If I paid more attention that day, maybe I could have predicted which of the boys who laughed over croquet wickets would soon die in the forests of Argonne or which women would exchange their ivory silk dresses for black crepe. I wouldn't have pointed to myself.
-- Eliza (chapter 1)

Importance: Eliza recalls a party at her family home on Gin Lane in 1914. Her reflections foreshadow the massive casualties of the Great War, juxtaposing the ease and festivity of the atmosphere with death and destruction. At the time, herself and the entire world could not have forseen the scale of the conflict, which was the first war to occur on a global scale. This is the first employment of foreshadowing in the novel, which develops into a motif. Eliza's words hint at the theme of grief and mourning developed later on in her narrative. She would not have pointed herself out as one of...