comment on structure

The Tower of the Antilles is a collection of 10 short stories, with the first and last story forming bookends are the middle eight. The first and last stories, "The Collector" and "The Tower of the Antilles" are bookends because they mirror each other, thus creating a sense of both continuity and completion. They both begin with the same line, "What is your name?" and feature towers of beached boats, some of which are described using the same language in both stories (13, 153). They are each broken into seperate parts themselves, with "The Collector" being seven parts long, and "The Tower of the Antilles" being six. These two stories serve as a definite beginning and end to the collection, and create the sense that it is a complete work, and not just a collection of loosely connected stories.