Literary Devices in A Great and Terrible Beauty
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
Things were kind of serious in London in the 19th century. It was a big city with beautiful buildings and lots of people walking around the horse poop filling the streets (since folks got around in...
Narrator Point of View
A Great and Terrible Beauty is written in the first person present, which means we experience everything from Gemma's perspective, right as it happens. For instance, while Gemma walks with her moth...
Genre
A Great and Terrible Beauty is young adult fiction, which we know because it has a sixteen-year-old main character who hangs out with other teenagers, and as such, many of the issues at the center...
Tone
Since this book is written in the first person, we get to read a whole lot of Gemma's thoughts about stuff. There's a lot going on for her when this book begins: arguing with her mother, running aw...
Writing Style
Bray keeps the writing simple in this book so that the story moves quickly and Gemma's character takes center stage. There aren't many frills to speak of, though since this book is written toward a...
What's Up With the Title?
The title A Great and Terrible Beauty comes from the following line in the book: Our bodies feel like luxurious sighs as we stand in the great hall, completely invisible. Oh, God, the great and ter...
What's Up With the Epigraph?
Miss Moore has the girls read and discuss this poem in class, which is a big deal in its own right since no one at Spence ever wants to get the girls to really think or express their opinions. They...
What's Up With the Ending?
The book closes with Gemma chasing after a deer, and the last line is:Because I want to see how far I can go before I have to stop.We've got all sorts of things to say about the deer over in the "S...
Tough-o-Meter
Bray's first book in the Gemma Doyle Trilogy is a page-turner. Despite the fact that it is kind of long (clocking in at around four hundred pages), once you start reading, the hardest thing about t...
Plot Analysis
Another Teenage WitchIt's the 19th century, and Gemma Doyle is a pretty average rich white sixteen-year-old girl, so when her mother refuses to let her visit London (where her family is from), sh...
Trivia
Libba can sing (um, kind of). She sang a song called… wait for it… "YA Song" in public once, and while we can't understand what she was saying, it still sounds pretty darn good. (Source)Ho...
Steaminess Rating
You'll want to open a few windows 'cause this one is pretty hot, y'all. Some of Gemma's dreams about Kartik involve touching and kissing and allusions to wanting more, though they never get explici...