Importance of Agnes?

Behind the environmental dystopia that drives the story’s plot is a powerful, poignant subplot: Agnes’s coming-of-age. The majority of the plot of The New Wilderness unfolds before Agnes’s eyes, first as a nine year-old, then as a teenager, and finally as a young adult. The reader first meets her through Bea, defining her as daughter—as derivative to Bea’s identity. However, as the story progresses, Agnes comes into her own, developing her own character in the absence of Bea. Her confident individualism grows to the point of usurping the narration from the third person into her own hands.