation does not simply unsettle Zorrie's otherwise predictable routine. Rather, it also has the power to tug her narrative into the past, thus enacting Zorrie's inability to escape her memories.

As an elderly woman living alone on her farm, Zorrie's reality is largely defined by the movements of the land and seasons, as well as the shifts...