Grief

Pella’s experience of her new life is heavily defined by her process of grieving for her dead mother, for the confluence of the family’s relocation and Caitlin’s death is undeniable in the genesis of the family’s new life. The narration specifically states, “At [Caitlin’s] funeral everyone spoke of sorrow and time, and then Clement led his motherless children and their sorrow aboard a tiny ship…It was as though Clement had replaced Caitlin with the ship” (41-42). In this way, Pella cannot help but associate her new life and new surroundings with the loss of her mother. Pella’s sense of grief is, in an even wider sense, grief for her former life, and Pella even anticipates this aspect of the grief. For example, as Pella observes Caitlin interacting with David and Raymond on the Coney Island beach, the narration states...