Comment on Language and Meaning

The most significant feature of the language in this novel is the scientific language used to describe memory and habits of the elephants. Most of this language is found in Alice’s sections of the novel as she describes her work and research on the animals. Although Alice does describe the habits of the elephants in proper terminology, her sections are in no way stiff or textbookish. Her goal seems to be to understand the reasoning behind the way the elephants behave, how they raise their young and how they are affected by grief as a way to help herself learn how to do these same things. Although some of Alice’s elephant research seems out of place at the beginning of the novel, the reasons why her observations are included in the novel are made more clear as the novel draws to a close.