It's just you and yourself trying to survive. That is what digging a grave feels like, like the music has stopped but you can't stop dancing. Because if you stop dancing, you die.
-- Erin (The Grave)

Importance: The novel opens with Erin digging a grave. The reader knows nothing, just that Erin has to dig it. She compares it to running a marathon, an exhausting process that goes beyond simple adrenaline. However, the slow, boring undertaking is the key to Erin's survival. The alternative is "far worse than digging a never-ending god-awful hole" (4). Her survival depends on the successful burial of the body, requiring time, initiative, and care put into it. She believes she cares more than she has in her entire life, as her survival is riding on it. Throughout the remainder of the novel, the reader knows that Erin will end up burying a body at some point. Erin's choices put her...