The Reaper is kind of all over this novel. Lily's makes her preoccupation with this topic pretty clear from the get-go, obsessing over her mother's death and her role in it. May, another key character, is also bogged down by memories of someone she has lost: her sister April. However, the book does not always present death as a gloom and doom affair; August, for example, just views it as just another necessary step in the life cycle. So, while that doesn't really make losing someone any less painful, it does seem to help August make sense of its place in her universe.
Questions About Death
- Do you see any kind of progression in the novel's treatment of death? If so, where/how?
- If you had to choose between suffering and death, which do you think the novel presents as the greater evil? How do you know?
- The novel suggests the importance of remembering/mourning those who are gone, but it also presents characters for whom memories of the dead become tremendous burdens (May, for example). What do you make of this divide in the novel's presentation of death?
Chew on This
Suffering is a far greater evil than death in the novel's universe. May's death, while tragic, proves this point; she viewed dying as preferable to continuing to suffer.
There is an evolution in the novel's treatment of death. At first, death is presented as scary/negative thing, but later it is framed as simply a natural part of the life cycle that is to be accepted rather than feared.