Comment on style

Over the course of the novel, all of the author’s linguistic choices and patterns are inspired by her diverse cast of characters. This is particularly the case because of the author’s overarching formal and structural decisions. For example, when the third person narrator is inhabiting Sthenno’s consciousness in the “Sthenno” chapters, the syntax and diction she employs are dictated by Sthenno’s point of view. The ways in which Sthenno uses language therefore are not a mirror image of the ways in which the Gorgoneion uses language. By allowing her linguistic stylings to mutate from one chapter to the next, therefore, the author is effectively authenticating each of her unique character’s experiences, psyches, and circumstances.